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Product ReviewsPowercolor Radeon PCS+ HD7870 Tahiti LE EZ EDITION2GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI Mini DPX2 PCI-E2.1 Video Card
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14%
29%
29%
29%
0%
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With 7 User Reviews
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 Rating: Review Date: 09/23/13  |
Cons: Only 1 fan for cooling, minor.
Pros: Price/performance can't be beaten. |
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Rating: Review Date: 06/10/13 |
Cons: Loud fan at high loadsRuns hotCooler does not exhale from case
Pros: FastEconomical Comment:
Make sure you have good ventilation in your case if you are planning on buying this card. It is probably the best value out there right now, but it runs very hot. Was pushing around 75-80 degrees in games before I added another fan to blow directly on the card itself, now is in the high 60's. |
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Rating: Review Date: 05/26/13 |
Cons: OCing doesn't workPerformance drops significantly without any reason
Pros: Fast cardCheap Comment:
Got the card a month ago and I cannot say I am very satisfied with it. Sure, it is a fast card on stock, but there are a few issues with it. All this using latest available drivers. As others have stated before me, it most probably has to do with Powercolor's Bios.OCing (whether from Afterburner or ATI overdrive) doesn't yield any results. The card never goes past stock speeds when recording speeds while in game, even though its theoretically OCedI also get weird timing issues where the card will suddenly drop its clocks for no apparent reasons (thus dramatically slowing down a game's frame-rate). This has been verified with a few games (e.g. Batman Arkham city, Bioshock Infinite). |
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Rating: Review Date: 04/11/13 |
Cons: runs very hot, buggy firmware, loud, power drainer
Pros: Bundled games, fast when worked, very good price per performance Comment:
The 1st one I had has overheating issues on bios 0.31, I need to run +20% Power in order to get a stable clock of 925MHZ it barely goes into the boost speed of 975MHZ. When gaming it will hit around 81C to 82C on my 1st card, I've since RMA'ed it and got a new one, the new card is still on 0.31 bios but at least the temperature is lower it sits around 75C to 76C when gaming with +20% Power, it idles at 34C. The card will not run at the overclock speeds with 0.31 bios I heard from OCN you need to flash it to 0.28 or 0.32 but this will void warranty so this is not a complete retail product due to buggy bios |
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Rating: Review Date: 04/10/13 |
Cons: Buggy stock firmware
Pros: Fantastic ValueVery PowerfulEasy To Overclock Comment:
Maybe it was just me, but the card acted really funky (usage/clock stuttering) until I could switch it from .31 to a better firmware (after backing up the original). I'm now using .32 w/ UEFI and it's running perfectly with ~20% overclock and zero artifacts.Shouldn't have to flash a new firmware out of the box just to have it work optimally, but nevertheless it really is a superb card once you do. It's shorter (10.5") than other cards in its class which meant it fit inside my case, albeit without a millimeter to spare. I've been running it through the usual games and benchmarks and the overclock easily pushes it into 670/7950 territory.Overall it's a really nice card that should last a while. |
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Rating: Review Date: 04/04/13 |
Cons: plastic fan cover
Pros: Great price Comment:
Great card. Plastic fan cover does not exhaust the heat out of the case fully. Play most current games. |
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Rating: Review Date: 03/27/13 |
Cons: * Poor custom cooling, runs fairly hot and noisy* Does not run at rated boost speed under load. EVER.* Will not accept even a mild overclock, instead reverting to stock speeds (925 MHz).* Comes with a sub-standard BIOS, and flashing with the updated version will void your warranty.* Nothing much in the box, not even a crossfire bridge.
Pros: * Free Games (Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider)* Did I mention the free games? Comment:
I was excited about the Tahiti LE cards when I first saw them, and my only decision when buying a new card was whether or not to grab one of these, or pay a bit more for a 7950. I really wish I had gone for the latter and saved myself some headaches.I had read a review of the Powercolor MYST Edition (similar card) where they had overclocked it to 1200 MHz without any additional voltage. Using MSI Afterburner, I did the same, and assumed everything was running fine. However, a poster here at NCIX later asked me if I'd mind running a benchmark on Unigine Heaven while watching the clock sensors in GPU-Z. I found that the card was mostly running at 925 MHz with a *very* occasional jump up to 1200. It behaved similarly no matter which OC I set, and would not even run at it's stock boost speed of 975. I suspect it's undervolted, but since it's a fairly new card, increasing the voltage in Afterburner isn't available. Even if it was an option, I don't think it'd be a good idea. The card runs fairly hot even at stock while under load and the single fan is *extremely* noisy.Powercolor have a new BIOS revision (032, while my EZ came with 031) which apparently improves the performance somewhat, but flashing the BIOS will void your warranty. Perfectly reasonable, right?I'm sure there are lots of people out there who will install this card in their systems and just forget about it. It will probably work fine, and your games will run well and look good. But if you are an enthusiast who is interested in maximizing their price/performance ratio by applying an overclock it is my opinion that you should look elsewhere.I think I'm being a little generous with the 2 star rating, but I figured one star might be pushing it since the card wasn't DOA. But this will certainly be my last Powercolor purchase and I have already RMA'ed it. |
Love it, never had a problem with it so far, waiting for it to go on sale again to buy a second one even! Haven't try to overclock yet since I don't play any heavy games. The free games that come with it are awesome and a nice bonus.