AMD kick started things back in January with their flagship series codename Tahiti which are now the world’s fastest and most advanced GPUs. The Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 certainly are fast graphics cards but at $549 and $449 they are not for everyone.

A month later in February the Cape Verde GPUs followed as AMD unleashed the much more affordable Radeon HD 7700 series. Comprised of the Radeon HD 7770 and HD 7750 these cards cost $159 and $109 respectively making them a far more realistic choice for most gamers.

However despite smoking the previous generation Radeon HD 6770 and HD 6750 graphics cards the Radeon HD 7700 series didn’t prove to be all that impressive in terms of value. Existing graphics cards such as the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, GTX 560 and Radeon HD 6850 provide slightly more performance for roughly the same price.

This was disappointing news for gamers holding out for AMD’s new 28nm GPU’s. So will the Radeon HD 7800 series be more tempting for those looking to upgrade? Well on paper both look great as they feature 2.8 billion transistors, loads of compute power, heaps of memory bandwidth and an impressive power rating.

The Radeon HD 7870 comes clocked at 1GHz and with 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs, has a compute performance of 2.56 TFLOPS along with a texture fill rate of 80GT/s and a pixel fill rate of 32GP/s. The HD 7870 is also armed with 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1.2GHz (4.8GHz DDR) and combine that with a 256-bit wide memory bus and you get an astonishing memory bandwidth of 153.6GB/s.

Then there is the slightly cut down Radeon HD 7850 which for the most part is a very similar animal featuring the exact same memory configuration which allows for the same 153.6GB/s bandwidth. The key changes have been made to the GPU which is now clocked at just 860MHz while the SPU count has been downgraded to 1024 and the TAUs have been reduced to 64 while there are still 32 ROPs.

In essence these downgrades mean that the Radeon HD 7850 will deliver roughly 30% less compute power so it will be interesting to see how that translates into gaming performance. With that said let jump straight into the benchmarks to find out...

Hardware - Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition (3.30GHz) - x4 4GB G.Skill DDR3-1600(CAS 8-8-8-20) - Crucial m4 512GB (SATA 6Gb/s) - AMD Radeon HD 7970 (3072MB) - Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950 (3072MB) - AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2048MB) - AMD Radeon HD 7850 (2048MB) - Gigabyte Radeon HD 6990 (4096MB) - Gigabyte Radeon HD 6970 (2048MB) - VisionTek Radeon HD 6950 (2048MB) - Asus Radeon HD 6870 (1024MB) - HIS Radeon HD 5870 (1024MB) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 590 (3072MB) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 (1280MB) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1024MB) - Gigabyte G1.Assassin2 (Intel X79) - OCZ ZX Series (1250w) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit - Nvidia Forceware 295.73 - AMD Catalyst 12.2 + AMD Radeon HD 7800 (8.95.5)

The 3Dmark 11 extreme test claims that the Radeon HD 7870 is just 9% slower than the Radeon HD 7950 which is an incredible result. However possibly more amazing than that is the fact that the Radeon HD 7870 is said to be 6% faster than the GeForce GTX 580.

The Radeon HD 7850 is also quite snappy delivering 4% more performance than the Radeon HD 6950 and 20% more performance than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. With that in mind let’s move on to see how these new Radeon HD 7800 series graphics cards perform in over a dozen games...

When testing at 2560x1600 the Radeon HD 7870 averaged 26fps in the Aliens vs. Predator benchmark making it 21% slower than the HD 7950. Yet despite that it was able to match the GeForce GTX 570 which was impressive. The Radeon HD 7850 also did well with an average of 21fps making it 11% faster than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti.

The Alan Wake results were more inspiring as the Radeon HD 7870 averaged 31fps at 2560x1600 making it just 16% slower than the HD 7950 while it was incredibly 3% faster than the GeForce GTX 580 and 26% faster than the GTX 570. The Radeon HD 7850 also did well smashing the GeForce GTX 560 Ti by a 30% performance margin. Moreover it was also 4% faster than the Radeon HD 6950 and 8% faster than the GeForce GTX 570.

Battlefield 3 fans will enjoy what the Radeon HD 7870 has to offer them with an average of 32fps at 2560x1600 making it just 11% slower than the HD 7950 and 6% slower than the GeForce GTX 580. However it was 19% faster than the Radeon HD 6970 while matching the performance of the GeForce GTX 570. The Radeon HD 7850 also did well as it was just 4% slower than the Radeon HD 6970 yet 13% faster than the HD 6950 and 8% faster than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti.

Both the Radeon HD 7870 and HD 7850 delivered almost the same performance when testing with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 at 2560x1600 as just 2fps separated them. The Radeon HD 7870 which was naturally the faster of the two was just 9% slower than the Radeon HD 7950 and 8% slower than the GeForce GTX 580. It was also 5% faster than the Radeon HD 6970 and 3% faster than the GeForce GTX 570.

The Radeon HD 7850 was able to match the performance of the GeForce GTX 570 while it was 2% faster than the Radeon HD 6970, 12% faster than the HD 6950 and 16% faster than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti.

The Crysis 2 performance was surprising as here the Radeon HD 7870 was just 4% slower than the HD 7950 at 2560x1600. As a result it was 4% faster than the GeForce GTX 580, 26% faster than the GTX 570 and a whopping 33% faster than the Radeon HD 6970. Meanwhile the Radeon HD 7850 was also very fast averaging 20fps making it 5% faster than the GeForce GTX 570, 43% faster than the GTX 560 Ti and 25% faster than the Radeon HD 6950.

When testing with Dragon Age II at 2560x1600 the Radeon HD 7870 delivered 26fps making it just 4% slower than the HD 7950. Despite this it was still 21% slower than the GeForce GTX 580 and 13% slower than the old Radeon HD 6970. That said it was 13% faster than the GeForce GTX 570 which was an impressive result. The Radeon HD 7850 also did well rendering 24fps making it 4% faster than the GeForce GTX 570 while it matched the Radeon HD 6950.

The Radeon HD 7870 averaged 45fps in Deus Ex Human at 2560x1600 making it just 2% slower than the GeForce GTX 580 and 15% faster than the GTX 570. Additionally it was also 5% faster than the Radeon HD 6970. The Radeon HD 7850 on the other hand matched the GeForce GTX 570 while it was 3% faster than the Radeon HD 6950.

The Radeon HD 7870 was able to average 46fps at 2560x1600 in the Dirt 3 benchmark making it just 8% slower than the Radeon HD 7950 and GeForce GTX 580. Meanwhile it was 10% faster than the Radeon HD 6970 and 18% faster than the GeForce GTX 570. The Radeon HD 7850 was 8% slower than the GeForce GTX 570 but 3% faster than the GTX 560 Ti.

When running the Hard Reset benchmark at 2560x1600 the Radeon HD 7870 was found to be 8% slower than the Radeon HD 7950 and GeForce GTX 580. That said it was 13% faster than the GeForce GTX 570 and Radeon HD 6970 graphics cards. The Radeon HD 7850 was 6% slower than the GeForce GTX 570 and HD 6970 while it was 4% faster than the GTX 560 Ti.

Just Cause 2 has a number of inbuilt tests and we used the Concrete Jungle. At 2560x1600 the Radeon HD 7870 managed 31fps making it 3% faster than the GeForce GTX 570 and 7% quicker than the Radeon HD 6970. The Radeon HD 7850 on the other hand was 7% slower than the Radeon HD 6970 as well as the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. This is the first time we have seen the Radeon HD 7850 perform slower than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti.

King Arthur II is a new and highly demanding game when run into the DX11 mode with all the visuals set to their maximum setting. Here the Radeon HD 7870 spat out just 18fps at 2560x1600 which was enough to match the GeForce GTX 580 and beat the GTX 570 by a 29% margin. The Radeon HD 7850 also did well with 16fps making it 14% faster than the GeForce GTX 570 and 33% faster than the GTX 560 Ti.

When testing at 2560x1600 with Metro 2033 the Radeon HD 7870 averaged 32fps making it 20% slower than the HD 7950. Despite this it was sill 3% faster than the Radeon HD 6970 and 14% faster than the GeForce GTX 570. The Radeon HD 7850 was 8% faster than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti and 4% slower than the Radeon HD 6950 and GeForce GTX 570 graphics cards.

With the The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim high resolution texture pack install the game is a little more demanding though the Radeon HD 7870 was still able to spit out 46fps. This was an incredible result as it meant that the Radeon HD 7870 was just 2% slower than the Radeon HD 7950 and 2% faster than the GeForce GTX 580. The Radeon HD 7850 also did well beating the GeForce GTX 570 by an 8% margin.

The Radeon HD 7870 was also very impressive when testing with The Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings as it rendered 40fps making it just 9% slower than the Radeon HD 7950 while it also matched the performance of the GeForce GTX 580. The Radeon HD 7850 was able to match the Radeon HD 6950 making it just 3% slower than the GeForce GTX 570 and 31% faster than the GTX 560 Ti.

The power consumption of the Radeon HD 7870 was comparable to that of the HD 5870 and HD 6950 which is impressive given it delivers considerably more performance. With a total system consumption of 324 watts the Radeon HD 7870 configuration used 14% less power than the Radeon HD 6970 despite being 11% faster at 1920x1200.

The Radeon HD 7850 configuration on the other hand consumed just 294 watts under load which was 9% less than the Radeon HD 6950, a card which is was a fraction faster than in most cases.

The Radeon HD 7850 provided remarkably low load temperatures for a reference card. Under load the card never exceeded 63 degrees which is obviously very low, around 19% lower than a reference designed Radeon HD 6870. Armed with the same cooler the Radeon HD 7870 did operate 16% hotter than the HD 7850 but even so it was much cooler than most of the other cards tested.

When compared to the GeForce GTX 580 the Radeon HD 7870 was on average just 7% slower while it was 12% faster than the GeForce GTX 570 and 10% faster than the Radeon HD 6970. Given that at $349 the Radeon HD 7870 shares the same price tag as the GeForce GTX 570 and Radeon HD 6970 the fact that it was 10% faster or more is a big deal.

The Radeon HD 7850 was just 14% slower than the HD 7870 at 1920x1200 which meant that it was 3% slower than the GeForce GTX 570 and 7% slower than the Radeon HD 6970. However keep in mind it is also 29% cheaper than both of these graphics cards making it considerably better value. The Radeon HD 7850 is also cheaper than the HD 6950 and we found that on average delivers the same performance.

Without a doubt the Radeon HD 7800 range is AMD’s best value current generation series yet. As impressive as the Radeon HD 7900 series is the price tags associated with those cards are simply too high and the HD 7870 proved that as it was just 8% slower than the HD 7950 while costing over 20% less.

Therefore it appears that gamers need to be prepared to spend at least $249 on a current generation graphics card to justify upgrading. For those gamers still flaunting a Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards because they skipped the HD 6000 series for something more worthwhile, we now have that something. The Radeon HD 5870 debuted with an MSRP of $380 which makes the much faster Radeon HD 7870 a very attractive prospect at $349.

Finally for those hoping to get their hands on a new Radeon HD 7800 series graphics card the wait is unfortunately not quite over yet. AMD tell us that they will not become available in volume until after the 19th of March which is obviously still a few weeks away.