Review: Gigabyte HD 7870 OC and PowerColor HD 7870 PCS+

Final thoughts and rating

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.

Bottom line: Both cards come equipped with the strong performance of the HD 7870 GPU, but, for the first time in a long time, AMD's reference design feels like a better-rounded package, and it's cheaper, too.

HEXUS Rating Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 OC HEXUS Awards Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 OC

HEXUS Rating PowerColor Radeon HD 7870 PCS+ HEXUS Awards PowerColor Radeon HD 7870 PCS+

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The Gigabyte HD 7870 OC and PowerColor HD 7870 PCS+ graphics cards are available to purchase from Scan.co.uk*.

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