PowerColor AX7870 2GBD5-2DH Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Pros: No Problems

Cons: No Problems

Pros: Runs most games such as Black Ops 2, Farcry 3, and BF3 at max settings smoothly with over 50+ fps!

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: Buy this card, its a great deal!

Pros: It performs great in BF3 and SWTOR (the only 2 games I've been bothering to play that are new). 12.10 drivers haven't given me any problems with it.

It looks bigger in the pictures, and it has 2 6 pin connectors that are easy to manage (plugging in and unplugging).

The fan if anything is too efficient *see cons.*

I prefer rear exhaust fans, and this was seemingly the only choice of the other 7870s.

It's black and red, like ATI's should be also.

Lately the prices dropped, and well I had to pick one up.

Cons: The fan is like what others say "a Jet taking off." I have the fan speed locked at 40% on Overdrive, and the 7870 only gets to 76C under heavy load (RC5-72 OpenCL client). With the fan on auto the card won't get above 75C, and the fan doesn't go past 50% anyway.. So 40% seems to be fine. Both the games, BF3 and SWTOR, don't even get the card to 70C even with the fan locked at 40%.

Other Thoughts: ~Folding@home: 11xxx WUs give 7,800 ppd.

~RC5-72 OpenCL client (beta): 1,900,000,000 keys/sec or 45,000 blocks/day.

Pros: Great quality video card for those who want to stay just below the high end gaming cards. I use this card to play many games and have yet to see any trouble. For the price you pay you get a great card which performs above expectations.

Cons: The card does tend to spoil up when under high demand and make moderate noise. This is to be expected when you have a high demand bearing on card. It's just a mild issue. Most gamers wear headphones and wont even hear it.

Other Thoughts: All and all, it is a great card for under the $300 range. The card seems to almost fall into the shadow of the GTX 660 ti. Very close but not quite the same as the GTX. I would recommend this card for those who don't want to spend over $300 on cards. Best card for the price.

Pros: +Very Powerful for it's TDP, size and price range
+Smaller than my old card
+affordable
+ton of memory for this price range (BF3 uses like 1280mb)
+Hard to get it above 60*C
+Maxes every game i have at 1080p with playable fps
+several adapters included

Cons: -Sounds like a 747 as soon as any load hits, and that's after adjusting the fan profile in afterburner
-no tacky case badge

Other Thoughts: I upgraded from a gtx 260 core 216 55nm revision to this card. This new card uses only 3 more watts of power (174 vs 171) so it was essentially identical in that concern, is almost an inch shorter, and destroys the old card in any game. Ive seen comparisons where this card performs between a gtx 570 and 580 of yesteryear, closer to a 580, and Ive even seen it beat a 580 if overclocked. The 7xxx series in general is a smash hit. Knocks the socks off of nvidia's current generation as well as AMD's previous. For instance, this car trashes the 6970, the previous top single gpu card from AMD even tho this card is an entire tier under it. (remember the 6870 was a tier below the 5870 and the 5870 was slightly more powerful). It maxes out all the games I have, including BF3, MOH Warfighter, Crysis 1 and 2, etc all with very playable framerates, the lowest being crysis 1 running at around 40 fps. That sounds low but its surprisingly smooth for crysis 1. This is on my 1920x1080p monitor. No reason to look any further other than for enthusiast builders. If i ever feel like my setup is underpowered, i'll buy another one and run crossfire.

Specs:
ASRock 870 Extreme3 R2.0 (AM3+)
Phenom II X6 3.0ghz, 3.4 turbo
8 GB DDR3 1600 Dual channel
This Card

Far from an enthusiast rig, but everything seems to mesh for a great gaming experience

Manufacturer Response:

Glad to hear that you're enjoying the card! If you have any questions on the card or our company, please feel free to contact us at usa@powercolor.com.

Thank you,

PowerColor Support

Pros: Runs Planetside 2 and Skyrim on max. Works great with vishera.

Cons: No lifetime warranty

Pros: It runs minecraft at 200 fps while flying and when watching YouTube switching from 360p to 1080p is instantanious. The buffer is huge! 3 gigs is alot!

Cons: Its a Tad loud but the CPU fan is louder anyway, besides I wear headphones so I really don't care

Pros: After research seems to be best gang for the buck. Come with nice box and all required wires. Put-in, install drivers and ready to play Skyrim :) Give me stable 60fps on ultra settings with HD textures and other mods.

Cons: Very big, may not fit in mid tower. Loud under load

Other Thoughts: I'm pretty happy with ATI. Specially where each extra FPS gain, cost extra $100. Not super duper, but run smooth and stable with ultra settings.

Pros: amazing frames compared to my old 5770 takes ultra settings on every game i throw at it eats em up and spits em out at 50+ without any overclocking

Cons: my motherboard doesnt have room for a second!

Other Thoughts: for under 300 bucks its a solid performer cheaper than some nvidia cards in the same range of performance couldnt be happier with the purchase

Pros: Powerful, runs swtor like a champ, great upgrade from a 4870, vents heat out of the case instead of back in it.

Cons: its a little louder than the 4870 it replaced, drivers need a little work for swtor..

Other Thoughts: I really love this card and for the money its killer. The price is creaping down so I may grab another in the future for crossfire but now I dont need anymore. I cant let go of my Lian LI all aluminum case but it doesnt have massive airflow compaired to modern wind tunnels so the fact this card exhaust all the heat out the rear sold me on it.