SAPPHIRE 100354XTL Radeon HD 7870 XT w/Boost 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Video Card

Pros: Combined with an AMD FX-8350 and 32GB of Corsair DDR3 1600 my machine rocks. I have too many games on steam (300+) and have yet to find a game that struggles on graphics set to full. Card is solid and reliable. Also I have no idea of this coil whine people speak of but I game for hours on end and my rig is quiet.

Cons: Lara Croft's hair with TressFX enabled struggles up close.

Pros: Price, performance, noise, temperature, basically everything that matters.

Cons: It's huge! Seems to go out of stock very quickly.

Other Thoughts: This card is really nice. Performs better than a regular 7870 and can be overclocked to perform like a 7950 at stock. The could rename under the 7900 (7950 light or something) series if they wanted.

The card is running everything I've thrown at it (so far) at Ultra settings averaging 50 FPS or better (some games from two years ago I'm getting well over 60 FPS with every graphic detail I could possibly turn on enabled). I am not getting the coil whine that many people seem to be having an issue with. Like I noted above, the card is massive. I have a Coolermaster HAF 912, so I was able to remove a hard drive bay from the case to give it room to breathe a little. Card idles at 30 C and I haven't seen it go over 70 C while under heavy load, so that is a plus.

For the price of this card, it outperforms anything else in it's range. Great for budget builds - highly recommended!

Pros: Fast and Cool GPU. Performs well and does not get hot.

Cons: While I was running Furmark GPU stress test, I got coil whine that would fade in and out as the test progressed. I could not cause the coil whine with anything else.

Other Thoughts: The coil whine only occurred while I was using Furmark. It ran exceptionally well when I played Black Ops 2 at highest settings and Crysis 3 at highest settings as well. (Note: Maximum setting on my 1600x900 DVI display).

Be warned. It is a large GPU. I was expecting this and had pre-removed one of my hard drive bays. It was a good call. The GPU would not fit otherwise (My case: COOLER MASTER HAF 912)

I would recommend this card to people who are interested. The coil whine is frustrating, but I don't plan on running Furmark any more, so I don't believe the whine will be encountered again.

I really don't want to give this 4/5 eggs, because the coil whine is the only problem. I am giving it 5/5, because I think it deserves it. However, don't be surprised it you hear coil whine in this or any other GPU.

Pros: Very good performance @1080p
Not too loud

Cons: Horrible coil whine made me RMA this card, my replacement also had coil whine but not as bad as before.

Runs a bit hot, can top 72C

Other Thoughts: From what I gathered online, coil whine is a pretty common issue on AMD cards. I wish AMD and their manufacturers fix this before the 8xxx cards come out.

Pros: When it worked it worked really well.

Cons: I am having a known issue of my monitor screen going black but with the green light still on. The screen would come back on and go off (flickering) but there was no rhyme or reason to it. I removed my old driver and tried different drivers (hard to do with the screen flickering on and off!!!).

Other Thoughts: I'm really disappointed that this card didn't work. To add salt to the wound I have to pay $11 to ship it back so I can hopefully get a good one. FWIW I did enjoy Tomb Raider that came with it and hope to play the other games in the package.

Pros: Fast card, keeps cool.

Cons: Sapphire needs better quality control, card is giving me coil whine on certain games and none in others. It gets annoying after awhile.

Other Thoughts: Wish it came with a backplate, card is beginning to sag due to weight.

Pros: Works, came quickly and runs all of my games. GPU tweak is nice and now my system is awesome.

Cons: Where's my Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon?

Other Thoughts: Good value.

Pros: I upgraded from a 6670, and wow what a difference. I like it a lot, though I've only played Arma 3 for a little bit. On my 6670 I was lucky to get 25 FPS on the lowest settings. With the 7870, I'm getting 30-40 semi-high settings, but since my card was getting hot I changed some settings lower and am now getting 50 FPS. I haven't scratched the game coupons yet, want to make sure card doesn't die in a week :)

I use 1368x768 resolution. Below is a list of the average FPS in some benchmarks I have. Added the Min and Max just for some more info. (They usually only dip low when starting a new scene and go high when changing scenes.)

Metro Last Light - Max Settings DX11, no PhysX
6670: FPS - 7 (Min 4, Max 15)
7870: FPS - 38 (Min 5, Max 69)

Metro Last Light - Lowest Settings DX10, no PhysX, SSAA disabled
6670: FPS - 25 (Min 7, Max 62)
7870: FPS - 55 (Min 12, Max 110)

Unigine Valley Benchmark - Max Settings DX11
6670: FPS 12 (Min 4, Max 23), Score - 523
7870: FPS 45 (Min 5, Max 84), Score - 1904

Batman Arkham Asylum - Max Settings, no PhysX
6670: Avg FPS 68 (Min 32, Max 95)
7870: Avg FPS 175 (Min 61, Max 281)

BioShock Infinite - Max Settings (Ultra DX11 DDOF)
6670: Avg FPS 14 (Min 8, Max 102)
7870: Avg FPS 73 (Min 11, Max 131)

If I come across any more benchmarks I will post them here.

Cons: It seems to get really hot. While doing the Unigine Valley Benchmark at max settings it got to 70C. While Playing Arma 3 at pretty high settings it was getting to 67C. Idle is stays at 40C. I'm not sure what the safe temperature range it, but 70C is the highest I've ever seen, so it scares me a bit. Hopefully the card lasts a very long time :)

Other Thoughts: AMD FX-6100 3.3 GHz 6-core
8 GB RAM
700 Watt PSU
ASRock N68-VS3 FX

Pros: This card was part of my first gaming system since 2004, so granted it has been a long time since I've kept up with video cards. Overall it performs very well. It is quiet, powerful, and works flawlessly in the games I've played so far.

The main draw was the price per performance, as this card is higher-end than the 7870 model number gives it credit for.

Cons: This card exhibits some coil whine, which I had to research when I first heard it, because I was unaware what was causing the noise. It sounds like a faint whine when the card is under load, but is not caused by the fans. It is pretty quiet on my card and doesn't bother me, so it is not a huge issue. Plus as far as I can tell, this seems to be a relatively common occurrence on cards with similar GPUs.

Other Thoughts: Overall it was an excellent card for my gaming build!

Pros: -Very fast card-can play all my games on the highest settings.
-The fans on this card seems to be doing a great job because my temp idles at 29 degrees.
-Really close to the speeds of an 7950. I heard if you overclock the 7870 xt it could even be faster than a stock 7950.
-If your thinking about buying a 7950 buy this card instead! I was going to buy a Sapphire 7950 Vapor-X, but saw this card. Its a wayy better deal. I may crossfire this card with a 7950 vaporx in future once prices go down.

Cons: None!

Other Thoughts: My computer:
Case: Coolermaster HAF 932 Full Tower
CPU: AMD FX 8350 @ 4.00 GHz (Planning to OC in future)
Motherboard: ASRock 970 Extreme 4
Video Card: Sapphire HD 7870 XT with Boost
RAM: 12 GB Kingston HyperX DDR1333
Power Supply: Thermaltake 600 watt