GIGABYTE GV-R787OC-2GD Pro Reviews

While the card used to compare the Gigabyte HD7870 is a couple generations old, this shows that the HD7870 is a worthy consideration for an upgrade. With the performance and stability the HD7870 showed, I have to admit I’m impressed and won’t have any issue recommending the Gigabyte HD7870 to people looking for a good, powerful mainstream graphics card.

When the HD 7870 first tipped up in March we weren't that fussed about it. Sure, it delivered decent numbers in the benchmarks, but at about £260 it was way overpriced and left us feeling rather cool towards this mid-range Radeon card.

At the out-of-box overclock, the GIGABYTE R787OC-2GD provided the exact same gaming experience as a reference AMD Radeon 7950, which at a first glance seems like a great thing given that the expectation for the Piticarn (78xx) class of GPUs is to be "inferior" to Tahiti (79xx) based GPUs. When pricing is factored in, the two cards continue to be in a dead heat, such that if you were buying a card based upon today’s pricing, the Tahiti based AMD Radeon HD 7950 would be the superior option due to its higher number of stream processors which could give the card more longevity in your rig. If the price point of the GIGABYTE R787OC was lower than the AMD Radeon HD 7950, then it would be a worthy contender for your money, but until then, there are better options for your hard earned dollars in this price range. It just makes sense at this current pricing to aim for the Radeon HD 7950, instead of a highly overclocked HD 7870. The Radeon HD 7950 would have more room to grow with overclocking, while the 7870 is literally at the top of its performance potential already.

The good thing about custom-cooled partner cards is that they tend to offer three key improvements; they're typically faster, cooler and quieter than the original reference design. We've become so accustomed to seeing this threefold improvement that it's a bit of a surprise to find that neither Gigabyte nor PowerColor have quite managed to tick all three boxes. Sure, both cards are quicker than reference as a result of their out-the-box overclock, but we have mixed feelings beyond that. Gigabyte's HD 7870 OC is able to keep stupendously cool under load thanks to the high-end WindForce cooler, but the outstanding cooling performance comes at the expense of size and noise - the card is elongated and noticeably more vocal than AMD's reference design, and for some users that will represent a step in the wrong direction. PowerColor's HD 7870 PCS+, meanwhile, is the polar opposite - the single-fan cooler is fractionally quieter than reference, but as a consequence, we found under-load temperatures to be on average 10 per cent higher than AMD's standard card.