Radeon R9 270  vs HD 7870 

The Cards are exactly the same architecture, essentially identical in every way. The 270 has a higher memory clock speed, whereas the 7870 comes with a higher gpu clock speed. Nonetheless both cards can be equally overclocked to have the exact same specifications. I have an ASUS HD7870 and its memory is overclocked to 5500mhz and the gpu is clocked to 1100mhz... everything runs cool and quiet. A great card for the money. Be careful overclocking cards with a single fan. The ASUS models have Direct CU II which allows for easy overclocking. The R9 280 stock clock speeds are 1000mhz for the gpu (in boost mode 900mhz normally) and 5000 mhz for the memory. If you can get your hands on a hd7870 with good cooling it is all you will need for now, and you can laugh at your friends when you pull higher bench-marking numbers.

So if you just clock your R9 270 to 1000mhz whats the difference? I will say this Nvidia does a much better job at temps and fan noise and power consumption, But AMD offers much better performance per dollar. So far Nvidia's only good buy is the 760 and it is overpriced most of the time. It would be nice to find a 4GB version of the 760 for around $200 then it would be worth every penny. But since Nvidia always insists on overcharging it looks like the 270's are taking the price/performance crown! For $179 and you can play any game cranked up at 1080p you can't beat that! And some 270's are even priced lower, I saw a Saphire model on Newegg for $154.99, Nvidia will never come close to that. And the 750 Ti is just a joke at $150! People are best off just getting the 650 Ti instead at $119. Or the R7 265 for $145, However there is a catch! AMD's drivers are very badly coded compared to Nvidia's drivers! Once in a blue moon you might get some slight artifacts with a Nvidia driver release but they always quickly correct it. AMD on the other hand has many problems with driver code causing artifacts in many titles, And unlike Nvidia AMD just ignores any reports of artifacts, and pretends it does not exist! So it can be a major headache finding a driver version that will not cause artifacts in a certain game you want to play. This is why most gamers will use nothing but Nvidia. I admit there have been many times I have been so frustrated with my R9 270 that I felt like just putting my old 650 Ti back in. AMD's Driver 14.4 works fine in almost every game with only a few glitches here and there, Like in STO if you use above 2xMSAA you get very messed up shadows. So you have to keep STO at 2xMSAA and never go above it. Other than that 14.4 works fine for me. Any driver after 14.4 causes huge artifacts in Mafia 2, So bad you can't play it! But for the price of the R9 270 you still get good performance. But to be honest I do not think I will ever buy a AMD card ever again after this one. Unless AMD takes the first step and admits the artifact problem and finally puts effort in to fix it. At the moment I think they are only concentrating on making the drivers deliver more FPS instead of worrying about the drivers delivering correct textures. Who cares if you get a few more FPS if your screen is going nuts!!! To be honest they should fire the driver coders, Throw away the code and start new. If Nvidia can make drivers that work properly then there is no reason that AMD can't either.