Overview of the Powercolor HD7870 MYST Edition

 

The packaging for the MYST edition like many others offers some flare to catch your eye on the shelf in the form of a high performance futuristic car design. the card also lists full UEFI Vbios which will enhance compatibility with Windows 8 and its secureboot fucntions. one interesting thing to note is that if you are not in the know about this card and its GPU you could easily mistake it for a standard Pitcairn based model as there is nothing on the packaging I could find that denotes it as being a different GPU at all.

 

 

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Here we see the card, it is a rather plan wrap model with a center fan design which will blow heat both out of the chassis and some into the chassis. the cooler looks to be of a performance design with a quite dense fin array and the inclusion of covers for not only the output ports but even the PCIe slot and Crossfire bridge adds to a quality feel for the card. Sometimes its the simple small things that can make a card have a better feel to it.

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The rear IO supports multiple connectivity options including:

• DVI
• HDMI
• Mini-DisplayPort (x2)

This is enough connectivity to control a nice array of displays should the need for an Eyefinity setup arise.

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The card stripped down now you can see the VRM covered by a small aluminum cooler which uses the passive air from the main cooling fan to keep thermals under control. Also here you can see the direct touch heatpipes which keep GPU thermals in check.

 

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The base of the GPU contact surface is super flat and as you can see by the TIM spread it makes great contact. Also here you can see the heatpipes passing through multiple times for optimal thermal transfer.

 

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The Hynix IC’s used here are rated for up to 6GHz which is right where the card is set to. I have seen these IC’s before and they have been able to be pushed quite a bit higher but that always varies from card to card especially depending upon the memory controller as well.

 

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Here we see some of the power control circuitry built onto the card which will ensure solid and reliable operation.

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Here you see the CHiL CHL 8225 PWM controller which si configured for precise voltage control and monitoring via most popular software interfaces available presently. This will ensure that when you wanna push the card it should be of no issue making that happen.