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AMD Radeon HD 8870M

AMD Radeon HD 8870M

The AMD Radeon HD 8870M is a 28nm DirectX 11 graphics card based on the GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture. Built primarily for large laptops, the card is positioned in the performance category as of 2013. Compared to the similar Radeon HD 7870M, the 8870M offers higher memory clock speeds at the cost of a slightly slower core clock.

The design of the Radeon 8800M series has its roots to the Cape Verde chip as found, for example, on the desktop Radeon HD 7770 with 640 1D shader cores and 40 texture units. The core clock of the 8870M, however, is only 725 MHz (or up to 775 MHz with Boost) versus the 1000 MHz of the HD 7770.  As a result, general performance of the HD 8870M is expected to be somewhere between the 7750 and 7770 desktop Radeon cards.

The new 8870M succeeds the 7870M and should perform similar to the GeForce GTX 670M.

The 640 shader cores can be used with OpenCL 1.2 for general-purpose calculations (as 10 compute units).

Features of the 8870M include video decoding via UVD3 for decoding MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, and Flash directly from the AMD GPU. Multi-View Codec (MVC) and MPEG-4 part 2 (DivX, xVid) HD videos are now compatible as well.

The Radeon 8800M series also supports automatic graphics switching between the integrated GPU and discrete GPU. Called Enduro. The technology supersedes AMD's Dynamic Switchable Graphics and is similar to Nvidia's Optimus. Furthermore, the 8870M can directly support up to 6 connected monitors using Eyefinity Technology if Enduro is disabled.

Other features of the 8800M series include ZeroCore for reducing power consumption when the display is turned off and Power Gating to power down areas of the chip that are not used. PowerTune allows automatic overclocking and underclocking of the graphics card as long as the GPU is within its TDP limit. For example, the chip may be underclocked when running FurMark and OCCT, but will overclock in certain games like Lost Planet, Crysis or Resident Evil 5.

The integrated HD audio processor is able to transmit HD Audio (TrueHD or DTS Master Audio) over HDMI and DisplayPort (e.g., for Blu-Ray videos). Additionally, it now allows audio to output simultaneously and in parallel to multiple devices with the new Discrete Digital Multipoint Audio (DDMA) feature.

Power consumption of the 8870M should be noticeably lower than the 100W TDP 7970M as its desktop variants (7750 and 7770) range between 55-80 Watt on ACP average. Nonetheless, then the 8870M is only suited for larger laptops and DTRs.

ManufacturerAMD
Radeon HD 8800M Series

Radeon HD 8870M 640@725MHz

Radeon HD 8850M 640@575 - 725MHz

Radeon HD 8830M 640@575MHz

ArchitectureGCN
Pipelines640 - unified
Core Speed *725 MHz
Shader Speed *725 MHz
Memory Speed *1125 MHz
Memory Bus Width128 Bit
Memory TypeGDDR5, DDR3
Max. Amount of Memory2048 MB
Shared Memoryno
DirectXDirectX 11.1, Shader 5.1
Transistors1500 Million
technology28 nm
FeaturesOpenCL 1.2
Notebook Sizelarge
Date of Announcement18.12.2012
* The specified clock rates are only guidelines for the manufacturer and can be altered by them.

Benchmarks

3DMark 11 - Performance 1280x720
0% 100%
min: 3292     avg: 3304.7 (32%)     max: 3311 points
3DMark 11 - Performance GPU 1280x720
0% 100%
min: 2986     avg: 2992.7 (27%)     max: 2996 points
...
GeForce GTX 460 768MB -6%
Radeon HD 6790 -4%
Radeon HD 8870M
Radeon HD 7770 4%
Radeon HD 5850 14%
...
0%
100%
3DMark Vantage - P Result no PhysX 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 11623     avg: 11731.5 (32%)     max: 11840 Points
3DMark Vantage - P GPU no PhysX 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 10154     avg: 10189.5 (28%)     max: 10225 Points
3DMark 06
0% 100%
min: 15675     avg: 15730 (53%)     max: 15785 Points
3DMark 05 - Standard 1024x768
0% 100%
min: 18829     avg: 18829 (51%)     max: 18829 Points
Unigine Heaven 2.1 - high, Tesselation (normal), DirectX11 1280x1024
0% 100%
min: 37.6     avg: 37.6 (25%)     max: 37.6 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Catia 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 7.44     avg: 7.4 (11%)     max: 7.44 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Ensight 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 23.64     avg: 23.6 (40%)     max: 23.64 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Lightwave 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 24.59     avg: 24.6 (30%)     max: 24.59 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Maya 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 12.79     avg: 12.8 (11%)     max: 12.79 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Pro/ENGINEER 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 2.37     avg: 2.4 (14%)     max: 2.37 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - SolidWorks 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 23.43     avg: 23.4 (36%)     max: 23.43 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Tcvis 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 6.09     avg: 6.1 (10%)     max: 6.09 fps
SPECviewperf 11 - Siemens NX 1920x1080
0% 100%
min: 12.1     avg: 12.1 (19%)     max: 12.1 fps
Cinebench R11.5 - OpenGL 64Bit
0% 100%
min: 54.48     avg: 54.7 (62%)     max: 54.91 Points
Cinebench R10 - Shading 32Bit
0% 100%
min: 8113     avg: 8113 (75%)     max: 8113 Points
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card

Game Benchmarks

The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailled information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

BioShock Infinite
low:
70.3  fps      Compare
med.:
55.7  fps      Compare
high:
51.4  fps      Compare
ultra:
19.3  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
low:
194  fps      Compare
med.:
85.2  fps      Compare
high:
68.5  fps      Compare
ultra:
25.9  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
SimCity
SimCity (2013)
low:
83.3  fps      Compare
med.:
47.8  fps      Compare
high:
37.5  fps      Compare
ultra:
20.3  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider (2013)
low:
110.8 123.3 ~ 117 fps      Compare
med.:
69.8 80.4 ~ 75 fps      Compare
high:
42.2 55.3 ~ 49 fps      Compare
ultra:
21.2 25.5 ~ 23 fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings high.
Crysis 3
Crysis 3 (2013)
low:
53.6 58.8 ~ 56 fps      Compare
med.:
32.6 39.2 ~ 36 fps      Compare
high:
22.4 26.5 ~ 24 fps      Compare
ultra:
9.4 10.8 ~ 10 fps      Compare
» With most tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Dead Space 3
Dead Space 3 (2013)
low:
174.4  fps      Compare
med.:
97.3  fps      Compare
high:
75.2  fps      Compare
ultra:
46.2  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings ultra.
Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3 (2012)
low:
54.8  fps      Compare
med.:
48.4  fps      Compare
high:
26.8  fps      Compare
ultra:
11  fps      Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Assassin´s Creed III
med.:
22.4  fps      Compare
high:
21.2  fps      Compare
ultra:
13.4  fps      Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
Hitman: Absolution
low:
31.1  fps      Compare
med.:
27.4  fps      Compare
high:
22.7  fps      Compare
ultra:
13  fps      Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
low:
99.5  fps      Compare
med.:
86.9  fps      Compare