To get the index we compare the characteristics of video cards and their relative prices.
AMD Radeon HD 7870: specs and benchmarks
Price now
347$
Games supported
77%
- Interface PCIe 3.0 x16
- Core clock speed 1000
- Max video memory 2048 MB
- Memory type GDDR5
- Memory clock speed 4800
- Maximum resolution
Year of release
2012
Performance
15.86
Summary
AMD started Radeon HD 7870 sales 5 March 2012 at a recommended price of $412.83. This is GCN architecture desktop card based on 28 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 2 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 4.8 GHz are supplied, and together with 256 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 153.6 GB/s.
Compatibility-wise, this is dual-slot card attached via PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 241 mm. Two 6-pin power connectors are required, and power consumption is at 175 Watt.
It provides poor gaming and benchmark performance at
15.86%
of a leader's which is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.
General info
Of Radeon HD 7870's architecture, market segment and release date.
| Place in performance rating | 289 | |
| Value for money | 5.18 | |
| Architecture | GCN (2011−2017) | |
| GPU code name | Pitcairn XT | |
| Market segment | Desktop | |
| Release date | 5 March 2012 (10 years ago) | |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $412.83 | |
| Price now | $347 (0.8x MSRP) | of 49999 (A100 SXM4) |
Value for money
Technical specs
Radeon HD 7870's general performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of Radeon HD 7870's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 1280 | of 18432 (AD102) |
| Core clock speed | 1000 MHz | of 2610 (Radeon RX 6500 XT) |
| Number of transistors | 2800 Million | of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile) |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | of 4 (H100 PCIe) |
| Thermal design power (TDP) | 175 Watt | of 900 (Tesla S2050) |
| Texture fill rate | 80.00 | of 939.8 (H100 SXM5) |
Compatibility, dimensions and requirements
Information on Radeon HD 7870's compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | |
| Length | 241 mm | |
| Width | 2-slot | |
| Supplementary power connectors | 2x 6-pin |
Memory
Parameters of memory installed on Radeon HD 7870: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors don't have dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM.
| Memory type | GDDR5 | |
| Maximum RAM amount | 2 GB | of 128 (Radeon Instinct MI250X) |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | of 8192 (Radeon Instinct MI250X) |
| Memory clock speed | 4800 MHz | of 19500 (GeForce RTX 3090) |
| Memory bandwidth | 153.6 GB/s | of 14400 (Radeon R7 M260) |
| Shared memory | - |
Video outputs and ports
Types and number of video connectors present on Radeon HD 7870. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference video cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model.
| Display Connectors | 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort | |
| Eyefinity | + | |
| HDMI | + |
API support
APIs supported by Radeon HD 7870, sometimes including their particular versions.
| DirectX | 12 (11_1) | |
| Shader Model | 5.1 | |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | |
| OpenCL | 1.2 | |
| Vulkan | 1.2.131 |
Benchmark performance
Non-gaming benchmark performance of Radeon HD 7870. Note that overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range.
Overall score
This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.
- 3DMark 11 Performance GPU
- 3DMark Vantage Performance
- Unigine Heaven 4.0
- Passmark
3DMark 11 Performance GPU
3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.
3DMark Vantage Performance
3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.
Unigine Heaven 4.0
This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark, a newer version of Unigine 3.0 with relatively small differences. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. The benchmark is still sometimes used, despite its significant age, as it was released back in 2013.
Passmark
This is probably the most ubiquitous benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.
Mining hashrates
Cryptocurrency mining performance of Radeon HD 7870. Usually measured in megahashes per second.
| Decred / DCR (Decred) | 0.63 Gh/s | |
| Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) | 16.6 Mh/s | |
| Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) | 0.39 kh/s | |
| Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) | 145 Sol/s |
Game benchmarks
Let's see how good Radeon HD 7870 is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.
Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:
| 900p | 84 | |
| Full HD | 66 |
Full HD
Medium Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 16−18 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 16−18 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 16−18 | |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 16−18 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 16−18 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 16−18 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 16−18 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 16−18 | |
| Hitman 3 | 16−18 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 16−18 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 16−18 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 16−18 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 16−18 |
Full HD
High Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 16−18 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 16−18 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 16−18 | |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 16−18 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 16−18 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 16−18 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 16−18 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 16−18 | |
| Hitman 3 | 16−18 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 16−18 | |
| Metro Exodus | 16−18 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 16−18 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 16−18 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 36 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 16−18 |
Full HD
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 16−18 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 16−18 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 16−18 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 16−18 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 16−18 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 16−18 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 16−18 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 20 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 16−18 |
1440p
High Preset
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 16−18 | |
| Hitman 3 | 16−18 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 16−18 | |
| Metro Exodus | 16−18 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 16−18 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 16−18 |
1440p
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 16−18 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 16−18 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 16−18 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 16−18 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 16−18 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 16−18 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 16−18 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 16−18 |
4K
High Preset
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare | 16−18 | |
| Hitman 3 | 16−18 | |
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 16−18 | |
| Metro Exodus | 16−18 | |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 16−18 | |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 16−18 | |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 16−18 |
4K
Ultra Preset
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | 16−18 | |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 16−18 | |
| Battlefield 5 | 16−18 | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 16−18 | |
| Far Cry 5 | 16−18 | |
| Far Cry New Dawn | 16−18 | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 16−18 | |
| Watch Dogs: Legion | 16−18 |
Relative perfomance
Overall Radeon HD 7870 performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop video cards.
NVIDIA equivalent
The nearest Radeon HD 7870's NVIDIA equivalent is GeForce GTX 760, which is faster by 2% and higher by 6 positions in our rating.
Here are some closest NVIDIA rivals to Radeon HD 7870:
Similar GPUs
Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.
Recommended processors
These processors are most commonly used with Radeon HD 7870 according to our statistics.
3.4%
3%
2.6%
1.9%
1.7%
1.5%
1.4%
1.3%
1.3%
