[UK] Tahiti LE based GPUs seen out in the wild

[Ket]

Just a heads up for anyone looking for a new GPU, some Tahiti LE based GPUs I saw "out in the wild" earlier today. They are being sold as HD7870 cards still so be careful of what HD7870 you buy. Really this Tahiti LE GPU should be known as a Radeon HD7930 to avoid the confusion, but hey-ho..

Cards seen out in the wild so far using the Tahiti LE GPU are;

Club 3D HD7870 jokerCard
Powercolor PCS+ HD7870 Myst
VTX3D Black Edition HD7870

With what reviews are currently available, the JokerCard is the best to get. There isn't any reviews for the 7870 Myst yet, but the card looks damn beautiful.

[Ket]

A little more info for anyone interested in the Tahiti LE GPU.

Reviews

Club 3D HD 7870 JokerCard
VTX3D HD7870 Black Edition

[DilTech]

Wonder if they'll unlock shader-wise to full blown 7950's... (obviously ram and memory bus is a permanent cut)

[Ket]

Thats unlikely, but worth a try perhaps.

[Evantaur]

well the joker card is loud i can tell you that

[zanzabar]

Wonder if they'll unlock shader-wise to full blown 7950's... (obviously ram and memory bus is a permanent cut)

without the extra ram i would bet that you could not make it work even if you unlocked it.

[Ket]

Depends, the GPUs are those of which didn't make the grade for 7950s so although unlocking MIGHT be possible with a modded vBIOS assuming the chips aren't laser cut, the effort would probably be for nothing.

[Andi64]

Wizzard said that they were lasercut. So no unlocking

[Sorrow13]

Available Stateside now on Newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202024
Just bought a 7870 today, so I wouldn't need a new waterblock.

I assume these use the same 45 degree dies of the regular 79xx.

[Ket]

Yep, full blown Tahiti cores, just with the broken parts disabled. Would be way less confusing if AMD just released a card called the 7930 using these cores. As it stands, you have to be VERY careful you don't accidentally buy a crappy regular 7870.

[geforce man]

I'm not in the UK, but I just ordered the Powercolor 7870 MYST+ for 209$ Shipped with Bioshock / Tomb raider . Hopefully its decent! I've heard the stock volts are a bit high on these, I'm wondering if a bios flash might be in order (1.29v's stock bio's seems high).

Also before it gets here, IC diamond 7 or AS Ceramique. I'm thinking the AS, as the IC Diamond will scratch the out of the die if the cooler moves around at all.

[Ket]

Higher volts is good if the ASIC quality is 75% or better, means you don't have to worry about increasing voltage. I'd also grab some Arctic MX4.

[geforce man]

Yeesh, just checked and apparently the ASIC on mine is 61%? Seems terrible How do you keep these things from switching from overclock to 925Mhz constantly? I'm not sure I have the overclocking thing figured out yet on this guy. Stock 3d voltage is 1.249 btw.

[OmegaMerc]

59.1% on mine, its like a race to the bottom of the hill I've lowered my stock voltage to 1.2 since the additional voltage does not seem to impact the ability to select higher clocks.

[geforce man]

Turns out I can't even run 975mhz with +20% in the CCC. If I open up trixx and lower the voltage i can but that seems like a really annoying solution. With voltage lowered it passed a 2k11 run at 1200/1550 and netted me 9k.

[OmegaMerc]

It doesn't look like that I cant impact voltage thru trixx as previously stated, it looks like its a broken issue, not to mention the 1.25v is even on during low 2d operation (which seems dumb). have you tried using msi afterburner? It seems like it has voltage control if you enable it through settings.

[geforce man]

At this point I am debating returning the card, seeing as it can't even run boost clocks out of the box. Is it a driver issue? or is there actually something wrong with the card. I'd love to hear other people's opinions!

[geforce man]

Created some profiles, modified some XLS files, and I can force it to run at the clocks I want, and its perfectly stable. It's stupid that software is messing these up. Essentially it can run @ 1200/1550 all day for gaming, and doesn't get hot, but I have to load another profile for desktop use, or it will stay @ 1200/1550. Still not sure if thats because of a low ASIC value, or if i'm just having driver issues. I don't know. Not sure if keep or not yet.

but hey, single card aint bad:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5994602

[OmegaMerc]

Wish I was informed enough to do what you did to get 1200/1500 off of my card

[geforce man]

Well remember that these cut down tahiti's are 256 mem bus, and come stock clocked @ 1500. Your 7950 is 384 bit, resulting in much higher mem bandwidth. I think i've decided to keep this little guy now, settled on 1180/1525 for 24/7 gaming clocks, have my default profile setup, and also a bench profile, which I havn't found a max OC yet, havn't had time. but 9248 is the score at the gaming clocks, not bad for 209$ Shipped!

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5999458

Thats the lower clocked run.

[Andi64]

Created some profiles, modified some XLS files, and I can force it to run at the clocks I want, and its perfectly stable. It's stupid that software is messing these up. Essentially it can run @ 1200/1550 all day for gaming, and doesn't get hot, but I have to load another profile for desktop use, or it will stay @ 1200/1550. Still not sure if thats because of a low ASIC value, or if i'm just having driver issues. I don't know. Not sure if keep or not yet.

but hey, single card aint bad:

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5994602

If it's running fine with 1200/1550 with that low ASIC value it's a good card IMO. My XFX was running funny with the stock XFX BIOS. Sometimes it crashed even at 2D, and the stock voltage was 1.05V Load (85% ASIC). I've changed the BIOS, flashed an HD7970 BIOS with higher stock voltage (1.15v) and it works perfectly now. With 1.2V it runs at 1250/1550 just fine, no more crashes.

[geforce man]

If it's running fine with 1200/1550 with that low ASIC value it's a good card IMO. My XFX was running funny with the stock XFX BIOS. Sometimes it crashed even at 2D, and the stock voltage was 1.05V Load (85% ASIC). I've changed the BIOS, flashed an HD7970 BIOS with higher stock voltage (1.15v) and it works perfectly now. With 1.2V it runs at 1250/1550 just fine, no more crashes.

You can throw 7970 bios on these cards? Or are you talking about a 7950.

Thanks! - Michael

[Andi64]

You can throw 7970 bios on these cards? Or are you talking about a 7950.

Thanks! - Michael

I'm not sure. I think not because of the different memory bus. But you can try other HD7870 1536SP BIOSes. If it has dual BIOS you could give it a try.
Even other manufacturers HD7950 BIOSes were better than the XFX on my card.