# Club 3D HD 7870 jokerCard Tahiti LE 2 GB



## W1zzard (Dec 6, 2012)

Club3D is the first one to release a Tahiti LE based HD 7870. Their jokerCard runs 1536 shaders with very decent clock speeds, which results in an 8% performance improvement over HD 7870 - just 2% shy of matching HD 7950. This performance increase does come at the cost of increased power draw, though.

*Show full review*


----------



## Casecutter (Dec 7, 2012)

Good review and W1zzard… your assessment of price seems right also.  I think more AIB’s will come on board in 2103 once their 7950’s SKU are only "Boost models" and they wait for Sea Islands. They’ll want this to drum up some press to keep the fires going.  It has a place even with the efficiency issue, like you said especially once at $240 range.

Would like to see some nicer cooling setups, and while good overclock if I was looking at one today and thinking of OC’n today I’d still gravitate to a 7950.  That said, if in February next year if this can be had for something like $220, and just "plug-it and forget-it" till I find a title it can’t play that's a great buy over a GTX660Ti that I wouldn’t see at that price by then.


----------



## Stefan Payne (Dec 7, 2012)

Nice Review

But I wonder why you haven't taken a pic of the fan?
It would be interesting to know wich fans are used, what kind of bearing they use and so on.

The performance of the cards doesn't really matter as there is no real difference between two with the same chip. But if one uses a really good cooler with a real good fan, the card is more worth than another with just sleeve bearing fans...


----------



## 3870x2 (Dec 7, 2012)

Stefan Payne said:


> Nice Review
> 
> But I wonder why you haven't taken a pic of the fan?
> It would be interesting to know wich fans are used, what kind of bearing they use and so on.
> ...



¿

Do you mean to say that the pic in the first page is not adequate?  Or did you want him to actually take it off of the card?







Nevermind, cant really tell anything from this.


----------



## dj-electric (Dec 7, 2012)

Hey w1zzard, what about voltage tuning overclocking?


----------



## Stefan Payne (Dec 7, 2012)

3870x2 said:


> ¿
> 
> Do you mean to say that the pic in the first page is not adequate?  Or did you want him to actually take it off of the card?


He already takes the cooler off the card....

And no, that Pic is not adequate as it only shows the size of the fan, not the model nummer, manufacturer and so on...

So I have no idea about the quality of the fan, i just know the size...


----------



## happita (Dec 7, 2012)

Card is pretty decent; it just about matches the 7950.  I got all excited until I saw the power consumption. Very inefficient vs the 7950 AND the regular 7870. The price is right with this card, but the configuration is not. I will pass.


----------



## EarthDog (Dec 7, 2012)

Stefan Payne said:


> But if one uses a really good cooler with a real good fan, the card is more worth than another with just sleeve bearing fans...


Is it? This has got to be the first time I have ever heard anyone ask that question before. I'm sure someone has, but, most dont give a hoot.


----------



## 3870x2 (Dec 7, 2012)

EarthDog said:


> Is it? This has got to be the first time I have ever heard anyone ask that question before. I'm sure someone has, but, most dont give a hoot.



Because the majority of people who are that worried about their fans will install their own cooling solution.


----------



## mediasorcerer (Dec 7, 2012)

When i first saw this review the first thing i wondered was if it would cf with my 7950 lol.

Nicely designedcard and good review, thankyou.


----------



## Socram13 (Dec 7, 2012)

Nice review W1zzard, I have been waiting some weeks for it. 
I will wait few days, to see aftermarket coolers compatiblity with this new model.
I don´t appreciate Club3D cooling, in this case.
Power consumption registered values are higher than expected...
Hope that Nvidia will respond by cutting GTX 660 Ti price a bit.


----------



## Sasqui (Dec 7, 2012)

I'm the proud owner of a new 7870 Pitcarn and for $219 AR, I'm glad I didn't hold out for this!


----------



## xorbe (Dec 8, 2012)

Sasqui said:


> I'm the proud owner of a new 7870 Pitcarn and for $219 AR, I'm glad I didn't hold out for this!



Yeah if anything this review sold me on a regular 7870.


----------



## Novulux (Dec 8, 2012)

Sold my HD 7870 before the release of these cards...and just had to pick up a new HD 7850 2GB from Newegg for $150 with Far Cry 3 on Black Friday.
I'm glad I didn't wait for this, and rather, I could wait for next-generation and probably sell this HD 7850 for the same price I bought it.


----------



## Stefan Payne (Dec 8, 2012)

EarthDog said:


> Is it?


Yes it is...
As I said earlier, the differences in performance between two cards with the same chip are negligible, so the cooler of a particular card is the thing that could make a card really worth buying...


EarthDog said:


> This has got to be the first time I have ever heard anyone ask that question before. I'm sure someone has, but, most dont give a hoot.


Mostly because no one really tells them that there could be a difference here and that it could be better to buy card A instead of card B because card A uses the better quality fans (and allso uses a plate that also cools the memory) than card B, while card B could be a little bit faster...

Oh and by the way: Have you ever heard about NTK (HK) Limited??
Seems that they made some fas that some people put on a graphics card...

So if I knew wich of the cards really uses some fans I know (like the mentioned Protechnic or Powerlogic ones) I'd buy them, even if they are a bit more expansive. And I think that there might be some people out there who think about that too. 

But for now there is no way of knowing wich graphics cards uses wich fan...

Since Techpowerup already disassambles the card, I don't see why they don't make pictures of the fan too. Or mention the model number of the fan...

I mean if I waste ~400bucks on a graphics card, I'd be crazy to waste another 50 bucks for a cooler and another 20 to 30 bucks for high quality fans...
Especially since I void my warranty on the card...



3870x2 said:


> Because the majority of people who are that worried about their fans will install their own cooling solution.


I don't understand why people do that. Because firstly they waste an awful lot of money on a card. And than a lot of money for a (non liquid) cooling solution...

If someone does that and replaces the original cooling solution with another air cooling solution, he seems to have bought the wrong card...


----------



## Maban (Dec 8, 2012)

There isn't enough people interested in the model of the fan to justify further taking apart the heatsink assembly.


----------



## Cortex (Dec 8, 2012)

It would be nice to include Far Cry 3 and maybe Hitman: Absolution in the next reviews .


----------



## W1zzard (Dec 8, 2012)

Cortex said:


> It would be nice to include Far Cry 3 and maybe Hitman: Absolution in the next reviews .



that's the plan. just waiting for new whql drivers. also adding assassin's creed 3


----------



## FreedomEclipse (Dec 8, 2012)

oh man.... It totally beat down the 6970... what a sad state of affairs  

last years high-end is the new low/mid-end.


----------



## Belle (Dec 9, 2012)

Looks like there is massive undervolting potential. This would turn the performance per watt a little bit.


----------



## Steevo (Dec 9, 2012)

Overclocked it is a winner against the 670 that is $110 more.


----------



## Frick (Dec 9, 2012)

FreedomEclipse said:


> o
> last years high-end is the new low/mid-end.



Nonono HD x7xx and x6xx cards are low end. YOU DON'T KNOW THE MEANING OF LOW END!


----------



## Haserath (Dec 11, 2012)

Hey W1zzard, just wondering why the performance for all resolutions is still in these reviews. It just doesn't give a good view of the performance of these cards when you want to choose say a high end card like the 7970 or 680.

Usually I end up seeing people using the all resolutions graph to show "this card is only so much % faster than so and so blah blah," when at 1080p+ it's 5-10% better than that(not huge by any means but it's significant).

Good review anywho.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Dec 11, 2012)

Wiz, I know BTA mentioned it but were you having any luck trying to unlock this card?


----------



## W1zzard (Dec 11, 2012)

brandonwh64 said:


> Wiz, I know BTA mentioned it but were you having any luck trying to unlock this card?



Can't be done. As mentioned in the "Supoprts CrossFire" thread, the fuses are properly locked.


----------



## brandonwh64 (Dec 11, 2012)

W1zzard said:


> Can't be done. As mentioned in the "Supoprts CrossFire" thread, the fuses are properly locked.



Ahhh thanks Wiz!


----------



## eidairaman1 (Dec 12, 2012)

Nice Card I say- they should of however called it the 7875/7880/7885/7890 honestly and made it crossfire capable with Pictarin parts


----------



## olstyle (Dec 12, 2012)

> Display connectivity options include one DVI port, one full-sized HDMI port, and two mini-HDMI ports. You may use all the outputs at the same time.


I'm pretty sure those are mini-Displayports.
Mini-HDMI, combined with the ability to use them all at the same time, would need an additional converter chip.


----------



## W1zzard (Dec 12, 2012)

olstyle said:


> I'm pretty sure those are mini-Displayports.
> Mini-HDMI, combined with the ability to use them all at the same time, would need an additional converter chip.



typo. thanks


----------



## vagxtr (Dec 13, 2012)

Nice review. But we get used to it 

But what iterests me the most, aside that 175W power consumption that is what i expect from reject die with boost clock and voltage, is this line



> AMD's Tahiti graphics processor introduced the GCN shader architecture. It is also the first GPU to be produced on a 28 nm process at TSMC. The transistor count is 4.31 billion.
> 
> Please note that the package of the GPU is completely different to that of the regular Tahiti GPU. Regular Tahiti has a bigger substrate (green stuff), and the metal shim extends much closer to the GPU die. The Tahiti LE also has laser-etched writing on the die, while regular Tahiti GPUs are completely clean.



So as chip die size doesnt match as you mentioned, coul we guesstimate thta this aint real Tahiti rejects but instead full blow new chip that is just branded by web/OEMs as TahitiLE??

Is this monster still support Double Precision and all GCN features as heir bigger sibling HD7900? I presume yes as you said that Crossfire was possible with those cards.

But is it really so easy just to cut of 128b MC plus some additional stuff from die as most of chip defects are quite irregular, and laser cutting of a defect on a die is impossible if its needed for shrinking purposes

So is this some brand new Tahiti redesign neede to fortify AMDs fighting ground on mainstream segment? And thats why we see such a huge power increase because its brand new cheap shrinkup redesign of an old architecture?

And could we expect rumored new HD8800 series at all in next few month?


----------



## tungt88 (Dec 19, 2012)

Does this card (or it's US counterpart, the PowerColor PCS+ AX7870 Myst Tahiti LE) have a reference 7870 or 7970 PCB? I was curious about watercooling this card ...


----------



## Malicki (Dec 19, 2012)

I think it would be worth noting that the 7870 Tahiti can be crossfired with the 7900 series cards, as tested on, I believe Toms or Anand's. So it could provide a, somewhat cheaper, oppurtunity for someone to run their 7900's in crossfire... I guess.


----------

