Friday, December 7th 2012
Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE" Can Pair with HD 7900 Series in CrossFireX
While testing Club 3D Radeon HD 7870 jokerCard, one of the three Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE" graphics cards you can buy, we discovered that it can pair with Radeon HD 7900 series cards in CrossFireX. Our VGA testing lab, which has battened down the hatches for winter (lack of VGA launches), spent a lot of time toying with Club 3D's card and while brainstorming for the review's conclusion, it came up that HD 7870 Tahiti LE is "bad" because it can't pair with common HD 7870 or HD 7850 "Pitcairn" graphics cards. A bulb supernova just went off over our heads: "...sure Tahiti LE won't pair with Pitcairn, but will it pair with HD 7900 series "Tahiti", which have more stream processors, and more memory?" The answer turned out to be yes!
We successfully managed to pair the Club 3D HD 7870 jokerCard with a Radeon HD 7950 and HD 7970 (reference). We casually put it through 3DMark 11 and Sleeping Dogs, and found the contraptions to scale fairly well. We noticed some micro-stutter in 3DMark 11, but Sleeping Dogs felt smooth. This could be great news for current HD 7900 series owners who can upgrade to CrossFire for a modest $249~269. We even tried our luck at unlocking disabled shaders (stream processors), which didn't work. AMD used the mod-proof fuses method to lock the shaders. Check out our Club 3D HD 7870 jokerCard review.
We successfully managed to pair the Club 3D HD 7870 jokerCard with a Radeon HD 7950 and HD 7970 (reference). We casually put it through 3DMark 11 and Sleeping Dogs, and found the contraptions to scale fairly well. We noticed some micro-stutter in 3DMark 11, but Sleeping Dogs felt smooth. This could be great news for current HD 7900 series owners who can upgrade to CrossFire for a modest $249~269. We even tried our luck at unlocking disabled shaders (stream processors), which didn't work. AMD used the mod-proof fuses method to lock the shaders. Check out our Club 3D HD 7870 jokerCard review.
39 Comments on Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE" Can Pair with HD 7900 Series in CrossFireX
Not keen on using Club3D, wonder if Sapphire is gonna do any Tahiti LE's.
Still, good info, can't wait for the review!
BTA>>>ME
:slap:
:roll:
I like to wait anyway. I mean, you already know I'm a bit off-kilter...:p
For example, the 7950 I have, is identical physically in appearance to a referrence 7970 but there is no chance of getting it to function as such?
I kinda thought maybe they hid some PCB bridge under the metal ring that goes around the core or something, but getting that off isn't going to be very easy. It really does seem as though there are actual physical disabling of the core, and how or where is not easily found.
www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/1860/AMD_Radeon_HD_7870_XT.html
www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/258/AMD_Radeon_HD_6970_(PCIe_2.0_x16).html