# [Official] Radeon 68*0/69*0 Reviews Thread



## soilentblue

for some reason i don't think that was suppose to be out yet. date says 22nd. lol if i'm right they could be in a world of trouble.


----------



## Skylit

o brb

What I got out of this:

UVD3 Support.








VPP. Media player classic has better playback on the 6xxx series.

Price:
6870 $250 USD
6850 $189 USD

The 6870 is weaker than a stock 5870, stronger than a stock 5850.
The 6850 is stronger than the GTX460 1GB.

Edit: Can I has an Intel + AMD system now?


----------



## SkillzKillz

Save as much information as you can, LOL

EDIT: I have 23 tabs open. Kekekeke...


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## Sickened1

Meh. Not really interested until the bigger powerhouse cards are out, 69xx.


----------



## Ubernoobie

its oct 22 on the other side of the world








shame only crossfire support, not crossfirex


----------



## obsidian86

Quote:


Originally Posted by *soilentblue* 
for some reason i don't think that was suppose to be out yet. date says 22nd. lol if i'm right they could be in a world of trouble.

well if the review is being posted from japan for instance, Time is 5:07 am the 22nd in japan


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## Razi3l

Okay, i'm buying these... The 6870 > 470 and will probably be cheaper here, and way more efficient. Suddenly i don't miss my 5850 anymore


----------



## savagebunny

Looks like Guru3D went into the future and published the article on October 22, 2010.

And they are using old 5850, 5870 CF results etc. No way they did that amount of benching in 1 session.


----------



## Derp

lol their website is getting hammered.


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## overclock4ever

interesting performance!! i thought nda was tomorrow tho, did they break it?!


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


Originally Posted by *obsidian86* 
well if the review is being posted from japan for instance, Time is 5:07 am the 22nd in japan

Guru3D is a Dutch site.


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## loop0001

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 63 (35 members and 28 guests)


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## Jeffaruni

They are aimed at the GTX 460's by the price of them.... wow!


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## Chisharpe

no real step up from a 5870 looks like im gonna be waiting for the 6900 cards


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## lilraver018

I am still ok with my 5850. Performance looks good for those who want to upgrade from 4xxx to 6xxx.

If we are smart the moment they hit retailer we should buy up like crazy, dont want what happen with 5850 to repeat itself. Cards come out then goes out of stock then for the next few months we can not find them at the same price they were released at.a

pricing
R6850 will cost you roughly 189 USD
For 249 USD / 209 EUR the R6870


----------



## Chisharpe

scaling on crossfire is very good.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Jeffaruni* 
They are aimed at the GTX 460's by the price of them.... wow!

around 207 euros on G3D which is roughly Â£184, and if it is priced that.. this will be *AMAZING!!* But lol do want, these cards in CF are right up the 480 SLIs arse.. with driver updates they'll be there, damn


----------



## rubicsphere

ATI does it again!!! Woot!!

Oooops: AMD!!


----------



## KBcobra

My question is what are the mounting hole dimensions on these gpus. My MCW80 would like a new host.


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## candy_van

Did G3D pull it down? I can't get the links to work anymore.


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## Morizuno

I'm probably going to get a 6870 if water blocks are made =)


----------



## Derp

Quote:


Originally Posted by *candy_van* 
Did G3D pull it down? I can't get the links to work anymore.

Same, the pages went from loading 56k slow to not loading at all. I didn't even get to see the benchmarks







.


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## soilentblue

lol the 6850 beat the 460 and the 6870 beat the 470. that is absolutely astounding. seriously i was just hoping the 6870 would beat the 460 lol add in 200 and 250 for price tags and you have to admit thats a good deal.

it really seems too good to be true. i'm weary lol


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## Kny

The 6800 cards fall all around the 5800 cards in the benchmarks. Pricing is 189USD for the 6850 and 249USD for the 6870.

*for those who didn't load it in time*


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## KBcobra

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Derp* 
Same, the pages went from loading 56k slow to not loading at all. I didn't even get to see the benchmarks







.

5870 and the 6870 are close that's all you need to know







or thats all I got from it up before it died.


----------



## jsmooth

there is also a link to Guru 3d's review of HIS Radeon 6850 & 6870 cards. I would post the link but their website is getting smashed right now and I can't access it.


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## Chisharpe

big price drops on the 5870 then


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## Norlig

The site crashed


----------



## Derp

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kny* 
The 6800 cards fall all around the 5800 cards in the benchmarks. Pricing is 189USD for the 6850 and 249USD for the 6870.

*for those who didn't load it in time*


Quote:


Originally Posted by *KBcobra* 
5870 and the 6870 are close that's all you need to know







or thats all I got from it up before it died.

Thanks, that's impressive!


----------



## Scripped

Quote:


Originally Posted by *soilentblue* 
for some reason i don't think that was suppose to be out yet. date says 22nd. lol if i'm right they could be in a world of trouble.

Time zones.

And yeah the website is overloaded.


----------



## Raiden911

Quote:


Originally Posted by *candy_van* 
Did G3D pull it down? I can't get the links to work anymore.

looks like the site is down....O NO!


----------



## Rocabiliz

For people who can't load the pages:
This is Dirt 2:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

This repeats pretty much itself through the other games. Excellent performance for the 6850 imo!


----------



## tubers

I was just getting to the the very first test then WHAM! It stopped loading xD Hope it comes back soon.


----------



## Chisharpe

how much do we trust this review?


----------



## Skylit

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Rocabiliz* 
For people who can't load the pages:
This is Dirt 2:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

This repeats pretty much itself through the other games. Excellent performance for the 6850 imo!

Well, why don't you look at that scaling...

No wonder these things have 1 CF finger lol


----------



## Exostenza

Looks like guru3d is down :/


----------



## homestyle

did they use old drivers?

I thought the 470 was ~ to the 5870.


----------



## Rocabiliz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chisharpe* 
how much do we trust this review?

Guru3D is for me the best review website out there atm. Pretty trustworthy.


----------



## KBcobra

Any word on tessellation ?


----------



## Rocabiliz

Forgot to mention that the review was very clear that the HD3D or whatever it's called sucks very much, as it lacks all sorts of support at the time. So it's pretty much a useless feature for a normal user.

Can't remember much more right now.


----------



## I am from Caspiar it sunk

Quote:


Originally Posted by *soilentblue* 
for some reason i don't think that was suppose to be out yet. date says 22nd. lol if i'm right they could be in a world of trouble.

It's just tomorrow


----------



## soilentblue

the scaling has the 6870 beating the 5870 in crossfire...........nuts.

if the gap between barts and caymen are as big as the gap between barts and the competition then the 6970 will easily be mine at launch.


----------



## Behemoth777

Server = crashed lol


----------



## Skylit

Quote:


Originally Posted by *soilentblue* 
the scaling has the 6870 beating the 5870 in crossfire...........nuts.

if the gap between barts and caymen are as big as the gap between barts and the competition then the 6970 will easily be mine at launch.

Kinda hard to imagine the scaling on the 69xx series haha


----------



## Darius Silver

A pleasant surprise for sure, but I think I'll wait till a few more reviews and the e-tailers pricing to come out before I hail these the holy grail.

*Edit* I am also do for an upgrade XD


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chisharpe* 
how much do we trust this review?

It is a very good site. You can trust their review.


----------



## Dtrain

Wow we all love information on these cards so much we shut down a website.


----------



## Norlig

Quote:

Whoops sorry,

This article you requested is not yet on-line or you reached an invalid URL. Please click here to load the landing page and select the article you like to read. Our apologies for the inconvenience.
They took the Review down?!!!


----------



## Kasp1js

Looks like it.


----------



## Rocabiliz

AMD hax anyone?







joking.. if they uploaded the review, I would say it was because AMD gave them the green light.. I don't think they would risk doing something behind their back, after they gave them their cards for testing prior to release.


----------



## pursuinginsanity

Those prices look much sweeter than the near-300 USD we saw on Amazon a couple days ago. Looking good.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Well that didn't last long... who saved all the pages?


----------



## Skylit

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp* 
Well that didn't last long... who saved all the pages?

I saved a lot of the first review. ;o


----------



## smoothjk

Darn, I was on page 11 before they took it down. Should've opened on all tabs!

Thanks for the Dirt 2 chart, btw...very useful info! If that is accurate, I will definitely be upgrading from a 4850 to the 6850...seems like some sick bang for the buck with excellent CF for the future. =D


----------



## hokk

Quote:


Originally Posted by *hilbert*
FYI we pulled the Radeon 6800 articles, there was a mixup in NDA time ... are early a couple of hours due to that, and unfortunately the entire world is trying to watch Guru3D.com causing massive overloads.

epic win i think haha


----------



## whitekidney

derp, anyone! pictures! i wanna see this!


----------



## Ubernoobie

im 100% ditching the gtx 460 for the hd5870 now!


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Rocabiliz* 
AMD hax anyone?







joking.. if they uploaded the review, I would say it was because AMD gave them the green light.. I don't think they would risk doing something behind their back, after they gave them their cards for testing prior to release.

could have accidentally loaded it. wouldn't be the first time it's happened to an internet site. i doubt you can just uplift an nda with a phone call or email. it's court appointed.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp* 
Well that didn't last long... who saved all the pages?

lol no it didn't. can't hide the facts though. lowered pricing with much higher performance than last generation can only help the PC community. it's a definite win for gamers on both sides of the fence


----------



## GanjaSMK

Oh man I hope they fix it - there's nearly 100 of us here waiting!


----------



## kellygtp

i gotta see this tooooo


----------



## Shadowclock

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Ubernoobie* 
im 100% ditching the gtx 460 for the hd5870 now!

That's about $100 more at the moment. 6850 I could understand though.


----------



## pursuinginsanity

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp* 
Well that didn't last long... who saved all the pages?

I have the conclusion. Nice summary of everything.


----------



## GanjaSMK

Quote:


Originally Posted by *pursuinginsanity* 
I have the conclusion. Nice summary of everything.









Dump it on Photobucket or something and link us so we can see it!


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

I think we can stand to wait until the review comes back up.


----------



## paulc87

Here ya go

http://www.mediafire.com/?m5qgbb35ysutw1y


----------



## utterfabrication

Managed to get a few pics from history and snipping tool.

Anno 1404 - Dawn of Discovery









Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2









Far Cry 2









Crysis WarHEAD









Metro 2033


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chisharpe* 
how much do we trust this review?

Guru3d? One of my most trusted review sites out of ALL of them. My favorite too, they really have the best looking and most easily read charts.

I'm soooooo excited!! Look at the performance especially compared to the price. The 6870 is almost as fast as a 5870 yet its MSRP is $249.99. The price will only drop too.

I can't wait for CaymentXT, aka 6970. That is the card I am going to buy for sure now.

I can't believe it, on launch drivers the 6850 is neck and neck with the gtx470 yet it costs $190. Amazing stuff.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp* 
Well that didn't last long... who saved all the pages?

I have every page from both reviews.


----------



## whitekidney

Quote:


Originally Posted by *paulc87* 
here ya go

http://www.mediafire.com/?m5qgbb35ysutw1y

love you


----------



## aCe_eXtreME

arrrrgggg

this link is no longer








guess i will look around the comments to see what i missed


----------



## Rocabiliz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *soilentblue* 
could have accidentally loaded it. wouldn't be the first time it's happened to an internet site. i doubt you can just uplift an nda with a phone call or email. it's court appointed.

Yea you're right, apparently that's what happened.. Didn't think about that possibility









Loved the crossfire scaling, definitly an improvement, though I'd say it's still not as good as nvidia's one (in percentage, I mean).


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *paulc87* 
Here ya go

http://www.mediafire.com/?m5qgbb35ysutw1y

Enjoy your banhammer.


----------



## DeadMau5

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
Enjoy your banhammer.

errm, no all he did was upload the complete review in HTML documents

he deserves +1 for his efforts


----------



## sendblink23

My upcoming upgrade woot wooot! 1090t be + CF 6870 =P

Now, who wants my 965BE C3, CF 5770 & 9800GTX+ ???????


----------



## Ice98

lol server fail.


----------



## DeadMau5

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sendblink23* 
My upcoming upgrade woot wooot! 1090t be + CF 6870 =P

Now, who wants my 965BE C3, CF 5770 & 9800GTX+ ???????

PHREE? yes please









i can't wait for Cayman or Antilles


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
Enjoy your banhammer.

Uh, what? There's nothing but the review in there.


----------



## supra_rz

lol?

Quote:

Whoops sorry,

This article you requested is not yet on-line or you reached an invalid URL. Please click here to load the landing page and select the article you like to read. Our apologies for the inconvenience.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DeadMau5* 
errm, no all he did was upload the complete review in HTML documents

he deserves +1 for his efforts


Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp* 
Uh, what? There's nothing but the review in there.

Wait what?

There was a .RAR containing like 13 porn clips.


----------



## Rocabiliz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
Wait what?

There was a .RAR containing like 13 porn clips.

No there wasn't







guess you opened the wrong .rar...


----------



## SkillzKillz

Well anyways, I've uploaded both the HD6850/6870 Review and CF Review on MU.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U084ZROW


----------



## BinaryBird

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
Wait what?

There was a .RAR containing like 13 porn clips.

It contained just html files.


----------



## utterfabrication

Looks like the review is working again.


----------



## BinaryBird

Quote:


Originally Posted by *utterfabrication* 
Looks like the review is working again.

Yup its working.


----------



## nvidiagamer

If the 6870 is going for $250 I wonder how much the 6970 is going to be? If they can keep the price under $400, like $350 and it's performance is amazing. I'm sold, I'll get one.


----------



## Poontun

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...=56&subid=1866 starting to get posted on some Websites now.
Pretty awesome value from what i've seen


----------



## Rocabiliz

I'm really wondering what's going to happen to 5850 and 5870's prices after this.. 5870's for 200â‚¬?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

The 6870s are the cards to get at this moment. I knew the good looking cards performed the best







. Every card just got butchered except for the GTX 480 and HD 5970 and that for two midrange cards. Simply amazing or stunning.

It does make me wonder about the results of the older cards though. I can't remember that the HD 5850, GTX 470 and HD 5870 were that far away from each other performance wise.

I'm still waiting for the Anandtech review so I can see what's underneath the hood of those Barts GPUs


----------



## CAHOP240

Seems like 6850 crossfire is the way to go right now....can't wait to see what the 6900 series has in store. If the performance gap is the same as in the 5800/5700 series, I'll finally be able to retire my 4870X2 which has served me well these past few years.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Mhmmm, I can't decide between the HD 6850 and the HD 6870. The 6850 overclocks like a beast, as someone was able to achieve 1030mhz stable on stock cooling. It also provides best $/performance right now. However, the 6870 runs cooler & quieter at the expense of 1.5".

I can either get one 6850 now and CF once I change my board, or just buy one 6870. This will depend on how they are priced in Canada.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
The 6870s are the cards to get at this moment. I knew the good looking cards performed the best







. Every card just got butchered except for the GTX 480 and HD 5970 and that for two midrange cards. Simply amazing or stunning.

It does make me wonder about the results of the older cards though. I can't remember that the HD 5850, GTX 470 and HD 5870 were that far away from each other performance wise.

I'm still waiting for the Anandtech review so I can see what's underneath the hood of those Barts GPUs










Quote:


Originally Posted by *CAHOP240* 
Seems like 6850 crossfire is the way to go right now....can't wait to see what the 6900 series has in store. If the performance gap is the same as in the 5800/5700 series, I'll finally be able to retire my 4870X2 which has served me well these past few years.

Lol, mixed reviews.


----------



## Rocabiliz

Actually, I'd say that the card to get is the 6850.. With a lower frequency, there's a bigger overclocking window (in the review they go it to ~900mhz, and the performance was the same as the 6870). And it costs quite a bit less obviously.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
Mhmmm, I can't decide between the HD 6850 and the HD 6870. The 6850 overclocks like a beast, as someone was able to achieve 1030mhz stable on stock cooling. It also provides best $/performance right now.

I can either get one 6850 now and CF once I change my board, or just buy one 6870. This will depend on how they are priced in Canada.

Get the HD 6870, you'll want the full core









Besides at times there's a pretty big difference between the two.


----------



## Skylit

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
Mhmmm, I can't decide between the HD 6850 and the HD 6870. *The 6850 overclocks like a beast, as someone was able to achieve 1030mhz stable on stock cooling*. It also provides best $/performance right now. However, the 6870 runs cooler & quieter at the expense of 1.5".

I can either get one 6850 now and CF once I change my board, or just buy one 6870. This will depend on how they are priced in Canada.

Lol, mixed reviews.










Lemme remind you that that was the Asus model with dual 6 pin connectors.

I doubt the standard model will be able to hit anywhere close to 1 Ghz core.


----------



## hs101

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
Wait what?

There was a .RAR containing like 13 porn clips.

Huh, I think you downloaded the wrong thing.


----------



## amstech

Lol the new 5770 rivals a GTX 470.
Nice.


----------



## Rocabiliz

Overprice is cool! 6850 is selling at 249â‚¬ here in Portugal right now.. About 350 us dollars :\\


----------



## nagle3092

Wow these are looking better and better.


----------



## Kevlo

I find this pretty impressive, so if the prices are true (Or remain true) then this could be an awesome card, i was really impressd that it beat teh 470 or matched it in most thigns(the 6870). Now i am really anxous to see the 69xx


----------



## nascasho

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kevlo* 
I find this pretty impressive, so if the prices are true (Or remain true) then this could be an awesome card, i was really impressd that it beat teh 470 or matched it in most thigns(the 6870). Now i am really anxous to see the 69xx

Yeah same. If those cards are that quick I'll be amazed at the 6970's. Then imagine two of those cores on a 6990...


----------



## SC2pro

performance is amazing! less than 250$ for the 6870 and it performs as well as a GTX 470. and im also really surprise with the CrossfireX performance.its very solid


----------



## Kevlo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nascasho* 
Yeah same. If those cards are that quick I'll be amazed at the 6970's. Then imagine two of those cores on a 6990...









I am man enough to say that thinking of that just have me a mind-gasm...


----------



## E_man

Hmm, doesn't look like an upgrade card for 58xx users. Even the performance from the overclock they got on the 6870 isn't as good as a lot of 5850 overclocks. No really interesting new features either.

They are a great card, don't get me wrong, I was just hoping for a little more, mainly in the feature department.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Seeing as the HD 6870 trumps a GTX 470, HD 5850, and sometimes comes near a 5870, this will be the card that I'll be getting. It will easily max all my games at 1080p. I'm just a bit worried about the overclocking headroom. Hopefully it will be able to achieve 1050mhz + on the core. I'm also praying for the price adjustment rumors to be true, since Nvidia will be dropping their prices in retaliation.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *E_man* 
Hmm, doesn't look like an upgrade card for 58xx users. Even the performance from the overclock they got on the 6870 isn't as good as a lot of 5850 overclocks. No really interesting new features either.

They are a great card, don't get me wrong, I was just hoping for a little more, mainly in the feature department.

It was never supposed to be. The upgrade for 5xxx users comes with Cayman, HD 69xx.


----------



## tubers

Sorry and thanks for the mod/s who fixed my post.


----------



## Frank08

Wow, I'm really liking the price of the 6850, hopefully retailers won't drive the price up.


----------



## Willhemmens

and artical down.


----------



## mr soft

Quote:

Whoops sorry,

This article you requested is not yet on-line or you reached an invalid URL. Please click here to load the landing page and select the article you like to read. Our apologies for the inconvenience.
I think it got pulled.


----------



## MSCARD02

Man looks like the killed the article. RIGHT when i was going to the benchmarks. Could someone please post a summary of how it did in crossfire and single card?


----------



## Tommie

Quote:


Originally Posted by *E_man* 
Hmm, doesn't look like an upgrade card for 58xx users. Even the performance from the overclock they got on the 6870 isn't as good as a lot of 5850 overclocks. No really interesting new features either.

They are a great card, don't get me wrong, I was just hoping for a little more, mainly in the feature department.

There will be a bigger one, you know?
This is the mid end. There will be high end. This is 5870 performance for 210 euros. What more can one ask?
If you have a 5800 series card There is no need to upgrade offcourse. But thats normal. Skipping 1 generation is usually wise.


----------



## dreadlord369

... Dammit, I was just getting to the overclocking pages....


----------



## nagle3092

I think the article has been pulled.........or is it just me? I wanted to see what drivers they where running. Did anyone catch that?


----------



## CJRhoades

Oh great, I just got though reading the first page and they took it down.


----------



## twich12

crap i was about to get to benchmarks


----------



## DannyB0y

Quote:


Originally Posted by *dreadlord369* 
... Dammit, I was just getting to the overclocking pages....

Same..


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Willhemmens* 
and artical down.


Quote:


Originally Posted by *mr soft* 
I think it got pulled.


Quote:


Originally Posted by *MSCARD02* 
Man looks like the killed the article. RIGHT when i was going to the benchmarks. Could someone please post a summary of how it did in crossfire and single card?


Quote:


Originally Posted by *dreadlord369* 
... Dammit, I was just getting to the overclocking pages....


Quote:


Originally Posted by *nagle3092* 
I think the article has been pulled.........or is it just me? I wanted to see what drivers they where running. Did anyone catch that?


Quote:


Originally Posted by *CJRhoades* 
Oh great, I just got though reading the first page and they took it down.


Quote:


Originally Posted by *twich12* 
crap i was about to get to benchmarks









I've uploaded both the Single card and CF reviews to MU:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U084ZROW

Enjoy.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *E_man* 
Hmm, doesn't look like an upgrade card for 58xx users. Even the performance from the overclock they got on the 6870 isn't as good as a lot of 5850 overclocks. No really interesting new features either.

They are a great card, don't get me wrong, I was just hoping for a little more, mainly in the feature department.

With those expectations you should look forward to the 6970.The 6870 was never meant to be an upgrade for the 5850. Especially since if you already own an HD 5850, you can just clock the core to 900MHz and have the same results.

These cards are extremely interesting for people building a new system with (two of) these cards.


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


Originally Posted by *E_man* 
Hmm, doesn't look like an upgrade card for 58xx users. Even the performance from the overclock they got on the 6870 isn't as good as a lot of 5850 overclocks. No really interesting new features either.

They are a great card, don't get me wrong, I was just hoping for a little more, mainly in the feature department.

Yeah, but look at the price. The cheapest 5870 is currently $340, the 6870 which is nearly as fast is $250. $90 cheaper and almost as fast. There aren't really many features to add besides 3d anyway.

The 6870 with launch drivers is _faster_ than a gtx470 yet $10 cheaper than the cheapest gtx470.


----------



## CAHOP240

go through the thread, people saved the review and posted them as html pages. You'll be able to view the benchmarks. I'm looking at them right now. It's amazing how a $180 card now matches my once $440 card in Crysis.


----------



## Gnomepatrol

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Mygaffer* 
Yeah, but look at the price. The cheapest 5870 is currently $340, the 6870 which is nearly as fast is $250. $90 cheaper and almost as fast. There aren't really many features to add besides 3d anyway.

The 6870 with launch drivers is _faster_ than a gtx470 yet $10 cheaper than the cheapest gtx470.

I wonder though since most of the leaked prices from amazon to other online Etailers were 279-290 for the 6870


----------



## MSCARD02

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
I've uploaded both the Single card and CF reviews to MU:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U084ZROW

Enjoy.










Thank you so much!!








+Rep!


----------



## RotaryKnight

man...this card seems like a major upgrade from my 4890 lol
Loving the performance
But I am also interested in UVD 3.0 and the APP


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
With those expectations you should look forward to the 6970.The 6870 was never meant to be an upgrade for the 5850. Especially since if you already own an HD 5850, you can just clock the core to 900MHz and have the same results.

These cards are extremely interesting for people building a new system with (two of) these cards.

The problem with people who say, "You can just overclock the lesser card and it will perform like the better card" is that they never take into account the fact that if you can overclock one card, i.e. a 5850, then you can also overclock the other card, i.e. the 6870, which means there is still that performance gap.


----------



## Man O' War

There are a lot of posts...

But did anyone notice that it was a render picture?


----------



## captain_clayman

ehhhh

i'm just gonna stick with gtx 460's still, these arent too convincing, especially because they arent any better for dx11 than the 5xxx series.


----------



## Willhemmens

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
I've uploaded both the Single card and CF reviews to MU:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U084ZROW

Enjoy.









Tested and working, thanks alot!!!


----------



## sandman64

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Mygaffer* 
The problem with people who say, "You can just overclock the lesser card and it will perform like the better card" is that they never take into account the fact that if you can overclock one card, i.e. a 5850, then you can also overclock the other card, i.e. the 6870, which means there is still that performance gap.

I get what you are saying and I would agree with you normally, however in the case of the 6870 (according to the leaked Guru3D article), it actually a very poor overclocker. It could be just their sample, but I guess we will find out when more articles appear.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sandman64* 
I get what you are saying and I would agree with you normally, however in the case of the 6870 (according to the leaked Guru3D article), it actually a very poor overclocker. It could be just their sample, but I guess we will find out when more articles appear.

Guru3D just fails at overclocking.

OCN will take care of that, no worries.


----------



## Skylit

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sandman64* 
I get what you are saying and I would agree with you normally, however in the case of the 6870 (according to the leaked Guru3D article), it actually a very poor overclocker. It could be just their sample, but I guess we will find out when more articles appear.

IIRC, they couldn't change the voltage/increase VID. Meaning, they were at the limits of whatever the card defaulted at.

The non reference Asus 6850 looks like a beast. (hit 1030 core)


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Mygaffer* 
The problem with people who say, "You can just overclock the lesser card and it will perform like the better card" is that they never take into account the fact that if you can overclock one card, i.e. a 5850, then you can also overclock the other card, i.e. the 6870, which means there is still that performance gap.

It's not a problem just circuit logic (behavior of transistors)









Quote:


Originally Posted by *sandman64* 
I get what you are saying and I would agree with you normally, however in the case of the 6870 (according to the leaked Guru3D article), it actually a very poor overclocker. It could be just their sample, but I guess we will find out when more articles appear.

Answer given here, though there might be some improvement after voltage tweaking. But an HD 5850 can do that too.


----------



## Frank08

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sandman64* 
I get what you are saying and I would agree with you normally, however in the case of the 6870 (according to the leaked Guru3D article), it actually a very poor overclocker. It could be just their sample, but I guess we will find out when more articles appear.

When they overclocked the cards, they didn't use any voltage tweaks. So over sites will probably post better results.


----------



## Kevlo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *captain_clayman* 
ehhhh

i'm just gonna stick with gtx 460's still, these arent too convincing, especially because they arent any better for dx11 than the 5xxx series.

there was one Dx11 benchmark and they were better, about on par with the 470


----------



## dir_d

wow the GTX470s prices dropped....Shows that NVidia must have nothing coming out soon to compete with the 6870. The scaling is amazing i would love to see more reviews but the 6870 is a winner.


----------



## youra6

The 6870 definitely looks very promising and the drivers do look decent. For those who say that the 6870 is as fast as the 470, you are wrong. In many of these tests, they are indeed _faster_ than the 470 A (due to its insanely high 900 core clock).

Which brings another concern... How well can it overclock? If the 6870 can overclock well, it will for sure dominate the 470. However if it cant, then I would say the 470 would have a slight edge in terms of performance only.

Either way, the 6870 is the better price/watt card *by far* And this is coming from a huge Nvidia fan.

And to those who say that the editor of the article used stock results from previous tests, its not true. If you look at the old GTX 470 and 480 review, they come up with different results. So its not just recycled benchmarks.

Nvidia should be very worried right now. ATI's mid range cards are besting Nvidia's high end cards. It should be interesting to see how Nvidia reacts.


----------



## sandman64

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Frank08* 
When they overclocked the cards, they didn't use any voltage tweaks. So over sites will probably post better results.

Oh ok, I get what you all (who replied to me) are saying. Then I can't wait for some other reviews with proper overclocking! I haven't gotten a best-bang-for-buck card since...well you can look at what I own on my current rig!

This is the best Mid-range price war that I have seen for a while...whatever the outcome.

I will have an itchy trigger finger come Black Friday...


----------



## SkillzKillz

Still, with Nvidia dropping their prices I think the HD 6870 fits better at $230.


----------



## GTR Mclaren

6870 here I come


----------



## arioscrimson

I forgot how many times I changed my pants...mind boggling.

So who wants my 4870x2?


----------



## nascasho

Quote:


Originally Posted by *arioscrimson* 
I forgot how many times I changed my pants...mind boggling.

So who wants my 4870x2?

For free?


----------



## Hildolf

Wow, the scaling of the 6870 in CF is pretty crazy. If the rough prices on wikipedia ($249) are anything to go by and the prices over here hold true to that, I may just grab two of these bad boys for my first ever CF setup.


----------



## nagle3092

I'm willing to trade my wife for 2 6870's, any takers?


----------



## Fb74

Pre-command (not in stock) on french site:

HD6850: 171,89 € TTC
http://www.materiel.net/ctl/Cartes_g..._6850_1Go.html

HD6870: 228,99 € TTC
http://www.materiel.net/ctl/Cartes_g..._6870_1Go.html

*Reliable* shop.

I don't know if prices have been given before.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nagle3092* 
I'm willing to trade my wife for 2 6870's, any takers?

Bra size?


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Link does not work for me.


----------



## nascasho

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nagle3092* 
I'm willing to trade my wife for 2 6870's, any takers?

Does she overclock well?


----------



## DIABLOS

Apparently AMD contacted some retailors in the U.K to say that the release price will be Â£20 cheaper for for 6870 so the cheapest retails for Â£200 here in the U.Kin reaction to Nvidia dropping their prices so the prices might be even cheaper then you exspect tomorrow when they are released in the U.S


----------



## muselmane

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nascasho* 
Does she overclock well?

made my day


----------



## Kevlo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nagle3092* 
I'm willing to trade my wife for 2 6870's, any takers?

Pics or it didnt happen....and does she...well ya know (XD Joke)


----------



## Obakemono

Links down again


----------



## nagle3092

Big, yes and yes. Any takers?


----------



## Seann

Looking good, this has made me more excited too see what type of performance increases the 69XX will bring.


----------



## Chisharpe

Do we know which Cards will have voltage tweak?


----------



## Yvese

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Seann* 
Looking good, this has made me more excited too see what type of performance increases the 69XX will bring.

It's truly a mystery. I can only dream that it's 40-50% faster than the 5870. It honestly looks very possible considering the 5870 itself is already so close to 5870 speeds.


----------



## hydroman

These go on sale tomorrow?


----------



## Kevlo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nagle3092* 
Big, yes and yes. Any takers?

pmed Joke


----------



## Chisharpe

Oc uk has them for sale tomorrow


----------



## BlackHoleSon

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Derp* 
lol their website is getting hammered.

How do you do that? Pour alcohol on the server? I wish I knew how to get a website hammered, then I could probably convince it to tell me the moderator's passwords.


----------



## fssbzz

You Tube





Quote:

AMD announced the launch of their Radeon HD 6000 series tomorrow, and already has two versions of the card available: the Radeon HD 6850 and the Radeon HD 6870.

We got a sneak peek last week at AMD's 6000 series launch party in Los Angeles, and we want to share some of our exclusive footage and interviews with our YouTube fans. Enjoy!


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *BlackHoleSon* 
How do you do that? Pour alcohol on the server? I wish I knew how to get a website hammered, then I could probably convince it to tell me the moderator's passwords.

The word has a double meaning









http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hammered


----------



## Modki

I miss my old 6800...


----------



## NameUnknown

hmm
still not sure if want, only 2 cards is rather limiting :\\


----------



## fssbzz

sapphire said they will include the new kind of Display Adapter with the Card


----------



## test tube

more mirrors

Single card review: http://www.zi0x.net/6800/
Crossfire review: http://www.zi0x.net/6800cfx/

screens:
bc2 http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/3276/bfbc2c.png
crysis http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/663/warhead.png

Quote:

The 6870 is:
GTS 450 die size
GTX 460 power draw
GTX 470 performance


----------



## Enfluenza

the link dont work!
wth? i am dissapoint


----------



## SkillzKillz

The full download is on page 12. =/


----------



## test tube

It doesn't have graphs tho, I posted a couple on the previous page


----------



## RideZiLightning

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Yvese* 
It's truly a mystery. I can only dream that it's 40-50% faster than the 5870. It honestly looks very possible considering the 5870 itself is already so close to 5870 speeds.

I sure hope the 5870 is close to 5870 speeds


----------



## Joining

Well at least the 460/470 prices will drop


----------



## KBcobra

repost


----------



## aznofazns

Looks like I know what I'm upgrading to.









Here's hoping slickdeals will find a 6870 for $200 in the next few months.


----------



## Setzer

The articles are down.

They should be up, it's the 22nd now


----------



## aCe_eXtreME

man wish i was there,

that guy who reviews sucks... he kept eying the food on the table. haha

well cant wait to get me one, wish i could pre order mine....


----------



## aznofazns

Did anyone just get an Amazon email advertising the 6870 and 6850? Those prices do not look promising...










The links are broken, though. Must've been taken down as well.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Prices are too high for my liking. Thy should be what HD5750/5770 were when they came out.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Prices looking steep on Amazon. I'm actually happy the gap between the HD 6850 and HD 6870 isn't too much. It makes my decision much easier.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *test tube* 
It doesn't have graphs tho, I posted a couple on the previous page

Clearly displays graphs on my PC. You need Adobe Flash player to view them btw.


----------



## Obakemono

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nagle3092* 
I'm willing to trade my wife for 2 6870's, any takers?

Better not let her see this post or you will come home from work one day and find your computer in the front yard on fire.


----------



## BlackHoleSon

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
The word has a double meaning









http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hammered

I know I was kidding....


----------



## GTR Mclaren

Quote:


Originally Posted by *aznofazns* 
Did anyone just get an Amazon email advertising the 6870 and 6850? Those prices do not look promising...










The links are broken, though. Must've been taken down as well.

damn....


----------



## aznofazns

Amazon.com: ASUS AMD Radeon HD 6870 1 GB GDDR5 Video Card EAH6870/2DI2S/1GD5: Electronics: Reviews, Prices & more

 Amazon.com: XFX HD 6850 775M 1 GB DDR5 Graphics Card HD685XZNFC: Electronics: Reviews, Prices & more


----------



## NrGx

HD6850 for $249 and HD6870 for $319 in Australia. Not bad pricing actually...but considering the price of the GTX460 now not worth it.


----------



## KamuiRSX

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Setzer*


The articles are down.

They should be up, it's the 22nd now


Depends on what time zone they are running. My guess would be either midnight EST or PST.


----------



## Vegetables

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Setzer*


The articles are down.

They should be up, it's the 22nd now


Not in the only place that matters on the planet, the USA USA USA!


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:



Originally Posted by *KamuiRSX*


Depends on what time zone they are running. My guess would be either midnight EST or PST.


GMT+1 (Netherlands).


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *aznofazns* 
Amazon.com: ASUS AMD Radeon HD 6870 1 GB GDDR5 Video Card EAH6870/2DI2S/1GD5: Electronics: Reviews, Prices & more

Amazon.com: XFX HD 6850 775M 1 GB DDR5 Graphics Card HD685XZNFC: Electronics: Reviews, Prices & more

The Asus for $258 with free shipping is not a bad deal.

I still think actual retail price won't be more than $249.99. Though I feel it deserves to be at $229.99 to compete with the Nvidia price drops.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Modki*


I miss my old 6800...


I miss both of my 6800GS' now.


----------



## PsikyoJebus

Wow, those numbers are insane. It's too bad I have this 5850 on me right now and don't feel like upgrading.....unless cayman's numbers are truly impressive. AMD seems to be on the ball with this stuff!


----------



## Jeff2090

They look really good cards. My gtx 460 now doesn't look as the deal card when i got it 3 months ago. Still really happy with it.


----------



## DrFPS

Its translated.
http://translate.google.com/translat...ate.google.com


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Too many cards @ ~ same performance can not be too good.


----------



## WorldExclusive

I thought we were done with the Heaven Benchmarks. It's not a realistic way to compare video cards.


----------



## spice003

6870 and 460 about the same performance, that simulator looks sick.


----------



## GanjaSMK

Thanks for those mirrored links - that's awesome.


----------



## spice003

did i make a mistake buying another 460?


----------



## DrFPS

Quote:



Originally Posted by *WorldExclusive*


I thought we were done with the Heaven Benchmarks. It's not a realistic way to compare video cards.


Well if it's called a benchmark. I disagree its very realistic for dx11 and tessellation.
As far as (we) being done with. There is haven2.1 sticky thread, in the over clocking section, so I guess that would be no.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *spice003*


did i make a mistake buying another 460?


Well you never know but looking at HD 6870 the 900Mhz scares me because it does not leave much room left for OC. GTX460 can overclock a lot so you are fine.


----------



## dir_d

no be happy with what you got


----------



## USFORCES

Quote:



Originally Posted by *WorldExclusive*


I thought we were done with the Heaven Benchmarks. It's not a realistic way to compare video cards.


I know right, LOL


----------



## Nick7269

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DrFPS* 
Its translated.
http://translate.google.com/translat...ate.google.com










That must be coded for Nvidia or something. That is just one picture of one graph that shows nvidia is optimized for that and AMD is not. Lets see some pictures of something optimized for AMD and not nvidia.


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


Originally Posted by *spice003* 
did i make a mistake buying another 460?

Are you within the return period?


----------



## CAHOP240

Quote:



Originally Posted by *spice003*


did i make a mistake buying another 460?


No....you'll have a setup that can max out any game to date. That's what really matters.


----------



## nardox

Wow...6870CF beat 5870CF in Bad Company 2...that's pretty impressive


----------



## dantoddd

Hey guys the links aren't working


----------



## Behemoth777

Can't.. Wait!


----------



## Brenslick

Quote:



Originally Posted by *spice003*


did i make a mistake buying another 460?


LOL did i make a mistake buying yours? jk lol, from another news post it looks like the 6850 is actually gonna be more in the $220-$230 range rather than sub 200, so the 460s still have a good bang for buck, and with another price drop from nvidia, the 460 wont die anytime soon, its the 470 and the 480 that are in danger when the 6900s hit. So all in all, dont regret that 460 cuz it still performs well and is worth the price, i dont regret buying ur older one.


----------



## EastCoast

Quote:



Originally Posted by *spice003*


did i make a mistake buying another 460?


If it's a recent purchase then yes, it was a mistake. You are suppose to wait until new hardware is released before you go and buy. Because the new hardware maybe better and competively priced. On the other side it may force the hardware you want to reduce it's price. In which both is the case here.


----------



## un-nefer

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nardox* 
Wow...6870CF beat 5870CF in Bad Company 2...that's pretty impressive

Until the review is back up and they say they redid the benchmarks for the 58xx series using the latest drivers, take the compared results with a pinch of salt.

If the results for the 58xx series cards are those from their older review using the older drivers, and the 68xx series results are using the current drivers, then it is a pointless comparison.

HardOCP showed that a 5870 in crossfire running 10.8 drivers and profiles (or later) had a 40%-70% performance increase over the older drivers and profiles before 10.8.

Add 40%-70% to the 5870 cf results show in the 68xx series crossfire screenshots, and the 5870 in crossfire should be up between 120fps and 150fps - and that is crap load better then the 89fps of the 6870.


----------



## CAHOP240

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EastCoast* 
If it's a recent purchase then yes, it was a mistake. You are suppose to wait until new hardware is released before you go and buy. Because the new hardware maybe better and competively priced. On the other side it may force the hardware you want to reduce it's price. In which both is the case here.

If that was the case, everyone would be in a constant state of "waiting" since new hardware seems to be coming out every 6 months. I say go with what you know and be happy with what you have. 460's in SLI still maxes out any game out there and by the time a game comes along that requires more horsepower, a newer card will be out so either way, he's fine.


----------



## NrGx

I want a nice looking HD6850 on the market. The Sapphire one looks like crap.

http://www.zi0x.net/6800/23.htm - Mirrored link to the conclusion.


----------



## EastCoast

Quote:



Originally Posted by *CAHOP240*


If that was the case, everyone would be in a constant state of "waiting" since new hardware seems to be coming out every 6 months. I say go with what you know and be happy with what you have. 460's in SLI still maxes out any game out there and by the time a game comes along that requires more horsepower, a newer card will be out so either way, he's fine.


No, there is no constant state of waiting if a release of the 6800 series is within days or a few weeks of release, for example.


----------



## mothergoose729

Why are the heaven results shocking? The 6850 and the 6870 are supposed to be about the performance of a 5850 and 5870. When the 6900 cards come out AMD will be competing in tessellation and compute performance to Nvidia.


----------



## un-nefer

Quote:



Originally Posted by *EastCoast*


No, there is no constant state of waiting if a release of the 6800 series is within days or a few weeks of release, for example.


A shop in AU has them scheduled for presale now and has a listed ETA of 25 October 2010.

So it looks like it isn't that far away until cards will begin to be shipped to customers - 3 days until 25 October, and then shipping time - so possibly as soon as 5 days, or before next weekend


----------



## dantoddd

so....

Where does Nvidia go from here? They will have to do something soon other wise. AMD will wipe the floor with them.


----------



## PureLogic

LOL this is from facebook. some individuals already have them even though their not being sold yet.


----------



## Brenslick

Quote:



Originally Posted by *NrGx*


I want a nice looking HD6850 on the market. The Sapphire one looks like crap.

http://www.zi0x.net/6800/23.htm - Mirrored link to the conclusion.


they say the 6850 is going to be priced at 189? if it is, ill sell the 460 i just bought to my brother for cheap and swallow my pride and spend extra money to get a 6850, but if it is around $220 like the amazon emails show, then its not worth the extra price over the 155 i paid. Anybody have any more insight on pricing of these cards? i dont know if i can handle waiting 3 more hours lol...


----------



## spice003

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


Well you never know but looking at HD 6870 the 900Mhz scares me because it does not leave much room left for OC. GTX460 can overclock a lot so you are fine.



Quote:



Originally Posted by *Mygaffer*


Are you within the return period?



Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brenslick*


LOL did i make a mistake buying yours? jk lol, from another news post it looks like the 6850 is actually gonna be more in the $220-$230 range rather than sub 200, so the 460s still have a good bang for buck, and with another price drop from nvidia, the 460 wont die anytime soon, its the 470 and the 480 that are in danger when the 6900s hit. So all in all, dont regret that 460 cuz it still performs well and is worth the price, i dont regret buying ur older one.



Quote:



Originally Posted by *EastCoast*


If it's a recent purchase then yes, it was a mistake. You are suppose to wait until new hardware is released before you go and buy. Because the new hardware maybe better and competively priced. On the other side it may force the hardware you want to reduce it's price. In which both is the case here.


i'm gonna SLI the 460s, and they were both open box plus i only paid $80 for the second one,i think they should hold me off till summer.


----------



## Mr.FraG

I'm thinking on buying NOW he HD6870 it shows available on one store at my country. Probaly tomorrow they will receive it








Is the Spahire model, should i wait? i rember me waiting for the 8800GT and they go out of stock for a month... xD


----------



## Morizuno

Should I buy sli'd gtx 470s now, or crossfire 6870s D:. What performs better?

decisions man


----------



## SlaveOnDope

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D=3332167&SID=
Newegg listing 68xx;s


----------



## Kand

No overclocks. Fair price, 250 bucks though, I'd rather buy these bad boys still. =D

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-500-_-Product


----------



## Frank08

Now, what's AMD gonna do with the 5850 and 5870? Are they gonna lower the price or fade them out of production?


----------



## GTR Mclaren

6870...239 in newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...06000%20series

epic win


----------



## hydroman

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SlaveOnDope*


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D=3332167&SID=
Newegg listing 68xx;s


No reference versions of the 6850s?


----------



## Skylit

Quote:



Originally Posted by *GTR Mclaren*


6870...239 in newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...06000%20series

epic win


I like Asus' basic stickers lol


----------



## SlaveOnDope

Quote:

A little over a year ago, AMD released the ATI Radeon HD 5000 family of graphics products and by doing so, AMD became the first company to offer DirectX 11 compatibility when Windows 7 was launched. This was a big deal and over the past year AMD has successfully released eleven video cards in the Radeon HD 5000 series and sold more than 25 million DX11 video cards. What is really interesting is that NVIDIA is still releasing more cards in their GeForce 400 series of products. NVIDIA has just five DirectX 11 cards released and the company still does not have a solid top-to-bottom DirectX 11 product stack like AMD does. AMD on the other hand is going to be releasing their next generation of GPUs today! The first two cards that are being released are the AMD Radeon HD 6870 and AMD Radeon HD 6850 graphics cards. Unlike in past years AMD won't be starting with their flagship video cards, but rather a pair of cards that are positioned in the â€œGamersâ€™ Sweet Spotâ€ as they like to call it.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1445/1/


----------



## bainne

First of many I suspect










Quote:

The HD 5800 series cards have been very popular but their time in the market is coming to an end. Today marks the release of AMDâ€™s new HD 6870 1GB and HD 6850 1GB GPUs. These are products which will be the first step towards â€œrefreshingâ€ the entire Radeon graphics lineup from top to bottom. Considering the heavy competition from the likes of NVIDIAâ€™s GTX 460 1GB and 768MB cards, the first of the HD 6000 series will definitely have their work cut out for them.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...50-review.html


----------



## Deathspawner

_It's been a long time coming, but gamers can finally relax... AMD's Radeon HD 6800 graphics cards are finally here. They may still be built upon a 40nm process, but AMD has brought a lot to the table here. We set out to see how the HD 6850 and HD 6870 compare to their closest competition, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 460 and GTX 470._

Techgage


----------



## RobotDevil666

Those are great results








Man i'm pissed off now i just got my GTX480 2 weeks ago








Should have waited ............


----------



## Domino

Hurry, drop the 5850 prices!


----------



## Kand

No overclock.


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:



AMD launched 11 Radeon 5000-series GPUs through a five-month spell from September 2009 to January 2010. Starting off with the high-end Cypress-based duo of Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850, AMD provided consumers with compelling reasons to purchase Radeon hardware. Now more than a year after launch and with NVIDIA's competing Fermi GPUs populating practically all pricing segments of the discrete graphics-card market, giving enthusiasts the all-important choice, AMD's cards remain very competitive.


Source


----------



## kora04

*6870
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6870/
6850 Direct 
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...850_Direct_Cu/
6850
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6850/

6870CFX
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...870_CrossFire/
6850 CFX
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...850_CrossFire/
*
read along

too many to list.


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Domino*


Hurry, drop the 5850 prices!


5850 Twin-Frozr's $195 with MIR!


----------



## Kand

Pff. Just a 70Mhz Overclock on the 6870. It seems like the 6850 when OC'd is a great bang for buck.


----------



## Domino

GTX 470 FOR THE PRICE OF 239!!!!!!!!!!!

































































Hopefully the 5850 will come down in price!

*edit:* looking at the chart there, the 6970, a single gpu, is suppose to be near equilivant to the 5970! OMGOSH.


----------



## Kand

Welp. Wow. Looks like you can only barely overclock the 6870's.


----------



## kora04

nvm. wrong box.


----------



## Domino

1'000 points higher from an overclock. nice.


----------



## Slinkman

underwhelming to say the least


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Thread merges performed; reopened.







If you see a new article that doesn't exist in this thread yet, post it here.


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp*


Thread merges performed; reopened.







If you see a new article that doesn't exist in this thread yet, post it here.


.....

Update your first post with links to the other reviews out...


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


.....

Update your first post with links to the other reviews out... Since yours are dead.


All right.


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp*


All right.


No wait, they're back up now. They were dead earlier. Though, it would be great if you did anyways. Save other posters from running through the thread just to find other reviews.


----------



## Confessed

You Tube


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Confessed*


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYffbNvQgyQ


Disassemble that and you get glorified EGG COOLER. UGH.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


No wait, they're back up now. They were dead earlier. Though, it would be great if you did anyways. Save other posters from running through the thread just to find other reviews.


Done.


----------



## Confessed

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


Disassemble that and you get glorified EGG COOLER. UGH.


Yep. Egg cooler's fan died to I had to ghetto mod a 92mm fan over the XFX shroud.


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Confessed*


Yep. Egg cooler's fan died to I had to ghetto mod a 92mm fan over the XFX shroud.


I call it XFX being cheap so early in the release.


----------



## The-Beast

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


Welp. Wow. Looks like you can only barely overclock the 6870's.


Saw a 975 with engineering sample on stock voltages.


----------



## SlaveOnDope

Scaling doesnt look as good compared to the 5850's I run


----------



## Lxcivic2k1

Those 6870 CF results are awesome! Almost 100% scaling!


----------



## cky2k6

I love how guru3d says its just a tweak of the 5xxx series when an 1120 shader 6870 is beating down a 1440 shader 5850 with much better tesselation... I think going to 4 complex shaders is a pretty big step.


----------



## resolve

Hard|OCP Review of the 6870 and 6850 is up:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/...eo_card_review


----------



## Redwoodz

Now we know why the name change,and now we now why the nvidia price drop...epic win ATI!


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:



Originally Posted by *resolve*


Hard|OCP Review of the 6870 and 6850 is up:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/...eo_card_review


Added.


----------



## pistons50

Unboxing:

  
 You Tube


----------



## XAslanX

That's it my next card is a 6850, 5850 performance for $100 less, what isn't there to like about that?


----------



## dir_d

Well it will be a couple weeks till we see a 1050mhz+ 6870. I think 1050 should be about a 15% increase which is almost enough to compete with a stock 480 which is great for a card coming in at 249.


----------



## twich12

it looks like the 6870 is more of a competition for the GTX470 than the GTX460... sure hope new CCC will improve performance for the 5xxx series as well!


----------



## Skylit

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...idrange-market

gogo


----------



## KamuiRSX

I love that TPU put the GTX 295 into the mix

That 6870 is looking really promising.

Now everyone cheer with me

/cheer Come on AMD, PRICE drops on this sucker in time for the Bulldozer and 9 series chipset launch!!!


----------



## Ihatethedukes

I don't mean to be 'bashy' but, nV must be rreeeeeeeaaally nervous when a pair of what will be mid range cards actually brush with SLI 480's in a few games...


----------



## DXcellence718

here's the 6870 review, and it looks like it can dance with my 470 good move ati
Cant wait to see the high end gpus to see how it compares to nvidia's Fire God the 480 lol

  
 You Tube


----------



## dezshiz

Yep.. my next build will include the awesome AMD 6850!!!


----------



## gerikoh

Sweet. The 6850 is my new favorite card. It totally killed the only marketable card of Nvidia, the 460. I hope AMD drops more price since Nvidia already dropped theirs.


----------



## VinhDiezel

wow 250$ price point for 6870 and it hangs with my gtx 470 stock for stock clocks. But the 6850 in CF would be the best bang for the buck by tomorrow.


----------



## kora04

You Tube  



 

looks sick


----------



## overclock4ever

Quote:



A year on from the release of the Cypress based HD5870 and HD5850, AMD are looking at refreshing their line-up of cards with some new offerings. Any graphics card release is met by a certain level of hype and following the huge success of the HD5XXX series, consumers have every right to expect more great things from AMD. However, in a confusing turn of events, todayâ€™s release is aimed at targeting the mid-range market as opposed to the traditional method of releasing the high end cards first to create a halo effect. More confusing is AMDâ€™s bold choice of renaming their new series of cards to reflect an entirely refreshed product range, as opposed to intuitively carrying the moniker weâ€™ve been accustomed to seeing since the HD3870 launched a few years back. Typically, the X870 naming convention has been reserved for ATIâ€™s high end offerings, but under the new AMD logo rebrand, they have decided that the moniker will now symbolise their mid-range segment. The confusion arises in the fact that consumers accustomed to the old naming scheme will confuse this new card as the replacement to the Cypress based HD5870, when in fact it will replace the Juniper based HD5770.












Source


----------



## czin125

What's the power draw on these two cards and the 5770?
Card lengths?


----------



## dir_d

Anand's reviews always show AMD low and guru always shows AMD high...wonder why?


----------



## CAHOP240

6800 is great and all, but I have my sights set for a 6970. In the 5800 series, two 5770's =~ one 5870. If the same holds true this series then hopefully two 6850's will equal one 6970, which would be AWESOME.


----------



## DXcellence718

Quote:



Originally Posted by *VinhDiezel*


wow 250$ price point for 6870 and it hangs with my gtx 470 stock for stock clocks. But the 6850 in CF would be the best bang for the buck by tomorrow.


Lol that explains why nvidia dropped the price to the 470 at 250 LMAO, our 470's has just found dance partners. Man the 6950 and 6970 will rape and the 6990 will just simply obliterate


----------



## sweffymo

Engadget is doing a similar review roundup to this thread...

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/21/a...eview-roundup/


----------



## xSalvation

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/g...usive_review/1


----------



## The-Beast

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dir_d*


Anand's reviews always show AMD low and guru always shows AMD high...wonder why?


I thought this part was particularly interesting of Anand's.

paraphrasing - "We don't use OC'ed cards in reviews normally, but hey we're going to use the 460 super OC FTW for this one since Nvidia already sent us it"


----------



## dracotonisamond

i cant wait for my Antilles cards man. im buying two for great justice!

plus its better than buying two one grand cards of last gen just to get 2GB per gpu for eyefinity.


----------



## M3T4LM4N222

I agree, I like how they show the heatsink through the shroud.


----------



## solidus j2k

*Guru3D*

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...0-6870-review/

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...sfirex-review/

*TechPowerUp!*

6870
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6870/
6850 Direct 
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...850_Direct_Cu/
6850
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6850/
6870CFX
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...870_CrossFire/
6850 CFX
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...850_CrossFire/

*Hexus*

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=27053

*HardwareCanucks*

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...50-review.html

*TechGage*

http://techgage.com/article/amd_radeon_hd_6870_hd_6850/

*LegitReviews*

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1445/1/

*Tweaktown:
*
6850
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/360...ard/index.html
6870
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/360...ard/index.html

*[H]ard|OCP*

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/...eo_card_review

*Anandtech*

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...idrange-market

*HOT Hardware:*

http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-R...-Debut/?page=1

*Techgage:*

http://techgage.com/article/amd_rade...6870_hd_6850/1

*Legion Hardware:*

http://www.legionhardware.com/articl...hd_6870,1.html

*Legion Hardware:*

http://www.legionhardware.com/articl...hd_6870,1.html

*InsideHW:*

http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/Grap...-Diamonds.html

*Bit-Tech:*

6850
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...-6850-review/1
6870
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...-6870-review/1
*
Bjorn3D:*

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1941


----------



## tipsycoma

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Ihatethedukes*


I don't mean to be 'bashy' but, nV must be rreeeeeeeaaally nervous when a pair of what will be mid range cards actually brush with SLI 480's in a few games...










From what I've seen, 6870 CFX is just a tad stronger than a single 480 at higher resolutions. At lower resolutions, a single 480 seems to pull ahead of the 6870's.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Ok here is what i think so far.
Tessellation still not as strong as GTX4XX, Scaling as good or better then GTX4XX, Performance is that you expect for that you pay. Still takes a hit from AA like HD 58XX. No overclocking room for HD 6870. A GTX470 OC still is faster. Only positive think is that it power consumption, and performance per watt. Now i just hope and would buy the card is seconds if HD 6970 is as good as HD 6870 is compare to 5770.


----------



## Dream Killer

both my card's values just went down $100 each. bummer.


----------



## ~CS~

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


Ok here is what i think so far.
Tessellation still not as strong as GTX4XX, Scaling as good or better then GTX4XX, Performance is that you expect for that you pay. Still takes a hit from AA like HD 58XX. No overclocking room for HD 6870. A GTX470 OC still is faster. Only positive think is that it power consumption, and performance per watt. Now i just hope and would buy the card is seconds if HD 6970 is as good as HD 6870 is compare to 5770.


There is plenty of headroom on a 6870(granted more on a 6850),AMD used different VRM this time ,software like MSI afterburner just needs an update to support new voltage controller.After that 1GHz should be a cake


----------



## [-Snake-]

I think that MSI 6870 just gave me an erection.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *~CS~*


There is plenty of headroom on a 6870(granted more on a 6850),AMD used different VRM this time ,software like MSI afterburner just needs an update to support new voltage controller.After that 1GHz should be a cake










Stock volts for 900Mhz = 1.2v, HD 5870 for 850Mhz = 1.187v. My HD 5850 needed 1.2v to get 975Mhz stable. This card will OC as good or as bad as HD 5850/70 and not more so over 1GHz its hard. At stock GTX470 = HD 6870, Overclock them and bye bye to HD 6870.


----------



## Ihatethedukes

Quote:



Originally Posted by *tipsycoma*









From what I've seen, 6870 CFX is just a tad stronger than a single 480 at higher resolutions. At lower resolutions, a single 480 seems to pull ahead of the 6870's.


What are you smoking man?

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...irex-review/12


----------



## NrGx

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Ihatethedukes*


I don't mean to be 'bashy' but, nV must be rreeeeeeeaaally nervous when a pair of what will be mid range cards actually brush with SLI 480's in a few games...


I'm quite sure GTX480 SLI will continue to monster anything on the market at 2560x1600 resolution.


----------



## Dark-Asylum

guru 3d crossfire review is obv. bias if you take in the highly apparent fact that they completely decide to not test GTX 460s in SLI.


----------



## Ihatethedukes

Quote:



Originally Posted by *NrGx*


I'm quite sure GTX480 SLI will continue to monster anything on the market at 2560x1600 resolution.


Maybe so... for the 12 people who have 30" monitors that cost a grand each.(Exaggeration for effect)

EDIT: Not even so... looking at another review I see the xfire (when it's working, there are a few where it's clearly not working and the same as one 6870) where the xfire 6870's are between 50% and 100% faster than a single 480. There are some games (the 100% faster ones) where you KNOW it's rubbing elbows with SLI 480's.


----------



## DXcellence718

so um i guess the gtx 580 is nvidia's answer to the 6xxx series

http://www.techpowerup.com/133114/Ge...e-GTX-480.html


----------



## sccr64472

Quote:



"However, in a confusing turn of events, todayâ€™s release is aimed at targeting the mid-range market as opposed to the traditional method of releasing the high end cards first to create a halo effect."


This was known nearly half a year in advance


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *DXcellence718*


so um i guess the gtx 580 is nvidia's answer to the 6xxx series

http://www.techpowerup.com/133114/Ge...e-GTX-480.html


GTX480 ~ 15% faster then HD 5870 @ 1920x1200 so GTX580 would be 30-40% faster then HD 5870. I just hope HD 6970 is at least 30% faster then HD 5870.


----------



## Behemoth777

=

  
 You Tube


----------



## Drumheros

Looks solid, way better performance for lower price and power draw.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

No inappropriate comments/videos, please...







I know you like the card but we don't need to know if you like it THAT much.


----------



## Behemoth777

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp*


No inappropriate comments/videos, please...







I know you like the card but we don't need to know if you like it THAT much.


Oh, come on...

Buzz kill.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Behemoth777*


Oh, come on...

Buzz kill.


It needs to stay a family-friendly forum, so...


----------



## luvsan

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp*


It needs to stay a family-friendly forum, so...










How do you think family's are started?

OMG look at that card, WIFE WHERE ARE YOU?


----------



## DXcellence718

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


GTX480 ~ 15% faster then HD 5870 @ 1920x1200 so GTX580 would be 30-40% faster then HD 5870. I just hope HD 6970 is at least 30% faster then HD 5870.


Agreed im sure the gtx 580 and the 6970 will be on par with each other, just have to wait and see which gpu can best the other. I think the major wows for me is when we hit 28nm baby


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:



Originally Posted by *luvsan*


How do you think family's are started?

OMG look at that card, WIFE WHERE ARE YOU?










I think you like it a little TOO much.


----------



## Behemoth777

Quote:



Originally Posted by *luvsan*


How do you think family's are started?

OMG look at that card, WIFE WHERE ARE YOU?


This x1000.

I can tell you though chunky that I did get a little tingle downstairs when I saw this:


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *DXcellence718*


Agreed im sure the gtx 580 and the 6970 will be on par with each other, just have to wait and see which gpu can best the other. I think the major wows for me is when we hit 28nm baby










That will be the time i upgrade. Only High end for me. This launch is same as HD 5770 which replaced HD 4870/4850. Same people and jumping on the same boat again and it makes sense.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Behemoth777*


This x1000.

I can tell you though chunky that I did get a little tingle downstairs when I saw this:

























I know what you mean... I REALLY want at least one of those.







But let's see how good the 6900s turn out before we rush to Newegg.


----------



## Behemoth777

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp*


I know what you mean... I REALLY want at least one of those.







But let's see how good the 6900s turn out before we rush to Newegg.










Oops, I already did.


----------



## Eduardv

I like that card ,looks sexy


----------



## luvsan

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp*


I know what you mean... I REALLY want at least one of those.







But let's see how good the 6900s turn out before we rush to Newegg.










I'm excited (obviously) but i will have to see the price first.... then 480 price drops....

I am hoping for a clear victory even tho i love nvidia. It just gets so complicated factoring in price/performance it's nice to have a clear performance king.

I hope they aren't more than ~$400 dual GPU excluded(included in dreams).


----------



## benyu

it is [HWC] I am sorry but I just want to fix it because I am a regular and Canadian!


----------



## amder

Im loving the way these cards look!


----------



## Diabolical999

And this is supposed to replace the 5830 or...???


----------



## AuraNova

Quote:



Originally Posted by *amder*


Im loving the way these cards look!










So far, XFX has the best looking 6850. I'd say Sapphire's is second best.


----------



## RobotDevil666

Quote:



Originally Posted by *luvsan*


I'm excited (obviously) but i will have to see the price first.... then 480 price drops....

I am hoping for a clear victory even tho i love nvidia. It just gets so complicated factoring in price/performance it's nice to have a clear performance king.

I hope they aren't more than ~$400 dual GPU excluded(included in dreams).


Yea a drop in a GTX480's price would be nice .
But don't bury the big daddy N just yet i hope they will come up with something new soon.
Healthy competition on the market is always good for us buyers


----------



## dantoddd

How much of an improvement can we expect with more mature drivers


----------



## Uncivilised

Assuming prices of these cards will go down within a few months the 68xx series will be selling like hot cakes. I hope nvidia have something good to counter cayman and antilles without breaking tdp specs.


----------



## dantoddd

I'm going to support Nvidia from now on. They look like they need some help


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Do you guys think HD 69XX will have 64 ROPs? Look at HD 4890 vs HD 5830. Because they has 16 ROPs they has similar performance and the extra SP HD 5830 did nothing.


----------



## marsey99

http://www.vortez.co.uk/contenttelle...70_review.html

vortez.co.uk

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/g..._6870_review/1

overclock3d.net

and their 6870 xfire review too









http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/g...usive_review/1


----------



## luvsan

Quote:



Originally Posted by *RobotDevil666*


Yea a drop in a GTX480's price would be nice .
But don't bury the big daddy N just yet i hope they will come up with something new soon.
Healthy competition on the market is always good for us buyers










I'm not I just don't think it will make it this year, which just happens to be the time I'm upgrading. If they could get it out by december that would certainly be a treat, just doubtful of it.


----------



## tasospaok123

So what we called 5770 successor, has about the same performance with a 5870 with fewer power consumption. That's good!
Now let's wait for 6900 series...


----------



## WhiteCrane

i do not understand. why would ATI release a 6xxx series that is inferior to performers of the 5xxx series?


----------



## Obakemono

Holy crap a set of xfired 6870s are right up there or better than my tri-fire 5770s in BFBC2 @1680x1050!!!!!!!!!!








Must.Resist.Temptation.


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *WhiteCrane*


i do not understand. why would ATI release a 6xxx series that is inferior to performers of the 5xxx series?


This isn't the 6xxx high end, it's the mid-range. It's been plastered all over the news section for weeks.


----------



## NrGx

I'm so tempted and yet can't bring myself to look at CCC anymore. It's such a rubbish set of drivers. GTX570/580 will be my next I guess...


----------



## Behemoth777

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dantoddd*


How much of an improvement can we expect with more mature drivers


I honestly think in the end that the 6870 will perform very similar to the 5870, maybe even surpass it.

We will wait and see though. This card is definitely an upgrade over my 4770, so I don't care either way.


----------



## Ihatethedukes

Quote:



Originally Posted by *tasospaok123*


So what we called 5770 successor, has about the same performance with a 5870 with fewer power consumption. That's good!
Now let's wait for 6900 series...


This pretty much sums up the whole thread. /end thread.


----------



## Fullmetalaj0

When are the 69XX cards suppose to hit, thats where my money is going : D


----------



## tasospaok123

Quote:



Originally Posted by *WhiteCrane*


i do not understand. why would ATI release a 6xxx series that is inferior to performers of the 5xxx series?


It is slightly inferior, and it is a lot cheaper.
At least here in Greece. While a 1GB 5870 costs about 400 Euros (550$), a 6870 costs 240 Euros (330$)


----------



## Behemoth777

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Fullmetalaj0*


When are the 69XX cards suppose to hit, thats where my money is going : D


They are expected in the next month or two.


----------



## Fullmetalaj0

Ty behe, I cant wait, im going AMD and cant wait to spend this money i got.


----------



## Faraz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *WhiteCrane*


i do not understand. why would ATI release a 6xxx series that is inferior to performers of the 5xxx series?


They're not inferior. 6870 > 5770.


----------



## L.Hemsley

"As you can see the increased clock did not offer that much extra performance, we see this quite a bit with high-end ATI products"...hmm, I heard that somewhere before. Wait, it sounds like the other overclocking bug. Disappointing, they STILL haven't fixed this. No need to overclock, just save the power


----------



## L.Hemsley

Quote:



Originally Posted by *tasospaok123*


So what we called 5770 successor, has about the same performance with a 5870 with fewer power consumption. That's good!
Now let's wait for 6900 series...


6870 has no resemblance in price to the 5770. Try again.


----------



## L.Hemsley

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dantoddd*


I'm going to support Nvidia from now on. They look like they need some help


Lol...they definitely don't need your $100


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *NrGx*


I'm so tempted and yet can't bring myself to look at CCC anymore. It's such a rubbish set of drivers. GTX570/580 will be my next I guess...


I haven't had a single problem with ATI or Nvidia drivers in the last three years, and I've run damn near every card in every lineup since then.

Actually, I did have one problem, but it was Nvidia drivers.


----------



## Behemoth777

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dantoddd*


I'm going to support Nvidia from now on. They look like they need some help


That's like saying if bulldozer owns sandy bridge "oh, I should buy intel, they need help." lol

If anything, give amd your money so they can improve their products even further and pay for their hard work to give you such a good product, especially when the market is so one sided(as of right now).


----------



## Raiden911

awesome review. The naming will take time getting used to....*ugh*. 
The improvement in power consumptions is pretty awesome.

Can't wait of the 69XX


----------



## Deathspawner

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Obakemono*


Holy crap a set of xfired 6870s are right up there or better than my tri-fire 5770s in BFBC2 @1680x1050!!!!!!!!!!








Must.Resist.Temptation.


There are so many things wrong here ;-) For that kind of GPU setup, you deserve a far better resolution than 1680x1050. Tri-GPU for a game like _that_ seems like major overkill.


----------



## TrustKill

wow. the price/performance is so amazing!


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Behemoth777*


I honestly think in the end that the 6870 will perform very similar to the 5870, maybe even surpass it.

We will wait and see though. This card is definitely an upgrade over my 4770, so I don't care either way.










They are so dam similar i dont think we will see any increase with HD 6870. Look at HD 58XX. Barely got any boost because its same architecture only more numbers.


----------



## kora04

power consumption

  
 You Tube


----------



## Aluc13

I am checking out reviews so far for these cards and what I'm seeing is the tesselation isn't as good as Nvidia products. I may be wrong but in Unigine it still can't beat a 460, 470 or even a 480. So...my question is weren't these made for better tesselation?


----------



## darksideleader

Quote:



Originally Posted by *L.Hemsley*


6870 has no resemblance in price to the 5770. Try again.


Of course it doesn't. 6870 has almost twice the specs and twice the performance. No logical reason whatsoever to price it that low.


----------



## PickledStiff

Didn't read every post, but it seems that Newegg canada is selling them already.


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Aluc13*


I am checking out reviews so far for these cards and what I'm seeing is the tesselation isn't as good as Nvidia products. I may be wrong but in Unigine it still can't beat a 460, 470 or even a 480. So...my question is weren't these made for better tesselation?


Unigine has absurdly high tesselation factors, much higher than needed or useful... so Nvidia's very strong tesselation performance shines, but it isn't a good representation of the real world.

At normal levels of tesselation more likely to be found in actual games (up to 10x tess. factor), the 6870 is twice as good at tesselation as the 5870.


----------



## Aluc13

Quote:



Originally Posted by *iandh*


Unigine has absurdly high tesselation factors, much higher than needed or useful... so Nvidia's very strong tesselation performance shines, but it isn't a good representation of the real world.

At normal levels of tesselation more likely to be found in actual games (up to 10x tess. factor), the 6870 is twice as good at tesselation as the 5870.


I'm not sure if it's twice as fast. I'm seeing the 5870 on Staker COP and it's beating the 6870 by a good 10 frames or so


----------



## darksideleader

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PickledStiff*


Didn't read every post, but it seems that Newegg canada is selling them already.


damn bought my 5850 almost a year ago @ $300. Degraded to a $180 card already


----------



## Obakemono

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Deathspawner*


There are so many things wrong here ;-) For that kind of GPU setup, you deserve a far better resolution than 1680x1050. Tri-GPU for a game like _that_ seems like major overkill.


Running two 23" monitors right now, no need for me to go with a bigger screen size.


----------



## Behemoth777

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


They are so dam similar i dont think we will see any increase with HD 6870. Look at HD 58XX. Barely got any boost because its same architecture only more numbers.


Except the fact that this is half a new architecture and half the old architecture.









Like I said though, we will wait and see what happens with their drivers.


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Aluc13*


I'm not sure if it's twice as fast. I'm seeing the 5870 on Staker COP and it's beating the 6870 by a good 10 frames or so


Twice as fast at Tesselation factors between 1.5x and 10x... the majority of rendering to be done in Stalker COP isn't tesselation. The reason the 6870 loses is that 5870 is a faster card for general rendering, although not by much.


----------



## Aluc13

Quote:



Originally Posted by *iandh*


Twice as fast at Tesselation factors between 1.5x and 10x... the majority of rendering to be done in Stalker COP isn't tesselation. The reason the 6870 loses is that 5870 is a faster card for general rendering, although not by much.


There are other games that the 5870 beats the 6870 in all resolutions. At least the ones that I have seen.


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Aluc13*


I'm not sure if it's twice as fast. I'm seeing the 5870 on Staker COP and it's beating the 6870 by a good 10 frames or so


Tesselation is only a part of the rendering load. If tesselation is only 20% of the load, then being twice as fast at tesselation would only give a 5% overall improvement or something as such (not real numbers, just a representation).


----------



## SkillzKillz

So... HD 6850 in CF or a single HD 6870?


----------



## vdek

This is so sweet, I can now step up to a GTX470 for like $40









TYVM ATI!


----------



## tipsycoma

I bought a GTX 460, but suddenly I feel numb due to regret.


----------



## L.Hemsley

Looks like the 480 is still kicking butt. Not to mention that card responds extremely well to OC.


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:



Originally Posted by *L.Hemsley*


*Looks like the 480 is still kicking butt*. Not to mention that card responds extremely well to OC.


Not really. Only 10% more performance for more than double the price ($480 vs $900~$1000).


----------



## SkillzKillz

So I wonder what performance difference is between the HD 6870 and HD 6850 running the same clocks?


----------



## Kenshiro

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Core2uu*


Not really. Only 10% more performance for more than double the price ($480 vs $900~$1000).


I wonder why they didn't test metro in that review. Thats really the only game stressing out these cards.


----------



## Ihatethedukes

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


So I wonder what performance difference is between the HD 6870 and HD 6850 running the same clocks?


Looks like it'll be ~5%.


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Ihatethedukes*


Looks like it'll be ~5%.


Yeah, im thinking with OC involved the 6850 will be the card to beat.

I don't have the money right now but i was playing with the price in cart, since I'm in CA with tax the shipped price of the 6870 is $267, and the 6850 is $202.

I think the 6870 is already really close to max OC, and most 6850's aren't.

That leaves the only difference being the shaders.

We're talking a 30% increase in price for a 10% increase in performance at best. That makes the 6870 look pretty meh from that standpoint.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *iandh*


Yeah, im thinking with OC involved the 6850 will be the card to beat.

I don't have the money right now but i was playing with the price in cart, since I'm in CA with tax the shipped price of the 6870 is $267, and the 6850 is $202.

I think the 6870 is already really close to max OC, and most 6850's aren't.

That leaves the only difference being the shaders.

We're talking a 30% increase in price for a 10% increase in performance at best. That makes the 6870 look pretty meh from that standpoint.


Yep, I have to agree with you. And when you consider Crossfiring this doubles the numbers, and puts the CF 6870 at $120 more than the CF 6850. Once you OC the cards the performance will be negligible. It seems like the real winner here is the HD 6850.

Now how does HD 6850 CF compare to GTX 460 1GB SLI?

EDIT: Seems like HD 6850 CF obliterates the GTX 460 GB SLI in the Anandtech review. Well, that just about sums up my decision.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *iandh*


We're talking a 30% increase in price for a 10% increase in performance at best. That makes the 6870 look pretty meh from that standpoint.


Unfortunately, I think real world numbers would stand more at 35% increase in price after taxes for only about 7% performance increase.


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


Yep, I have to agree with you. And when you consider Crossfiring this doubles the numbers, and puts the CF 6870 at $120 more than the CF 6850. Once you OC the cards the performance will be negligible. It seems like the real winner here is the HD 6850.

Now how does CF HD 6850 compare to GTX 460 1GB SLI?


I saw one review I think... 460 SLI scales like crazy, but so does 6850 CF.


----------



## dantoddd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Behemoth777*


That's like saying if bulldozer owns sandy bridge "oh, I should buy intel, they need help." lol

If anything, give amd your money so they can improve their products even further and pay for their hard work to give you such a good product, especially when the market is so one sided(as of right now).


I meant moral support


----------



## SkillzKillz

I don't think overclocking on the HD 6870 will be that bad. Trust me, review sites are ******ed at overclocking. There was only one review that stood out, overclock3d, and they achieved 1GHZ core on the HD 6870 with stock volts because the software limited the core frequency at 1000mhz. With this OC, Crysis jumped from 52FPS to 61FPS.

Once OCN gets their hands on these cards we'll start seeing some real numbers.


----------



## aznofazns

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


I don't think overclocking on the HD 6870 will be that bad. Trust me, review sites are ******ed at overclocking. There was only one review that stood out, overclock3d, and they achieved 1GHZ core on the HD 6870 with stock volts because the software limited the core frequency at 1000mhz.

Once OCN gets their hands on these cards we'll start seeing some real numbers.










This is true. I forget which, but one of the reviews used CCC Auto-Tune to handle the overclocking.







That's just pathetic and quite useless, IMO.


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


I don't think overclocking on the HD 6870 will be that bad. Trust me, review sites are ******ed at overclocking. There was only one review that stood out, overclock3d, and they achieved 1GHZ core on the HD 6870 with stock volts because the software limited the core frequency at 1000mhz. With this OC, Crysis jumped from 52FPS to 61FPS.

Once OCN gets their hands on these cards we'll start seeing some real numbers.










I'm guessing that 950-975 will be the average OC for 6870, and 875-900 will be the average OC for 6850.


----------



## a11an

Quote:



Originally Posted by *tipsycoma*


I bought a GTX 460, but suddenly I feel numb due to regret.










I'm not going back to Radeon drivers. I'm going to SLI.


----------



## Swifterzor

I've been looking to replace my 4870x2 in favor of a single GPU setup. This looks like it hits the sweet spot.


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Swifterzor*


I've been looking to replace my 4870x2 in favor of a single GPU setup. This looks like it hits the sweet spot.


I'd hold on for a second if I were you. The 4870X2 is about as potent as an HD5870 and as can be generalized, if not a bit faster, is at least on par with the HD6870. It would be more of a side-grade for you. I'd suggest waiting for Cayman.


----------



## Obakemono

Just ordered two 6870s off the Egg, Sapphires. Muwahahahaha


----------



## Razi3l

I honestly am surprised since i expected prices of over Â£210 on the 6870 but i've seen low as Â£180ish. Good cards though, now to wait for Cayman.


----------



## aznofazns

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Obakemono*


Just ordered two 6870s off the Egg, Sapphires. Muwahahahaha










Ugh... I am so jealous. I has no monies right now.







Just blew $110 on my PSU.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Razi3l*


I honestly am surprised since i expected prices of over 210 on the 6870 but i've seen low as 180ish. Good cards though, now to wait for Cayman.


I think you mean 6850. The 6870 is $240+.


----------



## AzO

With these performance numbers for the 6870 and 6850 there's no reason to buy a $300+ 5870 anymore.

MSI needs to come out with a Lightning version for this card.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:



Originally Posted by *aznofazns*


I think you mean 6850. The 6870 is $240+.


Sorry i was talking in pound sterling


----------



## aznofazns

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Razi3l*


Sorry i was talking in pound sterling










Ah, I see. I should have noticed that you're from London.


----------



## Modori

Just ordered mine. Australia btw.


----------



## XtremeBlackout

Going to order my 6870 for 199€ today.Finally a step up from my 4850


----------



## Kny

This looks to be the only non-reference cooler at launch?








Looks nice on that 6850.


----------



## Man O' War

So...The EyeFinity bit, It sort of makes no sense. Can we or can we not EyeFinity without DP now?


----------



## nugget

Looks like my 4870 may last another year or whenever the 69xx series comes out potentially.


----------



## Defoler

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Man O' War*


So...The EyeFinity bit, It sort of makes no sense. Can we or can we not EyeFinity without DP now?


You can't.
Eyefinity requires a DP usage, no matter what.


----------



## yashau

Here's a few you missed. Sorry if these got posted before









*Benchmark Reviews*
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...=628&Itemid=72

*BitTech*
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...-6850-review/1
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...-6870-review/1

*HiTech Legion*
http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews/...-hd6850-review

*Hot Hardware*
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-R...50-GPUs-Debut/

*KitGuru*
http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...k-performance/

*Legion Hardware*
http://www.legionhardware.com/articl...hd_6870,1.html

*MaximumPC*
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/rev...hd_6870_review
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/rev...hd_6850_review

*Neoseeker*
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...eon_6870_6850/

*PC Perspective*
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=1022

*PC Pro*
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/graph...radeon-hd-6870

*Rage3D*
http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/...launch_review/

*TechRadar*
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-...c=rss&attr=all

*TechSpot*
http://www.techspot.com/review/325-amd-radeon-6870/

*Tested*
http://www.tested.com/news/tested-am...eo-cards/1197/

*Tom's Hardware*
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...arts,2776.html

*TweakTown*
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/360...ard/index.html
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/360...ard/index.html


----------



## Hutchinson

The 6870 is an absolute ripper of a card, Priced only ~$50 more than a gtx 460 1gb is at most, with performance often more than a 470, sometimes at 5870 levels. I want some!

EDIT 2: Sorry should have mentioned that this is in Aus at a store that i use anyway.


----------



## Man O' War

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Defoler*


You can't.
Eyefinity requires a DP usage, no matter what.


On the old screens yeah, but with all these out puts flying left right and centre there are a lot of people praying.


----------



## XtremeBlackout

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kny*


This looks to be the only non-reference cooler at launch?


http://www.alternate.de/html/product/prodPicPopup.html?cmd=none&artno=JCXOW3&view=0#0

I think this one isn't reference either

EDIT: or this one: http://www.alternate.de/html/product...=Radeon+HD6000


----------



## Tempest001

idk if anyone posted this yet, because I didn't see it posted, but these cards are available on newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...06000%20series

How much does this make my 5770 worth? I want to sell it and get a 6870!


----------



## nvidiagamer

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AzO*


With these performance numbers for the 6870 and 6850 there's no reason to buy a $300+ 5870 anymore.

MSI needs to come out with a Lightning version for this card.


Definitely true, I'm pretty positive that AMD will be phasing out the 5xxx series. No point in producing them when these are obviously cheaper to produce and have about the same performance. I'm sure that's why they changed the naming scheme as well. Plus, a few stores haven't even had any 5xxx series cards in the longest time now. Fry's hasn't really carried them for a few months now. They have had one or two here and there but not very many. It just makes sense to stop production on the 5xxx series at this point.


----------



## XtremeBlackout

Just ordered this beauty








http://www.alternate.de/html/product...=Radeon+HD6000


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Hutchinson*


The 6870 is an absolute ripper of a card, Priced only ~$50 more than a gtx 460 1gb is at most, with performance often more than a 470, sometimes at 5870 levels. I want some!


the "at most" isn't accurate...but yeah. If it is in your price range, it appears the best buy. The 460 really isn't in the same price range and shouldn't be compared though.


----------



## nvidiagamer

There we go! Now they are starting to sell out on Newegg! The Asus 6870 is already sold out. W00t! go Asus! hahaha


----------



## Noir

MOAR REVIEWS!

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...70_6850/2.html

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...roduction.html

http://www.pureoverclock.com/article1109.html

http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1107&page=18

http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...hd6870-review/


----------



## Noir

Sorry double post.


----------



## SkillzKillz

*And HD 6850 is a winner:*

In the Neoseeker review, the HD 6850 overclocked to 924mhz/1170mhz matches the performance of the stock HD 6870 at 900mhz/1050mz.

At Guru3D they overclocked the HD 6850 to 897mhz/897mhz and achieved 112FPS in MW2 at 1920x1200, while the stock HD 6870 achieved 117 FPS in MW2 at 1920x1200.

Kitguru Results:



















*TechPowerUP:*

945MHZ core / 1165mhz Memory










*Hexus:*

900mhz core / Unknown Memory (Maybe Stock?)

















The best card to purchase now is the HD 6850. Consumers are being fooled by the higher stock clocks on the HD 6870.


----------



## Noir

Most 6850 reviews shows that those card OC like a champ.

Almost all Sapphire 6850s reached 900 on the core









Looks like people are having troubles with the 6870 though. Guess we can count on our users here to to show them how it is done then


----------



## PopcornMachine

So when can we expect to see custom 6870s? I haven't found it anywhere yet.


----------



## mtbiker033

the 6850 looks great in CF, I would really like to get a 5970 though.

I don't know if it's any different with CF, but when I switched to the GTX295 from SLI 260's, it was MUCH smoother with the dual card possibly due to the P55 platform. The Sapphire 5970 went down $50 today.

decisions, decisions.


----------



## Skylit

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


*And HD 6850 is a winner:*

In the Neoseeker review, the HD 6850 overclocked to 924mhz/1170mhz matches the performance of the stock HD 6870 at 900mhz/1050mz.

At Guru3D they overclocked the HD 6850 to 897mhz/897mhz and achieved 112FPS in MW2 at 1920x1200, while the stock HD 6870 achieved 117 FPS in MW2 at 1920x1200.

Kitguru Results:

*TechPowerUP:*

945MHZ core / 1165mhz Memory

*Hexus:*

900mhz core / Unknown Memory (Maybe Stock?)


Yeah, the 6850 looks like the card to get if you're in the market..

Shame that Asus removed the 2nd 6 pin connector on the DirectCU model :[


----------



## rocstar96

Any word on the HD 6770?


----------



## Robilar

I am still waiting for the higher end cards. These new mainstream models are delivering on performance but are overpriced in Canada... (well Nvidia cards are as well).

The Cheapest 6870 is $255 CAD here, same as the cheapest GTX470.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Robilar*


I am still waiting for the higher end cards. These new mainstream models are delivering on performance but are overpriced in Canada... (well Nvidia cards are as well).

The Cheapest 6870 is $255 CAD here, same as the cheapest GTX470.


Newegg.ca sells the 6870's at $242.99 CAD.
Newegg.ca sells the 6850's at $181.99 and $184.99.

NCIX.com sells the HD 6850 at $184.99 and $189.99.

Prices are fair, especially since Newegg just converts the dollar.


----------



## Noir

Quote:



Originally Posted by *rocstar96*


Any word on the HD 6770?


No word yet it will most likely be released(if ever) next year since leaked slides show them still being produced till December

Can a mod place this on the first page

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Noir*


MOAR REVIEWS!

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...70_6850/2.html

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...roduction.html

http://www.pureoverclock.com/article1109.html

http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1107&page=18

http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...hd6870-review/


----------



## rocstar96

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Noir*


No word yet it will most likely be released(if ever) next year since leaked slides show them still being produced till December


Damn It.

Just a random question, Whats better for After effects/Photoshop CS5, A Nvidia or an ATI card? :|


----------



## smash_mouth01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *un-nefer*


A shop in AU has them scheduled for presale now and has a listed ETA of 25 October 2010.

So it looks like it isn't that far away until cards will begin to be shipped to customers - 3 days until 25 October, and then shipping time - so possibly as soon as 5 days, or before next weekend










6870 is only $315 at PC Case Gear. It's only $16 dearer than the MSI 460 HAWK.


----------



## Tempest001

Wait, is this an all new architecture?
I heard it was a hybrid architecture, and that they would recycle old shaders.
but theres no way they recycled the shaders.

so what gives? What's been recycled?

Quote:



Originally Posted by *rocstar96*


Damn It.

Just a random question, Whats better for After effects/Photoshop CS5, A Nvidia or an ATI card? :|











http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1445/2/

Just get a 5770. It's the same thing as a 6770 without the wait!


----------



## rocstar96

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Tempest001*










http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1445/2/

Just get a 5770. It's the same thing as a 6770 without the wait!










Nooooooooooo

Are you sure? No Tweaks/Improvements?

I Think I'll Prolly wait. I dont like non-reference 5770s.


----------



## Dark-Asylum

guru3d review is obv. bias in their multi gpu review, let's not include GTX 460 SLI results even though the 6850 is intended to compete with it...wow.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Tempest001*


Wait, is this an all new architecture?
I heard it was a hybrid architecture, and that they would recycle old shaders.
but theres no way they recycled the shaders.

so what gives? What's been recycled?









http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1445/2/

Just get a 5770. It's the same thing as a 6770 without the wait!










Actually, this is not a new architecture and not even a hybrid architecture. Barts is a cut down version of Cypress (no disabled parts in the 6870 though) while maintaining the amount of ROPs and tweaking the tesselator (only the data algorithm has been tweaked). Appparently Barts can't do FP64 like Cypress and Fermi, but who'll need that on a gaming card anyways









So for general computing and sheer geometry performance it's Fermi all the way. And for a serious fast gaming card that keeps it's head cool while being priced well and efficient, Barts all the way


----------



## Riou

All the 6870's on Newegg have a black PCB except for the ASUS, which has a red PCB. Why did ASUS go red?


----------



## NrGx

Seriously, Australian pricing is bonkers. The AUD is equal to the USD at the moment and we're still paying so much more for stuff. Bloody annoying.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Dark-Asylum*


guru3d review is obv. bias in their multi gpu review, let's not include GTX 460 SLI results even though the 6850 is intended to compete with it...wow.


TechPowerUP doesn't compare to GTX 460 1GB either. The only review that does is Anandtech, and in that the HG 6850 1GB beats the GTX 460 1gb SLI.


----------



## Riou

Yeah 6850 CF really BBQPWNS the 460 SLI in Anand's review, at least at stock.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Riou*


Yeah 6850 CF really BBQPWNS the 460 SLI in Anand's review, at least at stock.


Yeah an ATI card that manages to beat Fermi in temperatures graphs is rare but true this time. Though it's not exactly a fair comparison since 6850s are faster most of the time


----------



## Noir

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Tempest001*


Wait, is this an all new architecture?
I heard it was a hybrid architecture, and that they would recycle old shaders.
but theres no way they recycled the shaders.

so what gives? What's been recycled?









http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1445/2/

Just get a 5770. It's the same thing as a 6770 without the wait!










I really wonder why people are getting that idea.

There was no mention in the chart that the 67xx series will be the 57xx.

What the chart basically shows that the 57xx will still be sold up until December.

January may we see the 67xx??? Dont know.


----------



## Fb74

I wanted to point out Consumption.

Here, on Hardware.fr (French), they can measure *true consumption *(sum of PCI Express port + PCI Connectors).

[Hot link disable but you can check the original graphics, no need to speak french]

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/804-...6870-6850.html

You've got *Idle*/ *3DMark06*/* Furmark *Consumptions (*Watts*).

HD6850:......... 20/ 107/ 116 
HD6870:......... 19/ 141/ 150
GTX460 1GB:.. 16/ 145/ 151
GTX470 1GB:.. 31/ 202/ 228

Those are *real* consumptions *measured* (not estimated, not full configuration).

Very interesting.


----------



## Noir

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Noir*


MOAR REVIEWS!

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...70_6850/2.html

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...roduction.html

http://www.pureoverclock.com/article1109.html

http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1107&page=18

http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...hd6870-review/



Add Toms as well

I think they are the ONLY review site that tested the morphological AA

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ts,2776-4.html

Read it here


----------



## Stance

I'm really curious what the average overclocking results will be on the 6870, since it's quite a high stock speed. I fear my GTX 470 is going to be overtaken by these cards if they're easily managing over 1GHz core.


----------



## amstech

Quote:



Originally Posted by *L.Hemsley*


Relax, buying low end AMD gpus don't even qualify you to be an AMD fanboi. I would have understood your rant if you at-least had a 5970


Actually mine are midrange GPU's that scorched high end GPU's.
I buy based off benchmarks, not price tags.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Stance*


I'm really curious what the average overclocking results will be on the 6870, since it's quite a high stock speed. I fear my GTX 470 is going to be overtaken by these cards if they're easily managing over 1GHz core.










A GTX 470 has its hands full with the 6870.
The trick is, it uses much less power, runs much cooler, scales better, and my guess won't be nearly as loud.


----------



## Hiep

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Fb74*


I wanted to point out Consumption.

Here, on Hardware.fr (French), they can measure *true consumption *(sum of PCI Express port + PCI Connectors).

[Hot link disable but you can check the original graphics, no need to speak french]

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/804-...6870-6850.html

You've got *Idle*/ *3DMark06*/* Furmark *Consumptions (*Watts*).

HD6850:......... 20/ 107/ 116 
HD6870:......... 19/ 141/ 150
GTX460 1GB:.. 16/ 145/ 151
GTX470 1GB:.. 31/ 202/ 228

Those are *real* consumptions *measured* (not estimated, not full configuration).

Very interesting.










@ 6850 temps


----------



## Pao

Looks like there is still plenty of reason to buy Fermi when considering DX11 performance.


----------



## amstech

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Pao*


Looks like there is still plenty of reason to buy Fermi when considering DX11 performance.


A premature conclusion.

These are MIDRANGE GPU's.
Wait for Caymans benchmarks.


----------



## joarangoe

WTH is with Amazon's prices? theyre like $30 above reference.


----------



## Stance

Quote:



Originally Posted by *joarangoe*


WTH is with Amazon's prices? theyre like $30 above reference.


Day number 1.


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Pao* 
Looks like there is still plenty of reason to buy Fermi when considering DX11 performance.

Not when you also consider price. Anyway, CaymentXT is expected to take back the #1 spot from the gtx480.


----------



## Enigma8750

The Radeon HD 6870

Quote:

The Radeon HD 6870 measures 9.75" inches long, by 1.25" tall and 3.75" wide. This is slightly longer than the Radeon HD 5850 model, which also occupied two expansion bay slots, but 1.25" shorter than the Radeon HD 5870. For reference, the Radeon HD 6850 measures 9.0" inches long, by 1.25" tall and 3.75" wide.










Quote:

Similarly, the Radeon HD 6870 requires two 6-pin PCI-Express power connections. AMD suggests that the TDP power demands are less than 151 watts for the Barts GPU.










http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...=628&Itemid=72

On Sale Now at Tigerdirect


----------



## Behemoth777

Quote:


Originally Posted by *amstech* 
A premature conclusion.

These are MIDRANGE GPU's.
Wait for Caymans benchmarks.

These are also using beta drivers. I bet the same thing will happen to cayman on release. Just give it a couple of official driver releases and I bet we will see an improvement in tessellation, since that is the majority of what they added with the 6xxx series and there was very little support for before.


----------



## rocstar96

nice


----------



## Corrupted

Definitely needed a new thread for this...brilliant idea!


----------



## Kand

I didnt know Mafia 2 supported DX11!


----------



## The Mad Mule

http://www.overclock.net/hardware-ne...ws-review.html

C'mon people...


----------



## Behemoth777

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Corrupted* 
Definitely needed a new thread for this...brilliant idea!

I'm sure he just didn't notice, no need to be rude. I'm sure this will be transfered in due time.

Nice review though


----------



## saulin

Price of the GTX 470 needs to be close to the 6870.

Actually looking at the Newegg prices the GTX 470 can be had for $260 and the 6870 for $240, seems about right since the GTX 470 has PhysX/CUDA support and the 6870 doesn't. Nvidia continues to have good Price/Performance this round


----------



## Stance

Quote:


Originally Posted by *saulin* 
Price of the GTX 470 needs to be close to the 6870.

The cheapest 470 is going at €182 in here now. Cheapest 6870 I've found so far is at €209.


----------



## Havok.357

That's one helluva counterintuitive naming scheme. So, basically, HD6850 is slower than 5850, while 6870 is faster than 5850 but slower than 5870, is that right?









Could've at least called it the HD6700 series, that would be less confusing.


----------



## Skylit

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Havok.357* 
That's one helluva counterintuitive naming scheme. So, basically, HD6850 is slower than 5850, while 6870 is faster than 5850 but slower than 5870, is that right?









Could've at least called it the HD6700 series, that would be less confusing.

It's been said, but the 6950/6970 are the 5850/5870 replacements.


----------



## onoz

So, do we know anything bad about these cards yet? Other than that they don't offer any major changes to the 5 series?


----------



## SadSoul

Looks like the tessellation engine has been improved, but not by much.


----------



## Domino

Quote:


Originally Posted by *onoz* 
So, do we know anything bad about these cards yet? Other than that they don't offer any major changes to the 5 series?

You mean other then that roughly 25% less processors correspond to similar performance? Where the mid-range cards are performing as good as the high end cards? Where the expected high end cards are equivalent to dual high end cards? That the duel high end card is going to walk over everything? Nvidia actually slabbed on more processors with the fermi where the performance per processor was less then previous gen.

The suspected competition, the GTX580, is told to be roughly 20% faster then the 480, which puts it roughly similar to the 5970 depending on the title. This is going under a paper launch sometime in November/December. Nvidia is still significantly behind and still only holds roughly 10%>x of the market for dx11 cards.

However, the only problem I see, is that the similarity to poor AA performance of last gen.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

So cant even beat GTX470. How the hell can it sand against a OCed GTX470? People forget this is overclock.net.


----------



## wontonforevuh

i hope the 69xx series are just as good
im waiting for them

price wars = awesome


----------



## Kimo

I might sell my 5770 and get me the 6850

think ill put it on CL or ebay for around 100$


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:


Originally Posted by *wontonforevuh* 
i hope the 69xx series are just as good
im waiting for them

price wars = awesome

I hope they are better...these are nothing special other than a good price.


----------



## Lawcheehung

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
So cant even beat GTX470. How the hell can it sand against a OCed GTX470? People forget this is overclock.net.

Not exactly, in many instances the Radeon HD 6870 beats the GTX470, with lower temps, lower power usage, and a launch price of $239.99 vs the (new pricing scheme) of $259.99 of the GTX470.


----------



## Stance

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
So cant even beat GTX470. How the hell can it sand against a OCed GTX470? People forget this is overclock.net.

From everything I've read it really does go head-to-head on stock speeds. But I agree that once the OC is factored in things might be different.

People forget that going from 600 to 800+ will always mean a larger % overclock than 900 > 1050+.


----------



## iandh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SadSoul* 
Looks like the tessellation engine has been improved, but not by much.

The tesselation is twice as good as 5870 when at tesselation factors commonly seen in real world... but you don't see it because tesselation is only a small part of the rendering in most games. The only benchmark that it can easily be seen on, is the unigine one, but it uses such absurd levels of tesselation that it's out of the sweet spot of improvement for the 6870.


----------



## Enigma8750

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
So cant even beat GTX470. How the hell can it sand against a OCed GTX470? People forget this is overclock.net.

I have to say that ATI is a lot more energy effecient. 19 Watts at idle for this and still be able to play what you want, how you want for a great Price. Sounds good to me. but what do I know.??? Right???


----------



## RomeSC

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kimo* 
I might sell my 5770 and get me the 6850

think ill put it on CL or ebay for around 100$

If you're going to do that, I'd do it fast cause they'll be $99 after rebate in november I bet.


----------



## Enigma8750

Quote:


Originally Posted by *The Mad Mule* 
http://www.overclock.net/hardware-ne...ws-review.html

C'mon people...

Benchmark Reviews were not represented in that list and this just came out today..


----------



## gablain

How much better is the 6870 compared to a 4870 ?


----------



## amstech

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
So cant even beat GTX470. How the hell can it sand against a OCed GTX470? People forget this is overclock.net.

Umm yeah it can beat a GTX 470... in several games.

The 6870 is as fast or faster solo, and scales better.
It runs cooler, uses less power and makes less noise.

Why would someone want to put up with the GF-100 baggage when they can buy this for $240?
The GF-100 was a letdown, these GPU's are the final nail for the coffin, and the Cayman is bringing the hammer.


----------



## ryanrenolds08

Wow that's about as underwhelming as it gets. It beats the 460 FTW in 3 tests? Sorry AMD but failure was just around the corner.

/flamesuit

Quote:


Originally Posted by *amstech* 
*Umm yeah it can beat a GTX 470... in several games.
*

Another blind person. What charts were you looking at.









If AMD is going to rename their cards to fool their customers atleast bring something to the table. If these numbers are correct they are going to be lucky to have the 587...eeerrr the 5970 competing with a GTX 480. After all the "hype" OCN had I expected better.


----------



## Kalend

Quote:


Originally Posted by *amstech* 
The 6870 is as fast or faster solo, and scales better.
It runs cooler, uses less power and makes less noise.


It makes less noise because it doesn't have to cool as much and its cooler because it uses less power and it uses less power cause it's a die shrink... or are we just stating the obvious now?


----------



## Pao

Quote:


Originally Posted by *amstech* 
A premature conclusion.

These are MIDRANGE GPU's.
Wait for Caymans benchmarks.

I was only looking at the DX11 and tessellation performance, not overall frame rates or anything. Just seemed like even the 460 was completely and utterly dominating even the 6870.

Again, not overall frame rates, but solely DX11 performance.

I mean, I've never even owned an NV card, I was only commenting on what I saw in a review.

Edit: This page from Anand is what made me start thinking about DX11 only performance:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...ange-market/17


----------



## gerikoh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *saulin* 
Price of the GTX 470 needs to be close to the 6870.

Actually looking at the Newegg prices the GTX 470 can be had for $260 and the 6870 for $240, seems about right since the GTX 470 has PhysX/CUDA support and the 6870 doesn't. *Nvidia continues to have good Price/Performance this round*

yeah and performance/watt and performance/die and performance/heat and noise/performance too


----------



## Riou

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Pao* 
I was only looking at the DX11 and tessellation performance, not overall frame rates or anything. Just seemed like even the 460 was completely and utterly dominating even the 6870.

Again, not overall frame rates, but solely DX11 performance.

I mean, I've never even owned an NV card, I was only commenting on what I saw in a review.

Edit: This page from Anand is what made me start thinking about DX11 only performance:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...ange-market/17











A stock 6870 beats a 460 1GB at 800MHz+ core. DX11.

Scaling for 460 1GB SLI is 85.5 percent in this game. Scaling for 6870 CF is 99.7 percent in this game. So much for the urban myth that SLI always scales better than CF.


----------



## Pao

Yeah, sorry, I guess it's not "DX11" but compute benchmarks, and tessellation performance, not the aforementioned DX11 and tessellation.

You could have actually used something on the page I linked to correct me rather then going to another page though









Edit: It beat the FTW 460 by .9 fps, so it's still up in the air at the moment since the 6870 is still at best $10 more.

I'm not dogging the 6k series!!! I was just meaning if you were a dx11 gamer there is no reason to think it's a one sided battle due to this release!


----------



## DrDarkTempler

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Lawcheehung* 
Not exactly, in many instances the Radeon HD 6870 beats the GTX470, with lower temps, lower power usage, and a launch price of $239.99 vs the (new pricing scheme) of $259.99 of the GTX470.


You know you can get GTX470 for $229.99 with MIR right now still on evga own website lol too bad it'll expired on 31st..

Anyway, haev anyone notice the review had GTX470 at 1GB and not 1.25GB?


----------



## el gappo

http://www.overclock3d.net/ 6850 6870 and 6870 crossfire reviews.


----------



## A Russian :D

over all the 6850 and 6870 have Nvidia's mid range performance but run cooler and consume up to 100W less (GTX470).


----------



## Lawcheehung

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DrDarkTempler* 
You know you can get GTX470 for $229.99 with MIR right now still on evga own website lol too bad it'll expired on 31st..

Anyway, haev anyone notice the review had GTX470 at 1GB and not 1.25GB?

Weird, the EVGA's GTX470 isn't eligible for that $30 MIR anymore...

EVGA Mail In Rebate


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Stance* 
The cheapest 470 is going at €182 in here now. Cheapest 6870 I've found so far is at €209.

Look again. 166 euro's for the Gigabyte GTX 470 OC (better than Gainward) and Azerty has it for 171 euro's. Pretty insane isn't it. GTX 470 OC cheaper than HD 6850s

Quote:


Originally Posted by *gerikoh* 
yeah and performance/watt and performance/die and performance/heat and noise/performance too









My G105M offers better performance/watt than an HD 6870. It also offers better performance/die and performance/heat too. And it's cooled passively so 0dBA noise. See the relevancy with my post to yours







?

Besides everyone looks at load noise while honestly all cards produce about the same noise with stock fansinks at load. It's at IDLE sound where general spoken, since I owned a reference HD5850, AMD cards are loud. That high pitched noise everytime, I've still got nightmares from it /drama

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Riou* 
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph3987/33204.png

A stock 6870 beats a 460 1GB at 800MHz+ core. DX11.

Scaling for 460 1GB SLI is 85.5 percent in this game. Scaling for 6870 CF is 99.7 percent in this game. So much for the urban myth that SLI always scales better than CF.

I've read that review. Honestly, even in the conclusion and from the other charts in that very same review you can read/see that the FTW beat the stock 6870. Unfair competition but still, if you're going to skew the facts in the future please do better next time.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *A Russian * 
No, new naming scheme.

5870-->6970
5770-->6870

Please people this is not true. It should be this:

5870 => 6970 (enthusiast)
=> 6870*
=> 5770 (budget)

* $200 mark that was occupied by the GTX 460 and where AMD had a gap in their lineup. AMD admitted that the 5830 failed at that point)


----------



## Dark-Asylum

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
TechPowerUP doesn't compare to GTX 460 1GB either. The only review that does is Anandtech, and in that the HG 6850 1GB beats the GTX 460 1gb SLI.

one 6850 does not outbench 2 460s in SLI...


----------



## Greg121986

With the GTX 470 now as low as $249 without rebates, I am still happy with my purchase of a GTX 470 and water cooling system.


----------



## Pao

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Greg121986* 
With the GTX 470 now as low as $249 without rebates, I am still happy with my purchase of a GTX 470 and water cooling system.









I'm confused, did you buy your 470 at $249? If not then how are you benefiting from a price war?


----------



## iandh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
I've read that review. Honestly, even in the conclusion and from the other charts in that very same review you can read/see that the FTW beat the stock 6870. Unfair competition but still, if you're going to skew the facts in the future please do better next time.

Well, you're speaking of fact skewing, yet leave out one of the most important facts... the 460 FTW may beat the stock 6870 at avg/max fps, but it most definitely does not beat it at min. fps, which is far more important when looking at a card in this performance range.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Dark-Asylum* 
one 6850 does not outbench 2 460s in SLI...

In crossfire. -_-


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *iandh* 
Well, you're speaking of fact skewing, yet leave out one of the most important facts... the 460 FTW may beat the stock 6870 at avg/max fps, but it most definitely does not beat it at min. fps, which is far more important when looking at a card in this performance range.

Care to link where it says that?

EDIT:

I only see people comparing averages. And btw, what did I skew? I just repeat what the article says as conclusion.


----------



## iandh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
Care to link where it says that?

It can be seen in every review that shows min. fps, and by comparing results from each review to each other, you can extrapolate the comparison. The 6870 is a stronger performer than the 460 when it comes to min. fps, overclocked or not.

As far as skewing, my comment was based upon your accusation of skewing facts, but saying that that the OC'ed 460 outperforms the stock 6870 without including min. fps into the equation is skewing facts in itself. I wasn't saying you did it intentionally.


----------



## DrDarkTempler

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Lawcheehung* 
Weird, the EVGA's GTX470 isn't eligible for that $30 MIR anymore...

EVGA Mail In Rebate


I have the older one, still valid until 31st, they have to honer it









http://www.evga.com/products/wwwreba...GA9534_VGA.pdf

Anyway lets get back to orginal topic

Review is good, but kinda biasing a little since they don't take the price drop into account..

as far as i know, if we can end up getting 470 for $229 right now, is cheaper price/fps ratio then 6870 atm

since couple of benchmark shown GTX470 got the upper hand


----------



## alex4069

I am thinking about taking my 460 back and getting 6850cf or 1 6870.
What do ya'll think?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *iandh* 
It can be seen in every review that shows min. fps, and by comparing results from each review to each other, you can extrapolate the comparison. The 6870 is a stronger performer than the 460 when it comes to min. fps, overclocked or not.

Aha, that's were you go wrong. I've never said anything about the other reviews since I did not read them. I'd buy an HD 6870 over a GTX 460 all day. But that is different than trying to prove something with a source that contradicts your statement.

So please tell me, what did I skew?

EDIT:

I read your edit. Let's rest this case though since it was just a misunderstanding. Though I don't get why you defended him when he in fact did skew the facts in that post. He was talking about that specific GTX 460 FTW in that review.


----------



## Rookie1337

@Alex: Go for it if you play mostly the games where it beat the GTX460. I mean I found some on newegg for the same price as the 786MB GTX460s! What is AMD doing? How can they afford that?

The only thing that makes me upset about the HD6000s is that right now the 6850 looks more like a 5830 or some defective (said with the greatest amount of love) 5850. Is this because of drivers right now? I figure with it being so new that they wouldn't have perfect drivers but the distance between the 6850 and 5850 seemed pretty significant in some games (>5FPS to almost 10FPS on one DX11 title).

I still feel weird (good way) though seeing AMD/ATI lead the charge even if it's in something of a sudo-rebranding in GPUs.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *alex4069* 
I am thinking about taking my 460 back and getting 6850cf or 1 6870.
What do ya'll think?

It's up to you really. So far the only review we have that displays HD 6850 CF vs GTX 460 1GB SLI is Anandtech. In most games the HD 6850 pull ahead, but in others the GTX 460 1GB pull ahead. The 460's consume more power but somehow run cooler, LOL. Anyways, I think it's just preference.

For myself, I'll be purchasing the HD 6850's XFX models since they run about 15C cooler, trumping the only advantage the GTX 460's had. And of course I love that double lifetime warranty. The only game I really play that is benchmarked is Battlefield Bad Company 2 and in these tests 2x 6850 hit 93.8 FPS and 2x GTX 460 hit 76.6 FPS.

Oh, and how can I forget: the HD 6850 retails for $180 while the GTX 460 1GB retails for $200.


----------



## iandh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
Aha, that's were you go wrong. I've never said anything about the other reviews since I did not read them. I'd buy an HD 6870 over a GTX 460 all day. But that is different than trying to prove something with a source that contradicts your statement.

So please tell me, what did I skew?

EDIT:

I read your edit. Let's rest this case though since it was just a misunderstanding. Though I don't get why you defended him when he in fact did skew the facts in that post. He was talking about that specific GTX 460 FTW in that review.

Sounds good.

The cards are very close, and depending on title the GTX 460 OC is a good solid card still.

In some cases, the min. fps is identical, but in others, advantage goes pretty firmly to 68xx


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Noir* 
Can a mod place this on the first page

Done.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Behemoth777* 
I'm sure he just didn't notice, no need to be rude. I'm sure this will be transfered in due time.

I was asleep. I'm not a robot, you know.







It's merged now.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp* 
Done.

Did you miss post #378?


----------



## Cr4zYH3aD

Should I Update from my 5750 to a 6870 ? It looks like its worse than the 460 & 5850


----------



## Razi3l

It seems the non-reference 6850s seem to come with voltage control. Awesome.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Cr4zYH3aD* 
Should I Update from my 5750 to a 6870 ? It looks like its worse than the 460 & 5850

It's not worse, it's the same as a 460. I would upgrade to a 6870 if i were you, though. Bigger performance boost though 5750 > 6850 is pretty awesome


----------



## sweffymo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *amstech* 
Actually mine are midrange GPU's that scorched high end GPU's.
I buy based off benchmarks, not price tags.

ORLY? The 4890 is still better than the 5770 and cost less than the 5770 when the 5770 launched. Please don't call yourself a price/performance guy. You're a fanboy, plain and simple. Don't give me the whole DX11 argument; DX11 is pretty useless, even a year after the first DX11 cards have been out.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *amstech* 
A GTX 470 has its hands full with the 6870.
The trick is, it uses much less power, runs much cooler, scales better, and my guess won't be nearly as loud.

The 6870 actually runs pretty hot with the stock cooling...


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
Did you miss post #378?









I didn't when it was first posted; the links in that post that I didn't have were ALL broken by the poster and did not work... but it looks like they do now so I'll update again.

Edit; and done.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
The 6870 actually runs pretty hot with the stock cooling...

The 470 is even hotter with stock cooling


----------



## eternal7trance

Looking at all the reviews, I could care less about power and heat. Now performance-wise the 6870 looks like it has a good chance of overtaking the 470, with drivers of course. Not too bad for the price it's at.


----------



## amstech

Quote:


Originally Posted by *amstech* 
Actually mine are midrange GPU's that scorched high end GPU's.
I buy based off benchmarks, not price tags.


Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
ORLY? .

Really.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
The 4890 is still better than the 5770 and cost less than the 5770 when the 5770 launched.

Incorrect.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
Please don't call yourself a price/performance guy.

I got $400 performance for $315 dollars.
So yeah, I am a price/performance guy.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
You're a fanboy, plain and simple.

I like value. The source is irrelevant.
Only fanboys get butthurt and make rant posts like you. Fanboy.
Don't worry crybaby, Nvidia will keep lowering those prices...whats a GTX 470? $250? The great Fermi?
Impressive.









They are still going to stay on shelves.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
Don't give me the whole DX11 argument; DX11 is pretty useless, even a year after the first DX11 cards have been out.

DX11 is awesome, I love it.
Never going back to DX10, I use DX11 whenever I can.

You can even use it in WoW now









Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
The 6870 actually runs pretty hot with the stock cooling...

Still not as hot as Fermi.


----------



## Enfluenza

oh. my. god.
the 6870 SCALES LIKE A BEAST!!!!!
omg should i sell my beloved (and new) GTX275 for two of these or wait for the 6950 or 6930, because thats all i can afford.

looks like ATi (dont care im still calling it ATi) has really made CF scaling a ton better!


----------



## eternal7trance

I'd like to add, as far as heat goes, everything is better when you setup a fan profile. Most sites say fermi is 90+ degrees but that's just using stock. I get low 70s full load with mine, so I would assume the 6870 would be lower with a fan profile as well. I have to say I'm kinda tempted to switch and try it out.


----------



## Obakemono

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Enfluenza* 
oh. my. god.
the 6870 SCALES LIKE A BEAST!!!!!
omg should i sell my beloved (and new) GTX275 for two of these or wait for the 6950 or 6930, because thats all i can afford.

looks like ATi (dont care im still calling it ATi) has really made CF scaling a ton better!

Yes. They do scale well. I was shocked that 2 6870s match my 3 5770s. So I ordered 2 lastnight.


----------



## Stealth Pyros

Bleh. Still don't feel it's worth it for me to get anything to replace my 4870X2. For the record, I have a single GPU board.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Razi3l* 
The 470 is even hotter with stock cooling









Though it packs a lot more of features


----------



## SkillzKillz

Can't wait to OC this beast.


----------



## Cr4zYH3aD

Ocin is limited on barts GPU, about 50/100 mhz

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...&limitstart=12


----------



## Pao

I still don't have problems gaming on my 4890.

SOOO glad I stopped running benchmarks which have no real value! All they ever did was make me want to upgrade. Actually playing the games never made me unhappy with my gpu.


----------



## Clairvoyant129

Looks like I'll wait for Cayman as these just don't have the performance I'm looking for. I'll hold my judgment until I see Cayman reviews.

PS: So much fanboyism in this thread. You kids need to eat less sugar.


----------



## Enfluenza

damn, i am SOOOO putting up my GTX for sale...
but the most i can get from it is 150...i dont have 100 bucks to buy a 6870, far less TWO.

lol i was planning on 3-way SLi this, but is it worth it when TWO 6870s perform better?

AMD is still on top! im so glad i didnt buy the fermicrap GTX460! its not the 8800GT anymore, the 6870 might be the new 8800GT!

i guess i'll start saving up...or just wait until HIS IceQ 6, Sapphire vaporX, and MSi lightning comes out








i love AMD <3


----------



## Man O' War

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
Though it packs a lot more of features









Yeah the 470 has more features...It is called 0's on the end of the electricity receipt.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Enfluenza* 
oh. my. god.
the 6870 SCALES LIKE A BEAST!!!!!
omg should i sell my beloved (and new) GTX275 for two of these or wait for the 6950 or 6930, because thats all i can afford.

looks like ATi (dont care im still calling it ATi) has really made CF scaling a ton better!

Imo if you can afford and then it's worth it. Sometimes the performance is close to *GTX 480 SLI*. Which is just amazing.


----------



## eternal7trance

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Man O' War* 
Yeah the 470 has more features...It is called 0's on the end of the electricity receipt.

This is overclock.net, everything ends up putting more 0's on your electricity bill.


----------



## Clairvoyant129

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Man O' War* 
Yeah the 470 has more features...It is called 0's on the end of the electricity receipt.

Yea someone who has never paid bills before talking about utility bills. What the hell is a "electricity receipt"? And using these GPUs all cost money, using a GTX 295 instead of a HD5870 may increase your *annual* cost by less than $20.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Cr4zYH3aD* 
Ocin is limited on barts GPU, about 50/100 mhz

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...&limitstart=12

http://www.fudzilla.com/reviews/item...rrived?start=5
http://vr-zone.com/print/amd-radeon-...iew/10117.html

Also:

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
*And HD 6850 is a winner:*

In the Neoseeker review, the HD 6850 overclocked to 924mhz/1170mhz matches the performance of the stock HD 6870 at 900mhz/1050mz.

At Guru3D they overclocked the HD 6850 to 897mhz/897mhz and achieved 112FPS in MW2 at 1920x1200, while the stock HD 6870 achieved 117 FPS in MW2 at 1920x1200.

Kitguru Results:



















*TechPowerUP:*

945MHZ core / 1165mhz Memory










*Hexus:*

900mhz core / Unknown Memory (Maybe Stock?)

















The best card to purchase now is the HD 6850. Consumers are being fooled by the higher stock clocks on the HD 6870.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Man O' War* 
Yeah the 470 has more features...It is called 0's on the end of the electricity receipt.

I find that funny coming from a guy with an OC'ed hexacore and a dual energy sucking monster that by far eats the most energy of all cards on the market. Hmm, I guess it's overclocked to 'stock clocks' too right







?


----------



## Stealth Pyros

I want to see comparisons with a 4870X2









Edit: Bleh, by comparing it to the 5870, probably still not much of an upgrade for me. This card feels like it'll never weaken out! It's held so well against the newer cards.


----------



## goldbranch

I'm not impressed at all. Apart from tessellation improvement, this is nothing breakthrough but new graphic cards filling in price gaps. If you call 6870 a replacement for 5770, then launch it at 5770's launch price and I'm in.

The same case for 69xx series.


----------



## dir_d

its not a 5770 replacement. It is totally new made up to compete with the GTX 460.


----------



## sweffymo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *amstech* 
Really.

Incorrect.

I got $400 performance for $315 dollars.
So yeah, I am a price/performance guy.

I like value. The source is irrelevant.
Only fanboys get butthurt and make rant posts like you. Fanboy.
Don't worry crybaby, Nvidia will keep lowering those prices...whats a GTX 470? $250? The great Fermi?
Impressive.









They are still going to stay on shelves.

DX11 is awesome, I love it.
Never going back to DX10, I use DX11 whenever I can.

You can even use it in WoW now









Still not as hot as Fermi.

Wait, you're seriously denying that the 4890 is better than the 5770? The 4890 is the same performance-wise as a 5830, or similar to a 6850...

And at the launch of the 5770, the 4890 was selling for $200. The 5770 had inflated to ~$230-$250.

Also, I have never owned an nVidia GPU... If anything I am an ATi fanboy; I am just calling you out for being ultra-wrong. Also, you got $315 performance for $315. Is nVidia now the absolute arbiter of GPU value? My 4890 was $260, but it performs as well overclocked to 1055/1200 as a stock GTX280. Does that mean that I got $400 performance for $260? No. If anything, the 280 was $260 worth of performance for $400.

You don't want to sell us any death sticks. You want to go home and rethink your life.


----------



## Fb74

Did you hear about that ?

HD 6850 with 1120 shaders went to reviewers

Some HD6850 have been sent to press with a lower GPU clock but 1120 shaders activated instead of the 960 regular ones...
Higher results in benchmark of course...

Might be an error (bios)... or not ?


----------



## Domino

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
Though it packs a lot more of features









Like?

The 6850/70 offers better multigpu scaling, better fps (on mid-range resolutions, i.e. 1200P), lower price, better video performance and AA features, and 5+ monitors out of the box. If PhysX is a worthwhile feature then you have your priorities wrong. We still haven't seen folding performance, so can't comment on that.


----------



## pursuinginsanity

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
And at the launch of the 5770, the 4890 was selling for $200. The 5770 had inflated to ~$230-$250.

On what planet, or in what country? I bought my 5770 at the height of the price gouging and only paid $180. I've -never- seen a 5770 selling for over 200 USD from a reputable source. They've -never- been 230-250 USD.

EDIT: Did anyone else find it funny that Tom's Hardware had the 460 1gb topping the 6850, but sites like Guru3d had the 6850 heads and shoulders above the 460 1gb and close to the 470?

I thought it was interesting to say the least..


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Fb74* 
Did you hear about that ?

HD 6850 with 1120 shaders went to reviewers

Some HD6850 have been sent to press with a lower GPU clock but 1120 shaders activated instead of the 960 regular ones...
Higher results in benchmark of course...

Might be an error (bios)... or not ?









Hmmm, this is quite interesting. Even without the extra shaders, when the HD 6850 is clocked the same it performs within 5%-7% of the HD 6870. I may have to try flashing my card for equivalent performance.


----------



## goldbranch

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Domino* 
Like?

Physx, CUDA, folding capability...

Aren't those considered features?









I don't really care about them a lot though since I only need physx for gaming and I don't really care about my monthly bill either.

It's nothing like using a fermi GPU would double your electricity cost. It's nothing like using a fermi GPU would burn your PC down.


----------



## Domino

Quote:


Originally Posted by *goldbranch* 
Physx, CUDA, folding capability...

Aren't those considered features?









I don't really care about them a lot though since I only need physx for gaming and I don't really care about my monthly bill either.

It's nothing like using a fermi GPU would double your electricity cost. It's nothing like using a fermi GPU would burn your PC down.










Quote:

The 6850/70 offers better multigpu scaling, better fps (on mid-range resolutions, i.e. 1200P), lower price, better video performance and AA features, and 5+ monitors out of the box. If PhysX is a worthwhile feature then you have your priorities wrong. We still haven't seen folding performance, so can't comment on that.
You know, stuff the GPU was originally designed for.









Let alone the CPU performance, SP/DP is absolute garbage on fermi. If tweaked properly, a 5870 would pull higher or equal PPD then a 480.


----------



## sweffymo

OK, we need to figure out if it's possible to flash the 6850 to enable the 6870's shaders... I would pick one up NOW if it were.


----------



## goldbranch

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Domino* 
You know, stuff the GPU was originally designed for.









Let alone the CPU performance, SP/DP is absolute garbage on fermi. If tweaked properly, a 5870 would pull higher or equal PPD then a 480.

Well, I don't fold so I can't commend on that, but I see most people use fermi to fold.

Physx is one main thing that makes me reluctant to come back to my old 5870 and ATI in general, not to mention that nvidia has been close to ATI's price/performance ratio recently.


----------



## DrDarkTempler

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Domino* 
You know, stuff the GPU was originally designed for.









Let alone the CPU performance, SP/DP is absolute garbage on fermi. If tweaked properly, a 5870 would pull higher or equal PPD then a 480.


you forgot one thing tho, AMD need like 1600 SP to perform what 470 can perform for only using 448 SP, meaning Cuda core is much more powerful then AMD's If you compete them core for core (same amount of core), Nvidia will raped AMD if we're not talking about power wattagel and temp variable.


----------



## dir_d

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DrDarkTempler* 
you forgot one thing tho, AMD need like 1600 SP to perform what 470 can perform for only using 448 SP, meaning Cuda core is much more powerful then AMD's If you compete them core for core (same amount of core), Nvidia will raped AMD if we're not talking about power wattagel and temp variable.

You cant say this..too many architectural differences. Because i can say that since each of AMDs shaders are 5 way therefore there are only really 1120/5=224 shaders making AMDs cards more efficient.


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:


Originally Posted by *pursuinginsanity* 
On what planet, or in what country? I bought my 5770 at the height of the price gouging and only paid $180. I've -never- seen a 5770 selling for over 200 USD from a reputable source. They've -never- been 230-250 USD.

EDIT: Did anyone else find it funny that Tom's Hardware had the 460 1gb topping the 6850, but sites like Guru3d had the 6850 heads and shoulders above the 460 1gb and close to the 470?

I thought it was interesting to say the least..

Interesting...I probably went through a dozen reviews and didn't notice anything you are describing. All the reviews had the 6850 and 460 1gb fairly close with the 6850 edging it out at higher resolutions. The 6850 seemed ahead more than it was behind, but it was by incredibly marginal amounts. There seemed to be a similar relationship with the 6870 and the 470 as well from what I saw. I didn't see any reviews showing the 6850 close to the 470 in anything but a random test here or there.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
OK, we need to figure out if it's possible to flash the 6850 to enable the 6870's shaders... I would pick one up NOW if it were.

Those were just review samples, mate.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DrDarkTempler* 
you forgot one thing tho, AMD need like 1600 SP to perform what 470 can perform for only using 448 SP, meaning Cuda core is much more powerful then AMD's If you compete them core for core (same amount of core), Nvidia will raped AMD if we're not talking about power wattagel and temp variable.

Mate, there are more than just shader counts that matter lol. There are architectural differences too. It's like saying if AMD CPUs had 4 cores 8 threads they would rape Intel. They just wouldn't.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *pursuinginsanity* 
EDIT: Did anyone else find it funny that Tom's Hardware had the 460 1gb topping the 6850, but sites like Guru3d had the 6850 heads and shoulders above the 460 1gb and close to the 470?

Tom's reviews are BS like most of their articles.


----------



## sweffymo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Razi3l* 
Those were just review samples, mate.

Mate, there are more than just shader counts that matter lol. There are architectural differences too. It's like saying if AMD CPUs had 4 cores 8 threads they would rape Intel. They just wouldn't.

Concerning the first statement, review samples GENERALLY are the same as the product that is sold to the public. I don't know about in this case though.

Concerning the second: They would probably perform a little worse, but they would probably cost about 75% less, so... (Of course, this is the reason people buy AMD processors anyway).


----------



## saulin

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Corrupted* 
Interesting...I probably went through a dozen reviews and didn't notice anything you are describing. All the reviews had the 6850 and 460 1gb fairly close with the 6850 edging it out at higher resolutions. The 6850 seemed ahead more than it was behind, but it was by incredibly marginal amounts. There seemed to be a similar relationship with the 6870 and the 470 as well from what I saw. I didn't see any reviews showing the 6850 close to the 470 in anything but a random test here or there.

Exactly. Price/performance. Nvidia is in good standing still. Plus didn't we hear about price drops for the GTX 460 and GTX 470 already?

Here is the question. What happens to the 5850/5870? They need price drops if AMD/ATI wants to keep selling them.


----------



## voice

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DrDarkTempler* 
you forgot one thing tho, AMD need like 1600 SP to perform what 470 can perform for only using 448 SP, meaning Cuda core is much more powerful then AMD's If you compete them core for core (same amount of core), Nvidia will raped AMD if we're not talking about power wattagel and temp variable.

ATI's Shaders are not the same as Nvidias! The archiectures are completely different and cannot be compared purely through shader count.


----------



## ~CS~

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DrDarkTempler* 
you forgot one thing tho, AMD need like 1600 SP to perform what 470 can perform for only using 448 SP, meaning Cuda core is much more powerful then AMD's If you compete them core for core (same amount of core), Nvidia will raped AMD if we're not talking about power wattagel and temp variable.

Actually you are wrong for several reasons.One being,SP does not equal shader.AMD shader consists of 5 SP's,so its 320 AMD shaders VS 448.

But shaders shouldn't mean anything to the consumer,performance and efficiency of the arch should.


----------



## TonyLee

Quote:


Originally Posted by *saulin* 
Exactly. Price/performance. Nvidia is in good standing still. Plus didn't we hear about price drops for the GTX 460 and GTX 470 already?

Here is the question. What happens to the 5850/5870? They need price drops if AMD/ATI wants to keep selling them.

That's a good question.

As of this post, newegg has the 5850s priced at (price rounded, and not counting any rebate) $295, $310, $280, $285, $310, $370, $270, $260, $310, $265, and $256 (not counting an open box and an out of stock).

The current pricing of the 6870s is $240, $240, $260, $250, $240, with the others out of stock at $240 each.

If the 6870 outperforms the 5850, then who would want a 5850 (other than maybe adding another for crossfire)?

Once the 69xx series hits, and if the 5870 is the same price as the new series, then who is going to want the 5870 over the new ones (unless the crossfire reason as above)?


----------



## eternal7trance

Quote:


Originally Posted by *saulin* 
Exactly. Price/performance. Nvidia is in good standing still. Plus didn't we hear about price drops for the GTX 460 and GTX 470 already?

Here is the question. What happens to the 5850/5870? They need price drops if AMD/ATI wants to keep selling them.

Imo the 5850 and 5870 are a big joke now with Fermi and the 6xxx series out.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *goldbranch* 
Well, I don't fold so I can't commend on that, but I see most people use fermi to fold.

Physx is one main thing that makes me reluctant to come back to my old 5870 and ATI in general, not to mention that nvidia has been close to ATI's price/performance ratio recently.

You forgot tesselation and video transcoding with CUDA of course









http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...ange-market/17

AMD did a nice trick with tesselation on these new cards, but after a certain level of tesselation performance just falls way back to only Cypress speeds never topping out Fermi, still.....

EDIT:

Quote:


Originally Posted by *eternal7trance* 
Imo the 5850 and 5870 are a big joke now with Fermi and the 6xxx series out.

Yeah, the 5870 never was worth it's money really. The HD 5850 has had its time of glory though. Actually the only good cards AMD had were the 5850 and 5770. But they did deliver exactly where AMD wanted it to. Of course without competition and taking efficiency into account, this was to be expected.


----------



## binormalkilla

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Stealth Pyros*


Bleh. Still don't feel it's worth it for me to get anything to replace my 4870X2. For the record, I have a single GPU board.


I agree. My second PCI-E slot is taken by my RAID card. These cards are amazing for their price though. Two of these gets you insane performance on the dollar.

I just ordered an OCZ Vertex 2, so no toys for a while.


----------



## test tube

Quote:



Originally Posted by *saulin*


Exactly. Price/performance. Nvidia is in good standing still. Plus didn't we hear about price drops for the GTX 460 and GTX 470 already?

Here is the question. What happens to the 5850/5870? They need price drops if AMD/ATI wants to keep selling them.


Not from a financial standpoint... the die sizes for the 470 are double the 6870's in terms of area. For every sale of a 6870 ATI will gain twice as much in terms of silicon production compared to nVidia.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *eternal7trance*


Imo the 5850 and 5870 are a big joke now with Fermi and the 6xxx series out.


And that's perfectly okay considering they are over a year old now.


----------



## goldbranch

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


You forgot tesselation and video transcoding with CUDA of course









http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...ange-market/17

AMD did a nice trick with tesselation on these new cards, but after a certain level of tesselation performance just falls way back to only Cypress speeds never topping out Fermi, still.....

EDIT:

Yeah, the 5870 never was worth it's money really. The HD 5850 has had its time of glory though. Actually the only good cards AMD had were the 5850 and 5770. But they did deliver exactly where AMD wanted it to. Of course without competition and taking efficiency into account, this was to be expected.


I'm not sure on tessellation since the reviews have shown that ati 6xxx caught up quite well in tessellation (unigine heaven, metro 2033) but CUDA really makes my life a lot easier with Badaboom.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TonyLee*


That's a good question.

As of this post, newegg has the 5850s priced at (price rounded, and not counting any rebate) $295, $310, $280, $285, $310, $370, $270, $260, $310, $265, and $256 (not counting an open box and an out of stock).

The current pricing of the 6870s is $240, $240, $260, $250, $240, with the others out of stock at $240 each.

If the 6870 outperforms the 5850, then who would want a 5850 (other than maybe adding another for crossfire)?

Once the 69xx series hits, and if the 5870 is the same price as the new series, then who is going to want the 5870 over the new ones (unless the crossfire reason as above)?


Well, the same case applied when GTX 470 matched 5870's performance while fairly cheaper and offers better dx11 performance. I guess those prices are for those who desperately needs another 5870 for CF setup.


----------



## eternal7trance

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


And that's perfectly okay considering they are over a year old now.


Yea but the pricing has always been terrible. Even after Fermi and the 6xxx series came out, they were still overpriced. I felt like I took a hit after I bought my 5850. The only reason the 5850 and the 5870 did so well is because the temp made it more appealing to mainstream users who didn't want to use MSI to make the card cool right. I still don't understand why nvidia couldn't just make their cards auto fan setup actually work right.

I mean 90c on a stock profile? Come on nvidia you can do better than that.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *goldbranch*


I'm not sure on tessellation since the reviews have shown that ati 6xxx caught up quite well in tessellation (unigine heaven, metro 2033) but CUDA really makes my life a lot easier with Badaboom.

Well, the same case applied when GTX 470 matched 5870's performance while fairly cheaper and offers better dx11 performance. I guess those prices are for those who desperately needs another 5870 for CF setup.


That's why I linked the article with Civ V and my comment below it


----------



## dir_d

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


You forgot tesselation and video transcoding with CUDA of course









http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...ange-market/17

AMD did a nice trick with tesselation on these new cards, but after a certain level of tesselation performance just falls way back to only Cypress speeds never topping out Fermi, still.....

EDIT:

Yeah, the 5870 never was worth it's money really. The HD 5850 has had its time of glory though. Actually the only good cards AMD had were the 5850 and 5770. But they did deliver exactly where AMD wanted it to. Of course without competition and taking efficiency into account, this was to be expected.


As a day 1 adopter of a 5870 i think the 375 i paid for this card on launch night was more than worth it. Its been over a year and still is the 3rd fastest card in the world. You cant discount the 5850 and 5870 now and say they were never really worth it.


----------



## Ihatethedukes

Quote:



Originally Posted by *eternal7trance*


Yea but the pricing has always been terrible. Even after Fermi and the 6xxx series came out, they were still overpriced. I felt like I took a hit after I bought my 5850. The only reason the 5850 and the 5870 did so well is because the temp made it more appealing to mainstream users who didn't want to use MSI to make the card cool right. I still don't understand why nvidia couldn't just make their cards auto fan setup actually work right.

I mean 90c on a stock profile? Come on nvidia you can do better than that.


Maybe because 'working right' also meant 'loud as hell, all of the time'.


----------



## eternal7trance

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Ihatethedukes*


Maybe because 'working right' also meant 'loud as hell, all of the time'.


I wear hearing aids. "Loud as hell" to me isn't the same as "loud as hell" to you.


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:



Originally Posted by *test tube*


Not from a financial standpoint... the die sizes for the 470 are double the 6870's in terms of area. For every sale of a 6870 ATI will gain twice as much in terms of silicon production compared to nVidia.


As a consumer, this is something I couldn't care less about.


----------



## Greg121986

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Pao* 
I'm confused, did you buy your 470 at $249? If not then how are you benefiting from a price war?

Because I will soon buy a second. There is also no point in me crying for the fact that Nvidia prices will go down. That is a natural thing that will consistently happen. I'm not interested at all in hedging prices of hardware to the point where I would starve myself of something I want.


----------



## Noir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp* 
*Done.*

I was asleep. I'm not a robot, you know.







It's merged now.

Thanks I think that pretty much sums up most reviews already


----------



## skarm

im pretty annoyed at how i got my 460s for $150 and can barely push out 26,000 gpu while the 6850 can probably push higher and barely cost more, run cooler, more mem, etc.


----------



## sLowEnd

Want to add these?


You Tube


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

I'd rather keep it to official text-based reviews and news from dedicated sites; if I start adding videos I'd have to include user reviews/unboxings, and there would end up being just plain too many of them.


----------



## Coolking23

Can this be added: http://www.vortez.co.uk/contenttelle..._review,1.html

It seems to cover quite a few games.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *dir_d* 
As a day 1 adopter of a 5870 i think the 375 i paid for this card on launch night was more than worth it. Its been over a year and still is the 3rd fastest card in the world. You cant discount the 5850 and 5870 now and say they were never really worth it.

The HD 5850 always beat the HD 5870 as far as price/performance went. The $100 was not worth it IMO. The HD 5850 was a succes, just like I said in my previous post. The HD 5870 was always overpriced.....


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Coolking23* 
Can this be added: http://www.vortez.co.uk/contenttelle..._review,1.html

It seems to cover quite a few games.

Done. Also, you may want to change your avatar, some may not find it work-safe (that is, if it's a towel... if it's a dress then it's fine).


----------



## PopcornMachine

I particularly like the review at overclockersclub.net because they tested all cards at stock and at max overclock.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/amd_6800series/

This is important because it shows the overclocked 6850 almost catches the oc'd 6870 and passes the oc'd 460. So maybe that's the card to get.

I'm was thinking of going with the 6870 so I could just use one powerful card instead of crossfire, but so far they don't seem to clock well. And I'd rather wait for a custom cooler version.

On the other hand, the 6870 is mostly what I was hoping for... better than the 5850 and cheaper.

Then again, I just may wait and see what the 6950 brings.

Decisions, decisions...


----------



## SkillzKillz

How can it scale at 101.8%?


----------



## Electroneng

Quote:

How can it scale at 101.8%?
Good Question!


----------



## Domino

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 









How can it scale at 101.8%?









Been seeing this with other reviews as well. The efficency with crossfire may just be better the sli.


----------



## DJEndet

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 









How can it scale at 101.8%?









It's amazing how well these scale.. I thought 5770's scaled well.


----------



## Riou

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 









How can it scale at 101.8%?









I had Tri-fire 5870 that scaled at over 100% in some games (like SF4).


----------



## xisintheend

Still alot of reasons for me to love and keep my 4890?


----------



## sweffymo

Quote:



Originally Posted by *xisintheend*


Still alot of reasons for me to love and keep my 4890?


I'm keeping mine...







It will make a good backup card when I upgrade too.


----------



## Strat79

I am 100% satisfied with the performance of both cards. I wasn't expecting anywhere near this good, especially the Crossfire numbers. That is absolutely amazing coming from how well they have been scaling recently. They both look to be really nice cards and probably the new price/performance king. Only better with newer drivers as well, can't wait for the higher end cards.


----------



## Coolking23

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp*


Done. Also, you may want to change your avatar, some may not find it work-safe (that is, if it's a towel... if it's a dress then it's fine).










Thanks, it's a dress I believe


----------



## YangerD

Worth the upgrade if I'm able to sell my 5770?


----------



## Behemoth777

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Coolking23*


Thanks, it's a dress I believe










I'd say his avatar is... Good family fun.


----------



## PureLogic

Quote:



Originally Posted by *xisintheend*


Still alot of reasons for me to love and keep my 4890?


im feeling the same way too








or maybe i just don't have money


----------



## sweffymo

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PureLogic*


im feeling the same way too








or maybe i just don't have money










Me too...


----------



## binormalkilla

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*











How can it scale at 101.8%?










Synergy! It's definitely possible.

Now I need to see what drivers they were running because I went back to play BC2 earlier (it's been a while) and it didn't seem like my 4870x2 was scaling correctly. Crossfire support has been on and off with that game since Catalyst 10.4 IIRC.

Right now I'm on the 10.9 hotfix drivers for Starcraft 2 Crossfire performance.


----------



## Yvese

Do my eyes deceive me.. or are the 6850's getting near 100% scaling?


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Hutchinson*


The 6870 is an absolute ripper of a card, Priced only ~$50 more than a gtx 460 1gb is at most, with performance often more than a 470, sometimes at 5870 levels. I want some!

EDIT 2: Sorry should have mentioned that this is in Aus at a store that i use anyway.


Where are you seeing a HD6870 for AU$290? Cheapest I saw was $315.
Probably costs less to import right now, still...

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Corrupted*


the "at most" isn't accurate...but yeah. If it is in your price range, it appears the best buy. The 460 really isn't in the same price range and shouldn't be compared though.


In Australia, at least, it's at the price that the GTX 460 1GB launched at, I really don't doubt the price coming down soon enough.

At PCCaseGear:
GTX 460 1GB price now: AU$239 cheapest, AU$300 launch
HD6850 price now/launch: AU$250
HD6870 price now/launch: AU$315

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Noir*


Most 6850 reviews shows that those card OC like a champ.

Almost all Sapphire 6850s reached 900 on the core









Looks like people are having troubles with the 6870 though. Guess we can count on our users here to to show them how it is done then










Keep in mind that reviewers tend to suck at OCing for whatever reason, I don't think I've seen a single review with the GPU core over 1Ghz for the HD5k series or HD4890, bar the MSI Hawk models?

Quote:



Originally Posted by *rocstar96*


Damn It.

Just a random question, Whats better for After effects/Photoshop CS5, A Nvidia or an ATI card? :|


nVidia, iirc those programs have CUDA stuff.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


Actually, this is not a new architecture and not even a hybrid architecture. Barts is a cut down version of Cypress (no disabled parts in the 6870 though) while maintaining the amount of ROPs and tweaking the tesselator (only the data algorithm has been tweaked). Appparently Barts can't do FP64 like Cypress and Fermi, but who'll need that on a gaming card anyways









So for general computing and sheer geometry performance it's Fermi all the way. And for a serious fast gaming card that keeps it's head cool while being priced well and efficient, Barts all the way










Actually, it's hybrid.

They got the shaders from RV870 and altered them (From 1 complex and 4 simple per cluster to 4 medium complexity) and put in a new uncore.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


Yeah an ATI card that manages to beat Fermi in temperatures graphs is rare but true this time. Though it's not exactly a fair comparison since 6850s are faster most of the time










Only because ATI cards use average coolers, Fermis stock cooler is about as good as external exhaust can get. (GTX 480s is, anyway)

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Noir*


Add Toms as well

I think they are the ONLY review site that tested the morphological AA

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ts,2776-4.html

Read it here


Toms are usually extremely biased to Intel, iirc.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Pao*


Looks like there is still plenty of reason to buy Fermi when considering DX11 performance.


What games actually use more than basic tessellation, etc, atm? Fermi has epic DX11 performance, but I don't think it's really required tbh.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Behemoth777*


These are also using beta drivers. I bet the same thing will happen to cayman on release. Just give it a couple of official driver releases and I bet we will see an improvement in tessellation, since that is the majority of what they added with the 6xxx series and there was very little support for before.


This, HD5k was really only launched with basic support for DX11, these cards and the next gen with the new shader design are the cards that are meant to start to give a really good DX11 performance.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *saulin*


[/IMG]http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6870/images/perfrel.gif[/IMG]

Price of the GTX 470 needs to be close to the 6870.

Actually looking at the Newegg prices the GTX 470 can be had for $260 and the 6870 for $240, seems about right since the GTX 470 has PhysX/CUDA support and the 6870 doesn't. Nvidia continues to have good Price/Performance this round


Indeed, although the only real merit of PhysX and CUDA support at the moment is Photoshop and [email protected], with a tiny amount of games using GPU PhysX.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Stance*


From everything I've read it really does go head-to-head on stock speeds. But I agree that once the OC is factored in things might be different.

People forget that going from 600 to 800+ will always mean a larger % overclock than 900 > 1050+.


It depends, while I think that an OCed 470 will beat an OCed HD6870, an Athlon64 will do much more work at 3Ghz than a P4 at 4Ghz, assuming the HD6870 only gets to 1050Mhz max (There's always a chance that it will get over 1100Mhz, which would be 200Mhz extra on both cards), its the IPC that matters...If the Radeon does more per clock than the 470, it'll easily make up that 50Mhz, but if it doesn't then the 470 will pull ahead.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ryanrenolds08*


Wow that's about as underwhelming as it gets. It beats the 460 FTW in 3 tests? Sorry AMD but failure was just around the corner.

/flamesuit

Another blind person. What charts were you looking at.









If AMD is going to rename their cards to fool their customers atleast bring something to the table. If these numbers are correct they are going to be lucky to have the 587...eeerrr the 5970 competing with a GTX 480. After all the "hype" OCN had I expected better.


What beats the 460 FTW in three tests? I've seen the HD6850 beating the GTX 460 in nearly every non-TWIMTBP game and the HD6870 practically neck and neck with the 470 in every non-TWIMTBP game...

And they did bring performance? The HD6870 matches the GTX 470, HD6950 should match the GTX 480 and HD6970 should kill it...HD5990 (Probably an x2 card) will definitely kill the 480.

I think someones just angry that their GTX 470 is now decidedly mid-range rather than high end.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Pao*


I was only looking at the DX11 and tessellation performance, not overall frame rates or anything. Just seemed like even the 460 was completely and utterly dominating even the 6870.

Again, not overall frame rates, but solely DX11 performance.

I mean, I've never even owned an NV card, I was only commenting on what I saw in a review.

Edit: This page from Anand is what made me start thinking about DX11 only performance:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...ange-market/17


They improved performance dramatically in the most common tessellation factors, Uniengine really is unrealistic because no game uses that amount of tessellation and to be honest, I doubt any game will for a very long time.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Riou*


[/IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph3987/33204.png[/IMG]

A stock 6870 beats a 460 1GB at 800MHz+ core. DX11.

Scaling for 460 1GB SLI is 85.5 percent in this game. Scaling for 6870 CF is 99.7 percent in this game. So much for the urban myth that SLI always scales better than CF.


It was only nVidiots and some uninformed people saying that, it did scale better in the early days (With the master card CF, etc) but with HD2900XT and 8800GTX, the HD2900XT CF setup matched a 8800GTX SLI setup, despite the 2900 being slower card for card, same with HD3800 CF, nVidia got closer with the GTX 200 series and some 9 series cards (The 9600GT was one of the best scaling cards ever) and ATI dropped the ball with scaling on the HD5k series, they did in general with driver performance...It's why two HD4890s beat a HD5870 despite the fact the HD4890s have CFX scaling to deal with.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


Besides everyone looks at load noise while honestly all cards produce about the same noise with stock fansinks at load. It's at IDLE sound where general spoken, since I owned a reference HD5850, AMD cards are loud. That high pitched noise everytime, I've still got nightmares from it /drama


Eh, it depends more on the individual card, not the brand...My 9400GT is whining louder than my HD4890 ever got and I never really heard my HD4890 Vapor-X over my 9800GT.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I've read that review. Honestly, even in the conclusion and from the other charts in that very same review you can read/see that the FTW beat the stock 6870. Unfair competition but still, if you're going to skew the facts in the future please do better next time.


My HD3300 at 1Ghz probably beats my 9400GT at stock, does that mean the 9400GT is slower? Wait for fair competition and don't be hypocritical by saying someone is skewing the facts when you are, too, even if you did mention "Unfair competition, but still". (Also, how was he skewing the facts? He was stating it was that review and replying to someone else about DX11 performance...)

Quote:



Originally Posted by *iandh*


Well, you're speaking of fact skewing, yet leave out one of the most important facts... the 460 FTW may beat the stock 6870 at avg/max fps, but it most definitely does not beat it at min. fps, which is far more important when looking at a card in this performance range.


This, if my card runs at 9001fps for most of the game but drops to 1fps for a certain section, its still going to have worse gameplay performance than one that runs at 300fps max, but never goes below 120fps.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I read your edit. Let's rest this case though since it was just a misunderstanding. Though I don't get why you defended him when he in fact did skew the facts in that post. He was talking about that specific GTX 460 FTW in that review.


He wasn't replying to you, he was replying to a guy about DX11 performance and used that to say "Look, in real world the HD6870 is faster than a GTX 460", you just misinterpreted his post.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sweffymo*


ORLY? The 4890 is still better than the 5770 and cost less than the 5770 when the 5770 launched. Please don't call yourself a price/performance guy. You're a fanboy, plain and simple. Don't give me the whole DX11 argument; DX11 is pretty useless, even a year after the first DX11 cards have been out.


The HD4890 puts out heaps of heat and uses a lot more power than the HD5770, his 600w would be right at the limit...I know, I had HD4890 CFX until my Corsair VX-550 blew up because it overloaded that PSU.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *amstech*


Incorrect.


Which bit is? The HD5770 barely matches a HD4870 in performance, let alone a HD4890.

And iirc, they were cheaper? Especially used. (I got two HD4890 VaporX's for AU$300 + postage used, HD5770s cost more than that for a good aftermarket model)

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


Though it packs a lot more of features










Like?
PhysX: Yay! I have less than 10 current games that adds some papers and stuff blowing around!
CUDA: Yay! I can fold! Or use Photoshop faster!
3D Vision: Yay! I can buy another screen that costs more than a normal one, then buy some glasses for even more money just to have games in 3D!

For a gamer, at least, all of the "features" are useless, coming from an nVidia owner, too.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Pao*


I still don't have problems gaming on my 4890.

SOOO glad I stopped running benchmarks which have no real value! All they ever did was make me want to upgrade. Actually playing the games never made me unhappy with my gpu.


This, the only card I have (that was a great gamer at one point) which is starting to really show its age is my 9800GT, which I sold.









Quote:



Originally Posted by *Razi3l*


Imo if you can afford and then it's worth it. Sometimes the performance is close to *GTX 480 SLI*. Which is just amazing.


Seems to scale better in general from what I've seen, 99.7% scaling in one test! Geez, Hydra couldn't top that...And this is with very early drivers too.

There hasn't been a better P/P card since the 8800GT.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I find that funny coming from a guy with an OC'ed hexacore and a dual energy sucking monster that by far eats the most energy of all cards on the market. Hmm, I guess it's overclocked to 'stock clocks' too right







?


The GTX 480 uses more watts than that HD5970 he has...

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Fb74*


Did you hear about that ?

HD 6850 with 1120 shaders went to reviewers

Some HD6850 have been sent to press with a lower GPU clock but 1120 shaders activated instead of the 960 regular ones...
Higher results in benchmark of course...

Might be an error (bios)... or not ?










Hopefully, I'd love to get one of those cards...Definitely getting a HD6850 once the launch prices come down a bit.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Domino*


Like?

The 6850/70 offers better multigpu scaling, better fps (on mid-range resolutions, i.e. 1200P), lower price, better video performance and AA features, and 5+ monitors out of the box. If PhysX is a worthwhile feature then you have your priorities wrong. We still haven't seen folding performance, so can't comment on that.


Until OpenCL comes out, nVidia is practically gaurenteed to fold better because Stanford aren't using a optimized way for ATI cards.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *goldbranch*


Physx, CUDA, folding capability...


Two of those are useless for most users, one of which is useless in all but one or two games, CUDAs only real use is in photoshop, etc as its video encoders really suck for quality and aren't that much faster than CPU ones iirc.

Folding? That's the only better feature, and once Stanford makes an OpenCL client, chances are the ATI cards will pwn...

Quote:



Originally Posted by *goldbranch*


Well, I don't fold so I can't commend on that, but I see most people use fermi to fold.

Physx is one main thing that makes me reluctant to come back to my old 5870 and ATI in general, not to mention that nvidia has been close to ATI's price/performance ratio recently.


Buy a GT 430, they're cheap and seem to be great for PhysX.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *saulin*


Here is the question. What happens to the 5850/5870? They need price drops if AMD/ATI wants to keep selling them.


1) They have gotten price drops, maybe not official but they have dropped a fair bit in price.
2) They only want to get rid of the last of their stock, considering they sold something like 25 million DX11 GPUs and have 90% of the DX11 market they did quite well.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


You forgot tesselation and video transcoding with CUDA of course










Tessellation to the level that Fermi is good at is only used in one benchmark that I can think of, not really a feature unless you get off on Uniengine Heaven.

The CUDA Video Transcoder is crap, iirc, lower quality and not much faster than using a CPU, if you mean just watching videos...UVD3.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


[/IMG]http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon_HD_6850_CrossFire/images/bfbc2_2560_1600.gif[/IMG]

How can it scale at 101.8%?










The Single Card config probably isn't running as fast as it could due to drivers.

Man, I'm very close to getting the XFX HD6850, sexy cooler is sexy, although with XFX's rep, I'll wait for a few user reviews and if its crap, Gbyte all the way.


----------



## Brenslick

Is the 6850 consistently faster than a 460 1GB? I was looking a reviews, and the first few had the 6850 pretty much beating the 460 in every benchmark. But, the tomshardware says the 460 is slightly faster, and some other reviews have the 6850 barely beating the 460...i dont know who to trust.


----------



## Remix65

ati release date on these cards is great.


----------



## Ice98

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


Toms are usually extremely biased to Intel, iirc.

What games actually use more than basic tessellation, etc, atm? Fermi has epic DX11 performance, but I don't think it's really required tbh.

Indeed, although the only real merit of PhysX and CUDA support at the moment is Photoshop and [email protected], with a tiny amount of games using GPU PhysX.

Like?
PhysX: Yay! I have less than 10 current games that adds some papers and stuff blowing around!
CUDA: Yay! I can fold! Or use Photoshop faster!
3D Vision: Yay! I can buy another screen that costs more than a normal one, then buy some glasses for even more money just to have games in 3D!

For a gamer, at least, all of the "features" are useless, coming from an nVidia owner, too.


Let me start by saying, holy quote chain! good god...

Toms is Biased towards intel, now that AMD = Radeon i gotta think they are going to be a bit more biased towards nvidia too...but i still find their charts to be some of the most extensive and easy to use nontheless

I agree with you about DX11, PhysX, and Cuda, these features are nice, but they have nowhere near the implimentation to be a real selling point, except to those people who just love seeing an extra sticker on the box

Anyhow, i cant wait for the new low-profile low-end 6-series cards, because I really want an upgrade in my media center (Current= 3450/3200 hybrid crossfire) then again, i also want a new 45w propus and an AM3 motherboard...lol, i just want to rebuild the damn thing!


----------



## Blameless

I'm fairly impressed with these cards, so far. Looks like the rebalancing AMD did really paid off. Much smaller die/cheaper cards with similar performance to cypress. Demonstrates that the 58xx line was too shader heavy for the rest of the card to back up.

Still a tough call wether to get a 68xx or a 460 1GB. Price/performance is pretty close.


----------



## Noir

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brenslick*


Is the 6850 consistently faster than a 460 1GB? I was looking a reviews, and the first few had the 6850 pretty much beating the 460 in every benchmark. But, the tomshardware says the 460 is slightly faster, and some other reviews have the 6850 barely beating the 460...i dont know who to trust.


I think Tom's is a bit biased BUT i think they also used the *OCed 460s. the 460s are EVGA's FTW edition.*

So a 6850 matches 460 cards that are also OCed.* Anand also used the FTW 460s *an they had quite a bit of issue since they are comparing Factory OCed cards with Stock ones.

Of course they also included stock ones but A LOT of people didnt know that 460s where OCed causing disputes.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


*
Toms are usually extremely biased to Intel, iirc.*


I know they are biased towards intel BUT

As i stated they are the ONLY review site that tested Morphological AA which is GREAT.

It seems that a lot of forum members here dont know it yet.

Having read reviews the best 68xx card right now is 6850. Priced below $200, performs as good as a 460 1GB and can also OC to 6870 speeds.


----------



## Domino

When dealing with crossfire people have to understand that the 1GB is the limit. Anything around 1200P and up benefits a lot with 2GB (depending on the title, and with dx11 most dx11 titles are yielding in ~1250mb of ram usage). When you deal with 2 cards you are effectively halving the needed workload per card. The only card that will need more ram would be the master card. The work isn't shared between each card. The frame gets sent to the main card, it cuts it into parts and sends nearly half the required rendering to the secondary card.

If the 1GB mem is a limit, of course it is going to get over 100% scaling when 2 cards are enabled. You are basically comparing 2 cards doing 600P when compared to 1 card pulling 1200P.


----------



## tubers

Sorry for asking guys but how again is the 6800 replacing the 5700? To what I have seen the 6870 replaces the 5850 and the 6850 replaces the 5830 specially price wise I think.


----------



## pursuinginsanity

Quote:



Originally Posted by *tubers*


Sorry for asking guys but how again is the 6800 replacing the 5700? To what I have seen the 6870 replaces the 5850 and the 6850 replaces the 5830 specially price wise I think.


When the 5770 was first introduced, it was around $175-180. The 6850 is new, it's $190. That's the same market wouldn't ya say?


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I find that funny coming from a guy with an OC'ed hexacore and a dual energy sucking monster that by far eats the most energy of all cards on the market. Hmm, I guess it's overclocked to 'stock clocks' too right







?


Actually, the 5970 draws less power than the GTX480 lol

Anandtech

















Techpowerup


----------



## luvsan

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sLowEnd*


Actually, the 5970 draws less power than the GTX480 lol


Someone already said that, both of you are very petty however.

Yea.... it's lower but it's also underclocked to get that way, and this is OVERCLOCK.NET.

He was responding to a guy complaining about price of fermi electricity wise while that guy was running a 5970. So this really doesn't matter and may even prove his point considering how close they actually are.


----------



## rocstar96

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


nVidia, iirc those programs have CUDA stuff.


You mean PS/AE Does not utilize Stream processors? Only CUDA?


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brenslick*


Is the 6850 consistently faster than a 460 1GB? I was looking a reviews, and the first few had the 6850 pretty much beating the 460 in every benchmark. But, the tomshardware says the 460 is slightly faster, and some other reviews have the 6850 barely beating the 460...i dont know who to trust.


GTX460 i would say ~ same speed as HD 6850 with HD 6850 beigh just a bit faster. In the end when both are overclcoked they will be about the same and very close to HD 6870.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brenslick*


Is the 6850 consistently faster than a 460 1GB? I was looking a reviews, and the first few had the 6850 pretty much beating the 460 in every benchmark. But, the tomshardware says the 460 is slightly faster, and some other reviews have the 6850 barely beating the 460...i dont know who to trust.


Toms has always been biased to Intel, they're not to be trusted...Honestly, the only sites I go to (and trust) for reviews are Anandtech and Guru3D.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Ice98*


Let me start by saying, holy quote chain! good god...

Toms is Biased towards intel, now that AMD = Radeon i gotta think they are going to be a bit more biased towards nvidia too...but i still find their charts to be some of the most extensive and easy to use nontheless

I agree with you about DX11, PhysX, and Cuda, these features are nice, but they have nowhere near the implimentation to be a real selling point, except to those people who just love seeing an extra sticker on the box

Anyhow, i cant wait for the new low-profile low-end 6-series cards, because I really want an upgrade in my media center (Current= 3450/3200 hybrid crossfire) then again, i also want a new 45w propus and an AM3 motherboard...lol, i just want to rebuild the damn thing!


Yeah, I always just go through topics and weed out posts I find something incorrect with.









Yeah, Toms are easy to deal with and their GPU reviews aren't _too_ bad, but Anandtech and Guru3D are just a lot better IMO.

Go with a Fusion style Bobcat/Kong CPU, it'll be faster than any HD6350 style card and probably use less power, 9w for the Atom competitor I think.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Noir*


I know they are biased towards intel BUT

As i stated they are the ONLY review site that tested Morphological AA which is GREAT.


Yeah, that's great and all but I wouldn't hold much by their numbers.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *rocstar96*


You mean PS/AE Does not utilize Stream processors? Only CUDA?


Afaik, it doesn't yet, they're waiting for OpenCL but are using CUDA in the mean time.

All I know for sure is that there's OpenCL versions in the future, but CUDA right now.


----------



## rocstar96

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


Afaik, it doesn't yet, they're waiting for OpenCL but are using CUDA in the mean time.

All I know for sure is that there's OpenCL versions in the future, but CUDA right now.


Well I guess Ill buy that GTS450..


----------



## tubers

Quote:



Originally Posted by *pursuinginsanity*


When the 5770 was first introduced, it was around $175-180. The 6850 is new, it's $190. That's the same market wouldn't ya say?


+rep. So the 6850 to replace the 5770 and the 6870 replaces the 5830? Pricewise? Prices for both ATI cards and their conterparts are getting so close now it confuses me xD


----------



## pursuinginsanity

Quote:



Originally Posted by *tubers*


+rep. So the 6850 to replace the 5770 and the 6870 replaces the 5830? Pricewise? Prices for both ATI cards and their conterparts are getting so close now it confuses me xD


The 6870 is more difficult to place. The 5830 introduced around the same price, yes, but it was considered overpriced. The 6870 is quite a bit more potent and in the same price point, with better Crossfire scaling to boot.


----------



## Gabkicks

sooo... how do you guys who have teh cards like the morphological Antialiasing... apparently my 5850 cant do it :/


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brenslick*


Is the 6850 consistently faster than a 460 1GB? I was looking a reviews, and the first few had the 6850 pretty much beating the 460 in every benchmark. But, the tomshardware says the 460 is slightly faster, and some other reviews have the 6850 barely beating the 460...i dont know who to trust.


Yes, the reference HD 6850 is superior to the reference GTX 460 1GB. In the Guru3D, TechPowerUp, and Anandtech reviews it was consistently faster. Sometimes even up to 21% faster:










It's cheaper, consumes less power, and scales better in Crossfire. There's also always that chance that drivers will mature and improve performance, but I usually believe that's negligible.


----------



## Noir

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Gabkicks*


sooo... how do you guys who have teh cards like the morphological Antialiasing... apparently my 5850 cant do it :/


Actually you *can*.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=331108

look at the thread some people has done it already with 58xx


----------



## XtremeBlackout

The performance i find is alot like when the 5xxx cards came out.
5750 replaces the 4830
5770 between the 4850 and the 4870

correct me if I'm wrong


----------



## Noir

Quote:



Originally Posted by *XtremeBlackout*


The performance i find is alot like when the 5xxx cards came out.

correct me if I'm wrong


Most likely this

5750 faster than the 4850
5770 slower than the 4870


----------



## Mr.Pie

chimp,

heres another review to add on: got some reviews of teh DirectCU, Gigabytes's dual fan, and a reference model: http://www.hkepc.com/5630/page/1#view

its in chiense so you will need to translate


----------



## Mr.Pie

Quote:



The first things that come to mind ii enthusiast to launch a new generation of video cards have to do with overclocking and performance increase compared to the previous generation made. This is an article which will highlight the potency of this architecture in terms of overclocking, as we saw in the previous article where the GTS 450 has proven newcomer remarkable qualities "that category."

If you make a quick trip in the past we see that GPUs AMD (formerly ATI) had a very good overclocking potential, reaching the long 1Ghz beautiful figure, an impressive figure if we take into account the large number of transistors or complex architecture and massively parallel GPU.

The new generation video cards are a welcome improvement 6xxx elegance 5xxx series architecture owned by you again won first place in the battle for the best video card, after a long time that has continuously improved GPU architectures sites. Details about the architecture of the new motherboards and many tests that include Multi configurations you can find the articles to my colleagues, Asus Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 that Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 in CrossfireX .


Translated from Romanian


----------



## SkillzKillz

Told you review sites were ******ed at overclocking.


----------



## Th0m0_202

wow......


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sLowEnd*


Actually, the 5970 draws less power than the GTX480 lol

Anandtech

















Techpowerup


















Hmm, first review I came across while making this statement backed me up:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-29.html

It's a tough call really. Though I'd count a GTX 480 and HD 5970 as the most power consuming cards out there. I guess I should have included that too hmm









Quote:



Originally Posted by *luvsan*


Someone already said that, both of you are very petty however.

Yea.... it's lower but it's also underclocked to get that way, and this is OVERCLOCK.NET.

He was responding to a guy complaining about price of fermi electricity wise while that guy was running a 5970. So this really doesn't matter and may even prove his point considering how close they actually are.


Don't worry I'm used to it









Mostly, this is the reason why threads have like a million pages.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Gabkicks*


sooo... how do you guys who have teh cards like the morphological Antialiasing... apparently my 5850 cant do it :/


Your HD 5850 can, though it's for AMD to deside if they want to enable this feature on the HD5k series via drivers. The HD 5850 is the same as an HD 6870 apart from the adjusted tesselator and a few cut off SPs and TMUs. It will be supported by your HD 5850, the question is when the drivers will come.

MLAA is pretty neat though performance wise and it's API independant so you will always have AA in games. Consoles use it too


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


The HD 5850 is the same as an HD 6870 apart from the adjusted tesselator and a few cut off SPs and TMUs.


http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...range-market/2

Read again.

(Also, are you on nVidia's payroll?)


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sub50hz*


http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...range-market/2

Read again.

(Also, are you on nVidia's payroll?)


Yes I read that, can you tell me what's new then and what I forgot?

EDIT:

Also yes I'm on nVidia's payroll. I get paid in Fermi toasters and 9800GTX+s


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Lol, look at that GPU score


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


Yes I read that, can you tell me what's new then and what I forgot?

EDIT:

Also yes I'm on nVidia's payroll. I get paid in Fermi toasters and 9800GTX+s










You happened to miss the parts about UVD, the memory controller, DP 1.2, new display controller, HDMI 1.4a, Blu-Ray 3D, etc.

_Features._ Also, 6:30 a.m. -- thanks, New Vegas!


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sub50hz*


_Features._ Also, 6:30 a.m. -- thanks, New Vegas!


U mad bro?

Bed at 9:15, rise at 4:15


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sub50hz*


You happened to miss the parts about UVD, the memory controller, DP 1.2, new display controller, HDMI 1.4a, Blu-Ray 3D, etc.

_Features._ Also, 6:30 a.m. -- thanks, New Vegas!


And are those architectural differences that first of all matter when your gaming? Second of all, does that matter with whether or not an HD 5850 can support MLAA?

When we talked about the architectural differences GF104 had over GF100, did we talk about it having HDMI 1.4a and better ray tracing performance than GTX 285? Does it matter that an HD 6870 doesn't support FP64 anymore if you're a gamer? I could have as well said that the HD 6870 uses a Redwood memory controller rather than the Cypress one. But in the core the HD 6870 and HD 5850/5870 are very much alike. I don't see that what I said was wrong?


----------



## T3h_Ch33z_Muncha

they mad bro


----------



## Jbgough123

thats pretty crazy.....wonder what it could possibily score with a few or more mature driver updates??


----------



## Little Overclocker/Gamer

Getting the 6870. The 6900 cards will probably be around $300 like the GTX470 but the price of the 470's gonna drop soon. Same with the 460.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Little Overclocker/Gamer*


Getting the 6870. The 6900 cards will probably be around $300 like the GTX470 but the price of the 470's gonna drop soon. Same with the 460.


I've got a feeling that the 6950 is going to be one hell of a card bang for buck. $300 for 20% more than a GTX 480 anyone?


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Little Overclocker/Gamer*


Getting the 6870. The 6900 cards will probably be around $300 like the GTX470 but the price of the 470's gonna drop soon. Same with the 460.


It already has dropped. As of yesterday you could get them for $230.


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I've got a feeling that the 6950 is going to be one hell of a card bang for buck. $300 for 20% more than a GTX 480 anyone?


Based on the 6850 to the 460 and the 6870 to the 470, I wouldn't expect anything close to that much of a difference. It will probably be comparable to the 480 though (while costing less).


----------



## Brutuz

For reference, that GPU score is better than a GTX 480...HD6970 will be a beast.

Now to wait for software voltage adjustment.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Corrupted*


Based on the 6850 to the 460 and the 6870 to the 470, I wouldn't expect anything close to that much of a difference. It will probably be comparable to the 480 though (while costing less).


Well given the TDP, I guess AMD crammed a lot of ROPs and TMUs in that beast. So better performance indeed. I just don't know if it's going to be 20%. But it should be good


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


And are those architectural differences that first of all matter when your gaming? Second of all, does that matter with whether or not an HD 5850 can support MLAA?

When we talked about the architectural differences GF104 had over GF100, did we talk about it having HDMI 1.4a and better ray tracing performance than GTX 285? Does it matter that an HD 6870 doesn't support FP64 anymore if you're a gamer? I could have as well said that the HD 6870 uses a Redwood memory controller rather than the Cypress one. But in the core the HD 6870 and HD 5850/5870 are very much alike. I don't see that what I said was wrong?


The improved shader layout (4 medium complexity in HD6870 vs 4 simple, 1 complex in the HD5850) matters a hell of a lot when you game, hence, how is this a rebrand? Especially since both the HD6870 and HD6850 could possibly get to 1.2Ghz on air cooling (It's in the news section somewhere) and beat a GTX 480 easily...Something that a HD5770 could never do.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Corrupted*


Based on the 6850 to the 460 and the 6870 to the 470, I wouldn't expect anything close to that much of a difference. It will probably be comparable to the 480 though (while costing less).


We still don't know full OCing results, HD6870 got to 1200Mhz on air and its Vantage score was better than the GTX 480s by about 500 then, I feel the HD6870 is the same as the HD4890, it can match the flagship card by superior OCing. (Eg. HD4890 matches a GTX275 at stock, but when its OCed it matches an OCed GTX 285)


----------



## Nightbird

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


For reference, that GPU score is better than a GTX 480...HD6970 will be a beast.

Now to wait for software voltage adjustment.


I've always wondered about what level voltage adjustment takes place at. When MSI does theirs, is it at BIOS level? or driver? or do that add something "extra" to their boards to allow this?


----------



## Kny

Didn't Spec get a 21000+ Vantage score out of his unlocked and modded GTX465?


----------



## MR KROGOTH

Well if thats the core overclock, i wonder how much they overclocked the ram the keep it from bottlenecking...


----------



## Kasp1js

You could read the review.


----------



## MR KROGOTH

They didnt overclock the ram at all, thats the problem... it couldve been higher.(the score)


----------



## yashau

Holy crap


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


We still don't know full OCing results, HD6870 got to 1200Mhz on air and its Vantage score was better than the GTX 480s by about 500 then, I feel the HD6870 is the same as the HD4890, it can match the flagship card by superior OCing. (Eg. HD4890 matches a GTX275 at stock, but when its OCed it matches an OCed GTX 285)


yeah...people did similar with unlocked 465's. Nothing really special there.


----------



## SlaveOnDope

Quote:



This means that there are no laser cuts on the Barts GPU for the 6850, and that also means that it's very likely you can flash a R6870 BIOS into the 6850. Now first off, if you decide to try that, you do it at your own risk, if things go wrong ... it's your loss and warranty does not apply.


http://www.guru3d.com/news/radeon-68...ith-6870-bios/


----------



## appleg33k85

Can we say GTX465 craze again?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Corrupted*


yeah...people did similar with unlocked 465's. Nothing really special there.


Indeed, given the 6870 already scores 17.3k or so on stock and 19.5k when Vmodded, I don't know if it's that crazy of a boost (GTX 465). I'm still thinking the 6950 will be the champ, but we know nothing yet









EDIT:

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


The improved shader layout (4 medium complexity in HD6870 vs 4 simple, 1 complex in the HD5850) matters a hell of a lot when you game, hence, how is this a rebrand? Especially since both the HD6870 and HD6850 could possibly get to 1.2Ghz on air cooling (It's in the news section somewhere) and beat a **stock** GTX 480 easily...Something that a HD5770 could never do.


No, it does not. If you read the Anadtech review, it clearly says that the SIMD clusters are actually even weaker now. Because of the lack of that complex shader the 6870 can't do FP64 (DP) anymore. The shading and compute performance of an HD 6870 falls short of the 5870.

Vantage results != shading power. The HD 6870 is already close to the GTX 480 at stock in Vantage. A boost of a 33% overclock with 2.2k increase isn't called easily either. Lately I'm more interested in Extreme Vantage scores since just like 3Dmark06, Performance presets are showing it's age. Mostly texture mapping and shading performance is meassured there, completely disregarding geometry performance.

I never siad it was a rebrand, but it isn't that much of a hybrid GPU either. Might as well call the GTX 460 a hybrid too (what I stated in my previous post).

I call the HD 6850 and HD 6870 a succes since even if AMD didn't do much they did it good and they delivered. But if you face the facts, Barts is a more efficient Cypress with less compute/shading performance and even more gaming oriented. I don't know why I get attacked on my posts if I don't praise AMD. I'm not bashing them, I actually find this a strong strategy and think Cayman is going to unleash the pain. Even the little 255mm^2 Barts is making GF100 look laughable when it comes to plain traditional gaming performance (without too much AA, tesselation, CUDA and PhysX). But you can't deny that Barts is just a paintbrushed and tweaked Cypress. It's more of an evolution than revolution.


----------



## Gnomepatrol

Quote:



Originally Posted by *appleg33k85*


Can we say GTX465 craze again?


Maybe, but i doubt with how refined their 40nm process is they'll be disabling part of the gpu unless there is something really wrong with it.

Who knows though.


----------



## Unlucky_7

Quote:



** update -- as it is right now looks like a BIOS update is not possible and that the extra shaders are dealt with at ASIC level.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

What kind of volts did they use for HD 6870 to get 1.2Ghz? Anything over 1.3v not not realistic for 24/7. My HD 5850 could get 1.075Ghz with 1.35v but VMRs would hit 140C. Highest i could go on air with VRMs under 100C was 1.275v. GPU temps in the other had did not break 75C.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Wow that very good. If its possible with almost all models i might end up getting 2.


----------



## SFkilla

Quote:



** update -- as it is right now looks like a BIOS update is not possible and that the extra shaders are dealt with at ASIC level.


[Source]


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


What kind of volts did they use for HD 6870 to get 1.2Ghz? Anything over 1.3v not not realistic for 24/7. My HD 5850 could get 1.075Ghz with 1.35v but VMRs would hit 140C. Highest i could go on air with VRMs under 100C was 1.275v. GPU temps in the other had did not break 75C.


1105mhz @ 1.350v

1200mhz @ 1.510v

Source

I think OCN'ers should be able to run the reference models at 1050mhz.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


What kind of volts did they use for HD 6870 to get 1.2Ghz? Anything over 1.3v not not realistic for 24/7. My HD 5850 could get 1.075Ghz with 1.35v but VMRs would hit 140C. Highest i could go on air with VRMs under 100C was 1.275v. GPU temps in the other had did not break 75C.


Here's the link:

http://www.overclock.net/hardware-ne...d-running.html

And yeah it was 1.55V. Pretty much expected for these transistors at those insane frequencies


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Nightbird*


I've always wondered about what level voltage adjustment takes place at. When MSI does theirs, is it at BIOS level? or driver? or do that add something "extra" to their boards to allow this?










It's a chip that lets you send instructions to change voltage, etc from the OS.


----------



## cory1234

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


For reference, that GPU score is better than a GTX 480...HD6970 will be a beast.

Now to wait for software voltage adjustment.



Where is this information coming from? Since they used extreme methods to do this with mods a comparison of another modded card would be a fair comparison.

One 480 gtx: 39,281 Vantage
http://hwbot.org/community/submissio...80_39281_marks

My 460 gtx can hit 19,000 in Vantage without modding too.


----------



## Riou

The 6870 has much less shaders than the 5870. If the 6870 had the same amount of shaders as the 5870, I wonder what the compute performance would be.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Corrupted*


yeah...people did similar with unlocked 465's. Nothing really special there.


Difference is, OCing is easily done to any card and for all we know, 1200Mhz might be easy for any card with adjustable voltage, whereas GTX 465s that unlock require a certain brand and a fair bit of luck.

It's like comparing someone getting a Phenom II dual or tri core that unlocks to someone who got one that overclocks to 4.4Ghz easily.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


No, it does not. If you read the Anadtech review, it clearly says that the SIMD clusters are actually even weaker now. Because of the lack of that complex shader the 6870 can't do FP64 (DP) anymore. The shading and compute performance of an HD 6870 falls short of the 5870.

Vantage results != shading power. The HD 6870 is already close to the GTX 480 at stock in Vantage. A boost of a 33% overclock with 2.2k increase isn't called easily either. Lately I'm more interested in Extreme Vantage scores since just like 3Dmark06, Performance presets are showing it's age. Mostly texture mapping and shading performance is meassured there, completely disregarding geometry performance.

I never siad it was a rebrand, but it isn't that much of a hybrid GPU either. Might as well call the GTX 460 a hybrid too (what I stated in my previous post).

I call the HD 6850 and HD 6870 a succes since even if AMD didn't do much they did it good and they delivered. But if you face the facts, Barts is a more efficient Cypress with less compute/shading performance and even more gaming oriented. I don't know why I get attacked on my posts if I don't praise AMD. I'm not bashing them, I actually find this a strong strategy and think Cayman is going to unleash the pain. Even the little 255mm^2 Barts is making GF100 look laughable when it comes to plain traditional gaming performance (without too much AA, tesselation, CUDA and PhysX). But you can't deny that Barts is just a paintbrushed and tweaked Cypress. It's more of an evolution than revolution.


It does improve performance for gamers, why? Well, even if it is just Cypress paintbrushed, it's still using far less shaders to match performance, isn't it? ATI can still fit more shaders on the die than before and improve performance more than previously, can't they? Sometimes you don't need a complete redesign to get better performance and improve things. (eg. Thuban is much closer to an i7 clock for clock and it's a tweaked Deneb with two extra cores)

Yes, Vantage isn't shading power..But it does give some indication of gaming power, doesn't it? While I would rather real world results, you can't deny that.

GTX 460 is altered shaders, but GF100 uncore, HD6000 cards are a completely redesigned uncore (Similar names on stuff, but we don't see the internals or the full extent of changes, do we?) with altered shaders, how is the GTX 460 the same? It's hybrid between the new architecture and the old because it contains the new uncore and altered versions of the old shaders, it's like the old CPUs Intel used to release that made a newer CPU work on an older board, some stuff was new but a lot was old to enable it to work, here it enables it to work by making it viable in terms of size, heat, performance, etc on 40nm.

I can deny that, why? It's got the new uncore, tweaked would be if they just got Cypress, altered the cores and sent it on its way...Instead they redesigned the uncore (I'm willing to bet memory will have lower latency, maybe, plus theres HDMI 1.4a, UVD3, etc) and then tweaked the part they kept from Cypress to improve performance enough to make it a viable product.

They didn't just change the shaders and send it out the door, they changed the uncore too, it doesn't effect performance as much as it does overclocking and features, the new uncore is where the DX11 performance increase (Up to 2x over Cypress in very certain scenarios) comes from, though, a evolution or "paintbrushed" Cypress couldn't do that without significant changes that would practically make it a new GPU anyway, it's like saying that the Athlon Classic to Athlon XP is a rehash just because the main core bit stayed the same.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


What kind of volts did they use for HD 6870 to get 1.2Ghz? Anything over 1.3v not not realistic for 24/7. My HD 5850 could get 1.075Ghz with 1.35v but VMRs would hit 140C. Highest i could go on air with VRMs under 100C was 1.275v. GPU temps in the other had did not break 75C.


Different cooling, for all we know VRMs will run cooler than the HD5850.

Especially if it's not a stock heatsink. (The stock style of heatsink traditionally gets very little air over the VRMs)


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Riou*


The 6870 has much less shaders than the 5870. If the 6870 had the same amount of shaders as the 5870, I wonder what the compute performance would be.


Based of Anandtech's review the extra SPs were superfluous. The only edge an HD 6870 would have over an HD 5870 would be the clock speed. But then again, it can't do FP64 so it's a tradeoff no matter how you look at it. 6870 wasn't meant for computing performance, Cayman will probably.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Anandtech*

Based on AMD's design decisions and our performance data, it would appear that Cypress has more computing/shading power than it necessarily needs. True, Barts is slower, but it's a bit slower and a lot smaller. AMD's various compute ratios, such as compute:geometry and compute:rasterization would appear to be less than ideal on Cypress. So Barts changes the ratios.

Compared to Cypress and factoring in 6870/5870 clockspeeds, Barts has about 75% of the compute/shader/texture power of Cypress. However it has more rasterization, tessellation, and ROP power than Cypress; or in other words Barts is less of a compute/shader GPU and a bit more of a traditional rasterizing GPU with a dash of tessellation thrown in. Even in the worst case scenarios from our testing the drop-off at 1920x1200 is only 13% compared to Cypress/5870, so while Cypress had a great deal of compute capabilities, it's clearly difficult to make extremely effective use of it even on the most shader-heavy games of today.

However it's worth noting that internally AMD was throwing around 2 designs for Barts: a 16 SIMD (1280 SP) 16 ROP design, and a 14 SIMD (1120 SP) 32 ROP design that they ultimately went with. The 14/32 design was faster, but only by 2%. This along with the ease of porting the design from Cypress made it the right choice for AMD, but it also means that Cypress/Barts is not exclusively bound on the shader/texture side or the ROP/raster side.


EDIT:

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


Difference is, OCing is easily done to any card and for all we know, 1200Mhz might be easy for any card with adjustable voltage, whereas GTX 465s that unlock require a certain brand and a fair bit of luck.

It's like comparing someone getting a Phenom II dual or tri core that unlocks to someone who got one that overclocks to 4.4Ghz easily.

It does improve performance for gamers, why? Well, even if it is just Cypress paintbrushed, it's still using far less shaders to match performance, isn't it? ATI can still fit more shaders on the die than before and improve performance more than previously, can't they? Sometimes you don't need a complete redesign to get better performance and improve things. (eg. Thuban is much closer to an i7 clock for clock and it's a tweaked Deneb with two extra cores)

Yes, Vantage isn't shading power..But it does give some indication of gaming power, doesn't it? While I would rather real world results, you can't deny that.

GTX 460 is altered shaders, but GF100 uncore, HD6000 cards are a completely redesigned uncore (Similar names on stuff, but we don't see the internals or the full extent of changes, do we?) with altered shaders, how is the GTX 460 the same? It's hybrid between the new architecture and the old because it contains the new uncore and altered versions of the old shaders, it's like the old CPUs Intel used to release that made a newer CPU work on an older board, some stuff was new but a lot was old to enable it to work, here it enables it to work by making it viable in terms of size, heat, performance, etc on 40nm.

I can deny that, why? It's got the new uncore, tweaked would be if they just got Cypress, altered the cores and sent it on its way...Instead they redesigned the uncore (I'm willing to bet memory will have lower latency, maybe, plus theres HDMI 1.4a, UVD3, etc) and then tweaked the part they kept from Cypress to improve performance enough to make it a viable product.

They didn't just change the shaders and send it out the door, they changed the uncore too, it doesn't effect performance as much as it does overclocking and features, the new uncore is where the DX11 performance increase (Up to 2x over Cypress in very certain scenarios) comes from, though, a evolution or "paintbrushed" Cypress couldn't do that without significant changes that would practically make it a new GPU anyway, it's like saying that the Athlon Classic to Athlon XP is a rehash just because the main core bit stayed the same.

Different cooling, for all we know VRMs will run cooler than the HD5850.

Especially if it's not a stock heatsink. (The stock style of heatsink traditionally gets very little air over the VRMs)


Maybe it's a good idea if you start reading this part of the review again. Your reason and logic are on the spot but don't get me wrong this discussion isn't going to end this way.

A few last things I want to tell you. The first one is that you missed the whole point of the redesign of Barts and that part is explained in the quoted piece of the article. You try to translate shader performance to gaming performance. You have to get a real understanding from the logic units and how it impacts gaming performance. Barts isn't better because of the shader design, it's better because of the ratio the rasterization logic units are vs the shading and texture units. A combination of factors not just one. Heh, that would make engineering plain and dull.

If you say Vantage represents gaming performance, yes it does a little. It resembles games like Crysis and AvP. In those games the emphasis is being put on texture mapping and shading performance and almost nothing on geometry. That's why I said that if you want to test the full potential of a card (TMUs, ROPs, SPs, memory bandwidth), you'll need to include geometry. You can do this by testing it on extreme presets. I just feel like repeating myself again. You should research the logic units more in depth, because now you state something and I give you a clear argument based on facts you don't seem to have knowledge about yet or you get defensive and counter my statements with generalizations.

You generalise like things like, they changed the uncore. You'll have to define the uncore before you reason further on that. If you call UVD3 and such the uncore, well okay they changed that. While it's sweet for media and HTPC ends, for gaming it delivers 0 performance (except for the fact you can game 3D too now).

The tesselation performance has been enhanced because they changed the data algorithm before it goes into the tesselator by applying effects like DoF (also called 'smart tesselation'). That's why in that pretty graph you noted about 2x the tesselation performance the gain craps after a certain level of tesselation, so that the only gain over an HD 5870 is the extra 50Hz the 32 ROPs are clocked at.

Please don't take things I said in this post to personal, but I if you don't have knowledge about these logic units, we are just going to be reasoning in circles (I don't know everything yet too so I'm not trying to be a smartass, but at least I try to reduce the amount of generalisation by going more in depth







). It's just like you talk English and I talk English with a few words of Japanese between it, a lot of misunderstandings will occur.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

That doesn't look bad at all. Looking at voltages it has same OC potential as HD 58XX maybe 25-50Mhz more so nothing special.


----------



## dir_d

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


Based of Anandtech's review the extra SPs were superfluous. The only edge an HD 6870 would have over an HD 5870 would be the clock speed. But then again, it can't do FP64 so it's a tradeoff no matter how you look at it. 6870 wasn't meant for computing performance, Cayman will probably.

I thought you guys read the review










So that means that the 58xx series was really made for DX11, better than the 68xx series. So if Dev get their acts right and start using the compute side of DX11 instead of over bloating tessellation the 58xx series should start to shine.


----------



## Anguilla

After looking at all of the reviews in the OP, the 6850's of Sapphire, MSI and ASUS being voltage overclocked, but nowhere any mention of that being possible with XFX..

Because XFX uses a custom PCB, I wonder if you can raise the voltage on the 6850 from XFX? Anyone seen a mention of that anwhere?


----------



## cky2k6

Quote:



Originally Posted by *cory1234*


Where is this information coming from? Since they used extreme methods to do this with mods a comparison of another modded card would be a fair comparison.

One 480 gtx: 39,281 Vantage
http://hwbot.org/community/submissio...80_39281_marks

My 460 gtx can hit 19,000 in Vantage without modding too.


Context is pretty significant. Elmor had a 6ghz hexacore which gave him a 55k cpu score, plus his card was on ln2. As for your score, was physx on?


----------



## mfb412

Meh, i got my 460 1 GB for cheap, guess i shoulda waited a bit, it's fine though


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dir_d*


So that means that the 58xx series was really made for DX11, better than the 68xx series. So if Dev get their acts right and start using the compute side of DX11 instead of over bloating tessellation the 58xx series should start to shine.


Yes and no. The HD5800 series was made for DX11 indeed. It's just that it requires a lot of geometry and Cypress' architecure wasn't that great at delivering that performance. With HD6k AMD enhanced this geometry performance but they did also include a new trick called smart tesselation that only tesselates the objects in near distance. There were a few other things on the slide named "Tesselation done right" or some sort but I forgot


----------



## Behemoth777

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


That doesn't look bad at all. Looking at voltages it has same OC potential as HD 58XX maybe 25-50Mhz more so nothing special.


It's stock core is only 50mhz higher than the 5870...


----------



## Suprcynic

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


For reference, that GPU score is better than a GTX 480...HD6970 will be a beast.

Now to wait for software voltage adjustment.


What are you talking about? It's not even close. So far there's absolutely nothing impressive about the 6xxx series except the price. Until ATI figures out that they suck at tesselation and drivers they will be behind AMD


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Anguilla*


After looking at all of the reviews in the OP, the 6850's of Sapphire, MSI and ASUS being voltage overclocked, but nowhere any mention of that being possible with XFX..

Because XFX uses a custom PCB, I wonder if you can raise the voltage on the 6850 from XFX? Anyone seen a mention of that anwhere?


That's a great question. I'll be checking that when my card arrives but I'm sure it won't be a problem.

I found that one review was able to achieve 925mhz/1200mhz on the XFX HD 6850 with *stock voltage*, and another review achieved 930mhz/1180mhz also on stock voltage. A third review achieved 972mhz/1162mhz on stock voltage, found here:


----------



## skatpex99

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Suprcynic*


What are you talking about? It's not even close.











He was talking about a stock gtx480 score.


----------



## Johnny Utah

Yeah I'm gonna go ahead and wait for some non-reference cards that allow for voltage adjustments. Those should have some nice OC potential.

I hope AMD lets OEMs go nuts with it. Nvidia did it with the 460 and now they're beating their chest saying how awesome their card is. Well two can play that game.


----------



## TheOcelot

Get that card under l2n... Epiiccc overclock!


----------



## Anguilla

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


That's a great question. I'll be checking that when my card arrives but I'm sure it won't be a problem.

I found that one review was able to achieve 925mhz/1200mhz on the XFX HD 6850 with *stock voltage*, and another review achieved 930mhz/1180mhz also on stock voltage. A third review achieved 972mhz/1162mhz on stock voltage, found here:











Hmm.. 
I found this http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...ange-market/20 , saying 
Quote:



While our reference 6850 has a load voltage of 1.094v, our XFX card reports a load voltage of 1.148v. Weâ€™ll be taking a look at the XFX 6850 in-depth next week in our 6850 roundup, but for now this leaves us with the question of whether AMD is using variable VIDs, or if XFX is purposely setting theirs higher for overclocking purposes.


Only Anandtech noted this, and I didn't see the XFX version using more power than the reference card in other reviews, so I'm taking this with a grain of salt. The mystery continues


----------



## cory1234

Quote:



Originally Posted by *cky2k6*


Context is pretty significant. Elmor had a 6ghz hexacore which gave him a 55k cpu score, plus his card was on ln2. As for your score, was physx on?


It cannot be on HWbot if Physx is on







.


----------



## Strat79

Quote:



Originally Posted by *cory1234*


It cannot be on HWbot if Physx is on







.


He meant the score he posted for his own GPU, not the HWbot one for the 480.

This part:

Quote:



My 460 gtx can hit 19,000 in Vantage without modding too.


----------



## superj1977

Quote:


Originally Posted by *skatpex99* 
He was talking about a stock gtx480 score.

He made no such hint that what he was talking about a stock 480 score.

Seen as we are talking about an overclcoked 6870 score then its only right and natural to assume and compare it to the score of an overclocked 480.

Comparing an overclocked score to a none overclocked score only proves how biased your opinions are.

So i understand there has been a change in the naming scheme of the newer 6k cards,so this 6870 is the equivalent of which card from the previous series??

5770 im hoping.......as that score is almost do able on a highly overclocked 5850.


----------



## 88EVGAFTW

19K gpu in Vantage for that 6870, not impressed at all







that is what my single GTX 470 gets OCd


----------



## wcdolphin

Dolphin is unimpressed!


----------



## superj1977

Quote:


Originally Posted by *88EVGAFTW* 
19K gpu in Vantage for that 6870, not impressed at all









Well this is why im wondering about the naming scheme of the new cards,i didnt listen when it was being spoken about.

It can no way be the new 5850/5870...why i said 5770.


----------



## 88EVGAFTW

*This just in: AMD 6870 as good as GTX 470, and same price. Grab em while they're hot....and pick up a physx card too for an extra 90$...oh wait just get a GTX 470 for same price and be set.*


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


Originally Posted by *88EVGAFTW* 
*This just in: AMD 6870 as good as GTX 470, and same price. Grab em while they're hot....and pick up a physx card too for an extra 90$...oh wait just get a GTX 470 for same price and be set.*

Your score could use better drivers. 260 beta gave me extra 600 points. Also MY HD 5850 @ 1Ghz got 20k GPU score. People are putting too much hype on these cards.


----------



## Domino

Quote:


Originally Posted by *88EVGAFTW* 
*This just in: AMD 6870 as good as GTX 470, and same price. Grab em while they're hot....and pick up a physx card too for an extra 90$...oh wait just get a GTX 470 for same price and be set.*

This just in: PhysX provides paper physics and over dramatic particle effects that not only kills significant amounts of performance on your FPS but doesn't yield any graphical improvements.

Go ahead, go play with *paper* physics while you wave your epeen around. PhysX is alright to have, and if you can use it, sure, turn it on, but to state that a cheaper, better performing card, easier to overclock and once overclock nearly matches a stock 480 is by far a better buy.

Have fun with your paper physX while waving your epeen around. 60fps > 40fps.


----------



## obsidian86

Quote:


Originally Posted by *88EVGAFTW* 
*This just in: AMD 6870 as good as GTX 470, and same price. Grab em while they're hot....and pick up a physx card too for an extra 90$...oh wait just get a GTX 470 for same price and be set*.and $80 for a new psu since a 6870 can run on a 450 watt without a problem

and i do belive these are beta drivers

5750->6850
5770->6870

thats the evolution i think kinda confused myself


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *superj1977* 
Well this is why im wondering about the naming scheme of the new cards,i didnt listen when it was being spoken about.

It can no way be the new 5850/5870...why i said 5770.

AMD released the HD 6870 and 6850 as a new price range, it's not the successor of the 5800 neither of the 5700.

Just like in the old 3870 and 4870 days, AMD decided to release their 800 cards around the $200 mark with the XT version over $200 and the PRO version under $200. With the HD5k series AMD missed that spot. The 5870 and 5850 fell $100 higher than usual, hence there was a gap to fill at the $200 mark. This is where Barts comes in









The 5700 will continue to exist and will not be rebranded as 6700. AMD said they don't do rebranding


----------



## A Russian :D

Quote:

What are you talking about? It's not even close. So far there's absolutely nothing impressive about the 6xxx series except the price. Until ATI figures out that they suck at tesselation and drivers they will be behind AMD
If you haven't noticed crossfire with the 6xxx series is better then SLi, so I guess Nvidia sucks?

Quote:

This just in: AMD 6870 as good as GTX 470, and same price. Grab em while they're hot....and pick up a physx card too for an extra 90$...oh wait just get a GTX 470 for same price and be set.
Nvidia: Introducing our new 2 in 1 revaluation. Enjoy playing your games while savoring that bacon smell as it cooks on our new product the GTX470!

Question: How is the GTX470 compared to the 6870?
Nvidia: Well the die size is almost twice the size and it can consume almost 100W more at load. OH YEAH WE HAVE PHYSX!!!!!!!!!!!

Question: How do you....
Nvidia: PHYSX!!!!!!!!!

Quetion: ok then...
Nvidia: PHYSX!!!!!!!!!!!

Question: um
Nvidia: PHYSX!!!!!!!!!!!

Nobody cares about your physx kid.


----------



## Broin

Comparing Vmodded chip to stock chip is kinda ******ed.And I think some of you forgot that this is not high end card.


----------



## 88EVGAFTW

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Domino* 
This just in: PhysX provides paper physics and over dramatic particle effects that not only kills significant amounts of performance on your FPS but doesn't yield any graphical improvements.

Go ahead, go play with *paper* physics while you wave your epeen around. PhysX is alright to have, and if you can use it, sure, turn it on, but to state that a cheaper, better performing card, easier to overclock and once overclock nearly matches a stock 480 is by far a better buy.

Have fun with your paper physX while waving your epeen around. 60fps > 40fps.









You're just mad bro, don't hate on the power of 2 GTX 470s.

/you


----------



## superj1977

Your so right about that comparisson,i couldnt think of a more wrong way to compare cards....

And hell yeah,they no way are high end card results!

Perhaps its wrong to try and categorize them and compare to previous cards and maybe we should be saying that almost touching P20k in vantage displays pretty good value for money in comparison to P20k of a 5870?








Physx....either take it or leave it


----------



## Name Change

Quote:


Originally Posted by *88EVGAFTW* 
You're just mad bro, don't hate on the power of 2 GTX 470s.

/you

Yeah to much power there...









I'll take 2 HD 6870's anyday of the week..

Stop hating 88 thats all u do.. Fanboys are sad..


----------



## PopcornMachine

The important thing here, if anyone wants to learn something instead of pissing and moaning, is tha tthe 6870 may have a lot more overclocking potential than initial reports indicated.

I am impatiently waiting on custom cards to appear which may have even better price/performance than the stock models.


----------



## Kasp1js

Nobody was comparing this to the gtx480, somebody just said the gtx480 scores for a reference.


----------



## A Russian :D

Quote:


Originally Posted by *88EVGAFTW* 
You're just mad bro, don't hate on the power consumption of 2 GTX 470s.

/you

yeah


----------



## dude120

Now, I would like to see two volt modded 6870s in CF. Since they scale better than the 5000 series, there could definitely be room for more impressive results.


----------



## zakiva

lol and the fan boys go wild


----------



## superj1977

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kasp1js* 
Nobody was comparing this to the gtx480, somebody just said the gtx480 scores for a reference.

*"For reference, that GPU score is better than a GTX 480...HD6970 will be a beast.

Now to wait for software voltage adjustment."*

Make of it what you want but that sounds like some type of comparison to me







on page 1..


----------



## Firann

People flaming the performance of the 6870 cards saying that 470 and 480 can already do that... Well the 6870 is an upgrade to the 5770. To the person that said it is not, you are also wrong. AMD already said 6870 is the upgrade to 5770 and the reason for the shift is for the introduction of lower end models, presumably the Fusion ones.

Now going by comparison even if the 480 gets these scores its still of an achievement! A mid-range card competing with a high end card!


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *PopcornMachine* 
The important thing here, if anyone wants to learn something instead of pissing and moaning, is tha tthe 6870 may have a lot more overclocking potential than initial reports indicated.

I am impatiently waiting on custom cards to appear which may have even better price/performance than the stock models.

Well, the same thing happens everytime around here. I remember in March everyone was crapping the GF100 Vmod threads.

Also in case you didn't know, this GPU runs at 1-1.1V normally and they gave it 1.5V to achieve this overclock. This card will have a sad life if you run it like this regularly. It seems 1000-1050MHz is the limit for these cards that is, if you want to keep it for a while at least. It seems that AMD clocked their cards sweet already this time around. The temperatures are very good though for a Vmod.

EDIT:

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Firann* 
People flaming the performance of the 6870 cards saying that 470 and 480 can already do that... Well the 6870 is an upgrade to the 5770. To the person that said it is not, you are also wrong. AMD already said 6870 is the upgrade to 5770 and the reason for the shift is for the introduction of lower end models, presumably the Fusion ones.

Now going by comparison even if the 480 gets these scores its still of an achievement! A mid-range card competing with a high end card!

Oh really.....


----------



## DrDarkTempler

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Firann* 
People flaming the performance of the 6870 cards saying that 470 and 480 can already do that... Well the 6870 is an upgrade to the 5770. To the person that said it is not, you are also wrong. AMD already said 6870 is the upgrade to 5770 and the reason for the shift is for the introduction of lower end models, presumably the Fusion ones.

Now going by comparison even if the 480 gets these scores its still of an achievement! A mid-range card competing with a high end card!


But you also forget the one thing, this guy modded in a extreme way, messing with the Ohms and voltage in motherboard, is something that is very risky and should not be done at home to your own computer. Yes, the score is very awesome, but those test is just to see what can the new card can pull to the extreme.

And when you compare 470/480 with it, those nvidia card are just OCed using software like afterburner or evga precison tool.

You guys are arguing something that is extremely modded to something simple as click of a buttom...

Have them run a GTX460 in same modded situation and see the result.

All those arguing are showing nothing but biasism and Fanboyism

If you want to see a true benchmark, look at the score that is not Oced to the extreme, something that your own computer can achieve without risking your investment. Those are the result that you want to see when it comes to either buying a AMD or Nvidia graphic card base on performent


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Firann* 
People flaming the performance of the 6870 cards saying that 470 and 480 can already do that... Well the 6870 is an upgrade to the 5770. To the person that said it is not, you are also wrong. AMD already said 6870 is the upgrade to 5770 and the reason for the shift is for the introduction of lower end models, presumably the Fusion ones.

Now going by comparison even if the 480 gets these scores its still of an achievement! A mid-range card competing with a high end card!

Actually, you are wrong. If you need proof, go check out AMD's own pretty pictures in all the reviews for the card. The 5770 isn't replaced by these and isn't being replaced anytime soon. The 6870 is filling the price point of the failed 5830, but providing tons better performance. It's a good card, but it isn't really replacing anything.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

BIOS thread and volt-mod thread merged with this one. Remember, this isn't just for reviews, but for general news (AFTER release) for the 6800s.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp* 
BIOS thread and volt-mod thread merged with this one. Remember, this isn't just for reviews, but for general news (AFTER release) for the 6800s.









Lol, I was already wondering why I went from page 2 to page 22


----------



## Prox

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sickened1* 
meh. Not really interested until the bigger powerhouse cards are out, 69xx.

qft.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
Lol, I was already wondering why I went from page 2 to page 22









It's page 7 for me now; 100 posts per page.


----------



## Brenslick

Crap......im going to be buying a 6850 soon, or so i was planning, there all out of stock now, besides the xfx one for $20 more. anybody know when they will come back in stock?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp* 
It's page 7 for me now; 100 posts per page.









Poor scroll wheel







....

EDIT:

Oh and internet connection.
Have you ever tried loading a work log in the case modding section with that







?


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
Oh and internet connection.
Have you ever tried loading a work log in the case modding section with that







?

Ergh. Yes... on a 1.5Mbps line that's shared with the rest of the house. I'll just click on the thread and go to another tab until it's done, though.


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp* 
It's page 7 for me now; 100 posts per page.










*high five*


----------



## Ihatethedukes

Think I might actually get one of these as a stop gap.


----------



## Anguilla

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Brenslick* 
Crap......im going to be buying a 6850 soon, or so i was planning, there all out of stock now, besides the xfx one for $20 more. anybody know when they will come back in stock?

$20 more and we still don't know it it's voltage can be adjusted through software..


----------



## Clairvoyant129

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Firann* 
People flaming the performance of the 6870 cards saying that 470 and 480 can already do that... Well the 6870 is an upgrade to the 5770. To the person that said it is not, you are also wrong. AMD already said 6870 is the upgrade to 5770 and the reason for the shift is for the introduction of lower end models, presumably the Fusion ones.

Now going by comparison even if the 480 gets these scores its still of an achievement! A mid-range card competing with a high end card!

Um the HD6870 isn't meant to compete with the GTX 480 and does not even come close to it.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp* 
Ergh. Yes... on a 1.5Mbps line that's shared with the rest of the house. I'll just click on the thread and go to another tab until it's done, though.

That's also an option, though I'm usually not that patient. Oh well....


----------



## Domino

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
I don't know why I get attacked on my posts if I don't praise AMD.

I'm a bit guilty for bashing your posts as well. However, what you state doesn't correspond to real world performance and that is the major point I tend to disagree with.

When we talk about 1 specific subject with stick with it. These cards are performing amazing (without AA), regardless if the geometry performance in its competition is superior. When it comes to real world performance (in the topic of video gaming) it just doesn't reflect the margin you tend to praise about Nvidia GPUs.

A GPU isn't based on 1 aspect alone. Praising one and not the other stating the geometry performance is equivalent to 1.6-2.5x that of cypress when in game we only see roughly 5-10% differences. Although in heavy tessellation games you do see a larger margin, but it has far diminished now with newer drivers. People on this site tend to whip out old reviews and state they are legit for today.


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
Well, the same thing happens everytime around here. I remember in March everyone was crapping the GF100 Vmod threads.

I wouldn't touch a stock GF100. Way too energy inefficient.

GF104 maybe. That is the fixed fermi.

I'm hopeful that 6870 will fare better. If not, I'll be happy with one at stock with a quieter and cooler heatsink.


----------



## DrFPS

Quote:


Originally Posted by *PopcornMachine* 
I wouldn't touch a stock GF100. Way too energy inefficient.
GF104 maybe. That is the fixed fermi.
I'm hopeful that 6870 will fare better. If not, I'll be happy with one at stock with a quieter and cooler heatsink.

IMHO pwr shouldn't be a concern. Every thing now a days down clocks.
fermi is 50MHz @.975mv how much power can it use?


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DrFPS* 
IMHO pwr shouldn't be a concern.

Agreed. That's your opinion.


----------



## dir_d

Well i know anyone hasnt talked about this yet but im finding more love for my 5870 because of MLAA. I got it working and using it instead of heavy hitting AA, so far its great, using 2x AA with MLAA is a pure crisp picture. Im sure this will help the 6xxx series in higher resolutions without having to build 2gb versions of their cards. In doing that the 69xx series cards could be cheap with great performance in high res or eyefinety configurations.


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DrFPS* 
IMHO pwr shouldn't be a concern. Every thing now a days down clocks.
fermi is 50MHz @.975mv how much power can it use?

It _does_ matter if you use your cards for folding. (one of the main "perks" Nvidia people tend to rave about)
My GTX465's power consumption usually bothers me a bit, but not right now since it helps heat my room, so no loss for me there.

People with folding farms on the other hand...?


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sLowEnd* 
It _does_ matter if you use your cards for folding. (one of the main "perks" Nvidia people tend to rave about)
My GTX465's power consumption usually bothers me a bit, but not right now since it helps heat my room, so no loss for me there.

People with folding farms on the other hand...?

Now that is Winter Heat should not be a problem for Fermi. I run Furmark 30 mins to heat up mu room lol.


----------



## CCast88

Quote:


Originally Posted by *88EVGAFTW* 
You're just mad bro, don't hate on the power of 2 GTX 470s.

/you

Looking at the Benchmarks... 6870CF OWNS GTX470SLI

KThx

So... seeing how the 6870 is not meant to compete with the 470, but yet, still unintentionally, it keeps up and in some situations, beats the 470. then you CF the 6870s and it's a no brainer...


----------



## sLowEnd

Money talks. The GTX470 is within $20 of the 6870 right now. ($240 vs $260)
That is why people are making the comparison.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
Now that is Winter Heat should not be a problem for Fermi. I run Furmark 30 mins to heat up mu room lol.

I'm pretty excited for November. Gonna try for some OC records, crank open the windows and let the great white north cool my system.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


Originally Posted by *dir_d* 
Well i know anyone hasnt talked about this yet but im finding more love for my 5870 because of MLAA. I got it working and using it instead of heavy hitting AA, so far its great, using 2x AA with MLAA is a pure crisp picture. Im sure this will help the 6xxx series in higher resolutions without having to build 2gb versions of their cards. In doing that the 69xx series cards could be cheap with great performance in high res or eyefinety configurations.

Yeah and what's really great is the fact that it's API independant. That's also it's weakness though since I've heard that in games like Fallout NV it blurrs detail too







. At least you'll never have games without AA anymore. You should try GTA IV too. That one should be a shocker









Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
I see where you're going with that, but I have to agree with him. The HD 6870 is the *upgrade* to the 5770, not the re-brand.


But I don't get what you are saying. In the same way a GTX 460, 465, 470, 480, 5830, 5850, 5870, 5970, 6850, 6870, 6950, 6970 and 6990 are upgrades for the 5770. The 6870 is no *replacement* for the 5770


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 
Yeah and what's really great is the fact that it's API independant. That's also it's weakness though since I've heard that in games like Fallout NV it blurrs detail too







. At least you'll never have games without AA anymore. You should try GTA IV too. That one should be a shocker









But I don't get what you are saying. In the same way a GTX 460, 465, 470, 480, 5830, 5850, 5870, 5970, 6850, 6870, 6950, 6970 and 6990 are upgrades for the 5770. The 6870 is no *replacement* for the 5770









You are right its a upgrade but not the replacement. ATI did not give the a 8 for nothing. It did so because now it has a GPU for 200-300 segment and the 9 for 300-400 and the high ed for 400+. the 7 stays for 150$ under. If HD 6870 was replacement for HD 5770 then it would have been 200$ at lanch just like HD 5770 was.


----------



## A Russian :D

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01* 

Please people this is not true. It should be this:

5870 => 6970 (enthusiast)
=> 6870*
=> 5770 (budget)

* $200 mark that was occupied by the GTX 460 and where AMD had a gap in their lineup. AMD admitted that the 5830 failed at that point)

Ok makes sense now


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Urgh. No more warranty discussion... going too off topic.


----------



## PopcornMachine

So, does anyone have an idea when the custom versions of the 6870 will be out?


----------



## Domino

Quote:


Originally Posted by *PopcornMachine* 
So, does anyone have an idea when the custom versions of the 6870 will be out?

Like? An entire non-reference model or just a non-reference cooler? The latter are already released.


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Domino* 
Like? An entire non-reference model or just a non-reference cooler? The latter are already released.

Which 6870 models are non-reference?

They all look the same to me, just different stencils painted on them.


----------



## iandh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sLowEnd* 
Money talks. The GTX470 is within $20 of the 6870 right now. ($240 vs $260)
That is why people are making the comparison.

True, but when you count in the cost of a MUCH beefier PSU to run the 470's, and the added cost of a good SLI mobo vs. a good CF mobo, you're looking at $100-200 more for the 470 setup.

$100-200 more and no performance increase sounds pretty damn lame to me.


----------



## YangerD

Quote:


Originally Posted by *iandh* 
True, but when you count in the cost of a MUCH beefier PSU to run the 470's, and the added cost of a good SLI mobo vs. a good CF mobo, you're looking at $100-200 more for the 470 setup.

$100-200 more and no performance increase sounds pretty damn lame to me.

+1 on that one.


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *iandh*


True, but when you count in the cost of a MUCH beefier PSU to run the 470's, and the added cost of a good SLI mobo vs. a good CF mobo, you're looking at $100-200 more for the 470 setup.

$100-200 more and no performance increase sounds pretty damn lame to me.


What do you mean by the cost of a good SLI vs Crossfire board? The Intel boards support both.
As for the AMD platform, the SLI boards aren't too pricey either, although they lack certain features such as USB3.0 and SATA3.
You can blame Nvidia for stagnating that part of the market.

For power consumption, you're looking at a ~70W load difference between the two cards. That doesn't warrant a "MUCH beefier" PSU.


----------



## Bunneh

Sadly in Canada the 6870 Seems to be around ~300(280-310$) dollars even though our dollar is parity this is quite sad when you consider the 5850 is around the same price. *I don't know about you but when you release new video cards I'd expect that you'd get more speed for less money* but in this case its the same performance for the same price ( Or very close to same price for same performance 6870 vs 5850(same price point)).

This wasn't as promised 5770 price-point successor. It doesn't matter if they said it was the 5770 of the 6k series it isn't, it's not even close to the same price which is what should be considered when comparing video cards.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Bunneh*


Sadly in Canada the 6870 Seems to be around ~300(280-310$) dollars even though our dollar is parity this is quite sad when you consider the 5850 is around the same price. *I don't know about you but when you release new video cards I'd expect that you'd get more speed for less money* but in this case its the same performance for the same price ( Or very close to same price for same performance 6870 vs 5850(same price point)).

This wasn't as promised 5770 price-point successor. It doesn't matter if they said it was the 5770 of the 6k series it isn't, it's not even close to the same price which is what should be considered when comparing video cards.


NCIX.com sells three HD 6870 models for $254.99.
http://ncix.com/search/?categoryid=0&q=HD+6870

Newegg.ca prices are $239.99 and $242.99 with equal conversion rate:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...CE&PageSize=20

MemoryExpress sells HD 6870s for $259.99 with free shipping:
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...rase=HD%206870


----------



## Domino

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PopcornMachine*


Which 6870 models are non-reference?

They all look the same to me, just different stencils painted on them.


sapphire ones.

link.


----------



## selfsurf

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Domino*


sapphire ones.

link.


that's a 6850


----------



## VenoMount

I believe that AMD said that they wanted all referance coolers on the 6870 and the 6850 was going to be the one companies could put custom cooling on, doesn't make sense to me, but thats what I heard, and has anyone seen a stock cooled 6850 yet, I know I haven't


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:



Originally Posted by *selfsurf*


that's a 6850


So, does anyone have an idea when the custom versions of the 6870 will be out?


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sLowEnd*


What do you mean by the cost of a good SLI vs Crossfire board? The Intel boards support both.
As for the AMD platform, the SLI boards aren't too pricey either, although they lack certain features such as USB3.0 and SATA3.
You can blame Nvidia for stagnating that part of the market.

For power consumption, you're looking at a ~70W load difference between the two cards. That doesn't warrant a "MUCH beefier" PSU.


I mean that you can easily get a very solid, up to date, CF capable board for ~$100 or less, whereas SLI options in that area are either outdated, or inferior. If you want a good board that handles both, you're quickly approaching the $200 range.

Good SLI boards cost more than good CF boards in the low end. That's a known fact. Once you're spending $200-300 on a mobo, then we aren't talking cost effective any more. When I say $100-200, I'm talking based on the base entry cost... and the base entry cost for 470 SLI is considerably higher, period.

As far as load difference, when overclocked, you're looking at 100w PER CARD... which kicks you into an entirely different price bracket as far as PSU's are concerned. If you don't believe me, look at the power consumption graphs in the reviews. Even if you drop some of the second card's consumption to account scaling, we're still easily talking 200w or more for 470 SLI vs. 6870 CF.

The difference in price between a good 500w supply and a good 800w supply is HUGE. When you add that to the cost of a good SLI mobo, you're easily looking at $100+, just like I said.

edit: In the sense of fairness, I looked through all the reviews and took an average of the power consumption between 6870 and 470, which ended up to be just less than 100w per card at stock clocks.

edit 2: If you want to take things a step further... a single 470 on average draws 100w more than a 6870.

I would feel perfectly comfortable running a 6870 on a 500w PSU, but I woudn't run a 470 on anything less than a 650w PSU just to be safe. That right there can add $20-30 on top of the cost of building a single card system with a 470.

So then, you're looking at $280 for the 470 vs. $240 for the 6870 if building a new system.

In my particular case, I'm running a 500w Seasonic. It's a very solid PSU, but not solid enough to run a 470. If I were to upgrade to 6870, it would cost me $240. If I were to upgrade to 470, I would have to sell my Seasonic and take a loss on it, then probably have to pay between $40-50 to buy a 600w+ PSU, on top of the money I get from selling my old PSU.

So in the case of a person like me with a midrange semi-budget system (which there are a LOT of), the 470 doesn't cost $20 more... it costs $60-70 more than 6870. That's paying $310 instead of $240 and getting the same performance. Not interested.

It's the exact same reason it was silly to buy a 5850 once the 460 1Gb came out.


----------



## consume

I don't understand...why is the 5870 > 6870?...


----------



## iandh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *consume* 
I don't understand...why is the 5870 > 6870?...

If you read one of the 30+ articles posted on the OP of this thread, then you would know.


----------



## smash_mouth01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PopcornMachine*


So, does anyone have an idea when the custom versions of the 6870 will be out?


No because there is none released, what you are looking at are all stock(vanilla) versions.


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:



Originally Posted by *smash_mouth01*


No because there is none released, what you are looking at are all stock(vanilla) versions.


Hence my question. I guess I got my answer.

Nobody knows.


----------



## Faraz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *consume*


I don't understand...why is the 5870 > 6870?...


Because the 6870 is a mid-range card in the 6XXX series whereas the 5870 is the top (single-GPU) card in the 5XXX series.

Of course that's not technically the reason it's better, but I think that's what you meant by your question.


----------



## OC Me

Honestly, I'm not too impressed with the tessellation performance or overclocking potential of either card. A heavily-overclocked GTX 460 still seems like the best value. However, I am excited to see where AMD goes with OpenCL and OpenGL this generation.


----------



## selfsurf

Quote:



Originally Posted by *VenoMount*


I believe that AMD said that they wanted all referance coolers on the 6870 and the 6850 was going to be the one companies could put custom cooling on, doesn't make sense to me, but thats what I heard, and has anyone seen a stock cooled 6850 yet, I know I haven't


what? this can't be true.

i don't even


----------



## Eugenester

Quote:



Originally Posted by *OC Me*


Honestly, I'm not too impressed with the tessellation performance or overclocking potential of either card. A *heavily-overclocked* GTX 460 still seems like the best value. However, I am excited to see where AMD goes with OpenCL and OpenGL this generation.


I like how you say heavily overclocked. What about stock clocks? How would said overclocked card fare against a "heavily overclocked 6870"?


----------



## Eugenester

Quote:



Originally Posted by *consume*


I don't understand...why is the 5870 > 6870?...


Sheesh...not another one. The naming scheme has changed to make room for Fusion APUs, so the 6870 = 5770, 6850 = 5750, 6950 = 5850, 6970 = 5870, and the 6990 = the 5970.


----------



## MagicBox

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Corrupted*


Actually, you are wrong. If you need proof, go check out AMD's own pretty pictures in all the reviews for the card. The 5770 isn't replaced by these and isn't being replaced anytime soon. The 6870 is filling the price point of the failed 5830, but providing tons better performance. It's a good card, but it isn't really replacing anything.


The picture actually shows it (LOL). 67xx will be rebrands of 57xx. The picture shows cores and 67xx won't get a new core, it's the same old Juniper. The chart shows core types, not model numbers. It shows exactly that, Juniper will continue to exist, though it will receive 67xx number designators.

68xx however is the 'upgraded' 57xx path and does make use of the new Barts core.


----------



## AzO

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PopcornMachine*


Hence my question. I guess I got my answer.

Nobody knows.


Seriously, dumb questions like these take up thread space.

There's this really cool website called "Google" and you can like, use it, to find stuff, and ask questions...


----------



## Skaterboydale

Whos up for buying a 5770?









But seriously is a 6870 a worthy upgrade from a 5770 though?


----------



## tweaker123

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Skaterboydale*


Whos up for buying a 5770?









But seriously is a 6870 a worthy upgrade from a 5770 though?


yes


----------



## sendblink23

I'm selling both of my 5770's.. WHO WANTS THEM? =P


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *OC Me*


Honestly, I'm not too impressed with the tessellation performance or overclocking potential of either card. A heavily-overclocked GTX 460 still seems like the best value. However, I am excited to see where AMD goes with OpenCL and OpenGL this generation.


The 6850 and 460 1Gb are dead even both at stock clocks and when heavily overclocked, yet the 6850 costs $20 less.

The 6870 with a moderate overclock is slightly faster than a heavily overclocked 460 1Gb.


----------



## AzO

*AlienBabelTech's review*

*Introducing AMD's new HD 6870 and HD 6850 vs. GTX 460*


----------



## un-nefer

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Skaterboydale*


But seriously is a 6870 a worthy upgrade from a 5770 though?


The 6870 seems to perform in between a 5850 and a 5870, and has around 75% better performance in games then a 5770, so you'd definitely notice an improvement in FPS in games for sure.

The only real question is if you can wait a few months for the 69xx series to be released


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:



Originally Posted by *iandh*


The 6850 and 460 1Gb are dead even both at stock clocks and when heavily overclocked, yet the 6850 costs $20 less.

The 6870 with a moderate overclock is slightly faster than a heavily overclocked 460 1Gb.


It better be, it costs tons more. I really wish people would stop all comparisons between the 6870 and the 460 as they are nowhere near the same price point and have no business being compared.

I think his implication is that the 460 can overclock better than the 6850, which makes it a better value (for most people here). The value is what he was saying was better than the 6870 (which hasn't shown great promise in overclocking), not the performance. Again, no one in their right mind is comparing the performance of the 6870 and the 460. I'm not stating an opinion one way or another about whether he is right...simply stating his obvious meaning which was clearly misunderstood.


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AzO*


*AlienBabelTech's review*

*Introducing AMDâ€™s new HD 6870 and HD 6850 vs. GTX 460*


Why would anyone even half way competent compare a 6870 to a 460? Not only are they nowhere near the same price point, AMD has already said the current price point for the 6870 (and the 6850), is only for 3 weeks before it gets raised back to originally intended levels.


----------



## Chisharpe

these 6850 and 6870 are beta drivers the 460s been out a while now. once mature drivers are out then we should be looking at comparing


----------



## SFkilla

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Corrupted*


Why would anyone even half way competent compare a 6870 to a 460? Not only are they nowhere near the same price point, AMD has already said the current price point for the 6870 (and the 6850), is only for 3 weeks before it gets raised back to originally intended levels.



can you please stop whining, and writing bull..., unbelievable!
The GTX470 prices will go up in 3 weeks, not the 6800 series!


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


Maybe it's a good idea if you start reading this part of the review again. Your reason and logic are on the spot but don't get me wrong this discussion isn't going to end this way.

A few last things I want to tell you. The first one is that you missed the whole point of the redesign of Barts and that part is explained in the quoted piece of the article. You try to translate shader performance to gaming performance. You have to get a real understanding from the logic units and how it impacts gaming performance. Barts isn't better because of the shader design, it's better because of the ratio the rasterization logic units are vs the shading and texture units. A combination of factors not just one. Heh, that would make engineering plain and dull.

If you say Vantage represents gaming performance, yes it does a little. It resembles games like Crysis and AvP. In those games the emphasis is being put on texture mapping and shading performance and almost nothing on geometry. That's why I said that if you want to test the full potential of a card (TMUs, ROPs, SPs, memory bandwidth), you'll need to include geometry. You can do this by testing it on extreme presets. I just feel like repeating myself again. You should research the logic units more in depth, because now you state something and I give you a clear argument based on facts you don't seem to have knowledge about yet or you get defensive and counter my statements with generalizations.

You generalise like things like, they changed the uncore. You'll have to define the uncore before you reason further on that. If you call UVD3 and such the uncore, well okay they changed that. While it's sweet for media and HTPC ends, for gaming it delivers 0 performance (except for the fact you can game 3D too now).

The tesselation performance has been enhanced because they changed the data algorithm before it goes into the tesselator by applying effects like DoF (also called 'smart tesselation'). That's why in that pretty graph you noted about 2x the tesselation performance the gain craps after a certain level of tesselation, so that the only gain over an HD 5870 is the extra 50Hz the 32 ROPs are clocked at.

Please don't take things I said in this post to personal, but I if you don't have knowledge about these logic units, we are just going to be reasoning in circles (I don't know everything yet too so I'm not trying to be a smartass, but at least I try to reduce the amount of generalisation by going more in depth







). It's just like you talk English and I talk English with a few words of Japanese between it, a lot of misunderstandings will occur.


Oh, I know about all of this stuff, I think it's just wrong to say it's a paintbrush of Cypress when they changed a lot of the die in ways we don't get told, for example, the uncore, which is everything inside the GPU that isn't the shader or part of the shader cluster, some examples are the UVD stuff, memory controller, the display part (That nVidia made external on the GTX 280, I can't remember the name) and various other essential stuff, while it might not do much for performance, it does indirectly effect it as for all we know, that might of been holding back the rest of the die in terms of clock speed or just uses less space now, giving AMD more space for extra transistors, that's what I've been trying to say.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Suprcynic*


What are you talking about? It's not even close. So far there's absolutely nothing impressive about the 6xxx series except the price. Until ATI figures out that they suck at tesselation and drivers they will be behind AMD

[/IMG]http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/700/3dcompvantage.jpg[/IMG]


I meant a stock one which gets around 18.9k iirc, not OCed.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Anguilla*


Hmm.. 
I found this http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/a...ange-market/20 , saying

Only Anandtech noted this, and I didn't see the XFX version using more power than the reference card in other reviews, so I'm taking this with a grain of salt. The mystery continues










Chances are this is just a fluke, it happens fairly often from memory.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *88EVGAFTW*


19K gpu in Vantage for that 6870, not impressed at all







that is what my single GTX 470 gets OCd

[/IMG]http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/ss20/elbatcho/benchs/vanphysxoff.jpg[/IMG]


While the 470 is better, you wouldn't even be impressed if they got 9001k on Extreme.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


AMD released the HD 6870 and 6850 as a new price range, it's not the successor of the 5800 neither of the 5700.

Just like in the old 3870 and 4870 days, AMD decided to release their 800 cards around the $200 mark with the XT version over $200 and the PRO version under $200. With the HD5k series AMD missed that spot. The 5870 and 5850 fell $100 higher than usual, hence there was a gap to fill at the $200 mark. This is where Barts comes in









The 5700 will continue to exist and will not be rebranded as 6700. AMD said they don't do rebranding










Actually, it launched at the launch price of the HD57x0 series, prices still have to come down though.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *88EVGAFTW*


You're just mad bro, don't hate on the power of 2 GTX 470s.

/you


It'd be cheaper for two HD6870s than two GTX 470s because the GTX 470 uses around 250w under full load (A french site tested it, iirc) and the HD6870 uses around 151w, the 750w PSU (At minimum) you'd need for GTX 470 SLI would cost more than the 550w (At minimum) for HD6870 CFX.

Plus, America doesn't = the world, here the HD6870 is a good AU$50 cheaper than the GTX 470.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *superj1977*


*"For reference, that GPU score is better than a GTX 480...HD6970 will be a beast.

Now to wait for software voltage adjustment."*

Make of it what you want but that sounds like some type of comparison to me







on page 1..


Actually, that was a reference to the stock GTX 480 clock, I know an OCed one is better.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


Well, the same thing happens everytime around here. I remember in March everyone was crapping the GF100 Vmod threads.

Also in case you didn't know, this GPU runs at 1-1.1V normally and they gave it 1.5V to achieve this overclock. This card will have a sad life if you run it like this regularly. It seems 1000-1050MHz is the limit for these cards that is, if you want to keep it for a while at least. It seems that AMD clocked their cards sweet already this time around. The temperatures are very good though for a Vmod.


How do you know 1.5v is going to cause electro migration? Everyone thought above 1.3625v on 45nm did it, but AMD can get up to 1.55v fine and even Intel can do 1.45v easily when you have good temps, we have to wait and see.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *DrFPS*


IMHO pwr shouldn't be a concern. Every thing now a days down clocks.
fermi is 50MHz @.975mv how much power can it use?


It's your opinion, I pay bills and quite frankly, if I only get 10% extra performance for twice the wattage, it definitely isn't worth it for me.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sLowEnd*


What do you mean by the cost of a good SLI vs Crossfire board? The Intel boards support both.
As for the AMD platform, the SLI boards aren't too pricey either, although they lack certain features such as USB3.0 and SATA3.
You can blame Nvidia for stagnating that part of the market.

For power consumption, you're looking at a ~70W load difference between the two cards. That doesn't warrant a "MUCH beefier" PSU.


nVidia chipsets tend to suck balls compared to Intel or even AMD.

But with the SLI hack, the point is moot because both AMD and Intel boards run CFX or SLI.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *OC Me*


Honestly, I'm not too impressed with the tessellation performance or overclocking potential of either card. A heavily-overclocked GTX 460 still seems like the best value. However, I am excited to see where AMD goes with OpenCL and OpenGL this generation.


Tessellation performance isn't really needed, where it stands now is what is used in real games and the only thing that goes higher is Uniengine and that's a benchmark atm.

And we still don't know how well they OC, Reviewers tend to suck at OCing, remember?

Quote:



Originally Posted by *MagicBox*


The picture actually shows it (LOL). 67xx will be rebrands of 57xx. The picture shows cores and 67xx won't get a new core, it's the same old Juniper. The chart shows core types, not model numbers. It shows exactly that, Juniper will continue to exist, though it will receive 67xx number designators.

68xx however is the 'upgraded' 57xx path and does make use of the new Barts core.


It doesn't say rebrand, all it says is that those products will continue to be sold.

If they are renamed "HD6770" and "HD6750" then that's a rebrand.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Corrupted*


AMD has already said the current price point for the 6870 (and the 6850), is only for 3 weeks before it gets raised back to originally intended levels.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Corrupted*


Why would anyone even half way competent compare a 6870 to a 460? Not only are they nowhere near the same price point, AMD has already said the current price point for the 6870 (and the 6850), is only for 3 weeks before it gets raised back to originally intended levels.


Source?

With so many options now available within a short performance range, I sincerely doubt there will be any price _increases_.


----------



## Anguilla

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


Source?

With so many options now available within a short performance range, I sincerely doubt there will be any price _increases_.


Indeed. It was clear that both the GTX460 768mb and 1gb versions were reigning supreme at it's price point. Now with the 6850 Ati took a large bite out of those sales, if they'd raise the price the gtx460 would be a no-brainer once again.


----------



## jprovido

HD5970 to 6870 crossfire. good move?


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *jprovido*


HD5970 to 6870 crossfire. good move?


You would be limited to 1GB VRAM and also wouldn't gain much performance. Why would you need more performance with only 1 monitor though?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


You would be limited to 1GB VRAM and also wouldn't gain much performance. Why would you need more performance with only 1 monitor though?


This


----------



## DrFPS

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


It's your opinion, I pay bills and quite frankly, if I only get 10% extra performance for twice the wattage, it definitely isn't worth it for me.











So you pay the bills. So does everybody else. You just trolling. You should know I'm going to call you on it. Specially after you claiming your "4890"= 480.
Let me guess your 275=5890 now. Grow up 10% thats a laugh. Try %50. Or 100% w/ Heaven 2.1 benchmark LOl.

You have a clue as to how much power that 275 is gobbling while using a dx platform that is 10 years old=dx9
GTX275=215watts x2, 430watts, twice the wattage. !!Don't be a troll!!
Whats your point? What ever it is=diminished because of ignorance. You deserved that, sry.


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AzO*


Seriously, dumb questions like these take up thread space.

There's this really cool website called "Google" and you can like, use it, to find stuff, and ask questions...










Thanks for the most intelligent response. Your wealth of knowledge has enlightened me.

Of course it's not like I'd already done that.

Not that your post is a dumb comment that's taking up thread space.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PopcornMachine*


Of course it's not like I'd already done that.

Not that this is a dumb comment that's taking up thread space.


In my country his name reflects his actions


----------



## Iron OX

not sure if i buy one of these 
but those reviews made me think srsly about it...


----------



## sendblink23

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PopcornMachine*


Thanks for the most intelligent response. Your wealth of knowledge has enlightened me.

Of course it's not like I'd already done that.

Not that your post is a dumb comment that's taking up thread space.


since I'm bored & feel like making a stupid comment for a laugh

Your post wasted 5 seconds of my life.. I hope mine has wasted the same on yours









Now I want some popcorn!!!!!!


----------



## Tommie

Oeh. 
There will be a GTX 580 Hard launch! Before Christmas !
And there will be 6900's before christmas too!
Lots of them!


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


In my country his name reflects his actions










Thanks. I needed that.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


You would be limited to 1GB VRAM and also wouldn't gain much performance. Why would you need more performance with only 1 monitor though?


He is already, CFX clones the vram across both cards unless I've missed a note somewhere and they've changed it.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *DrFPS*


So you pay the bills. So does everybody else. You just trolling. You should know I'm going to call you on it. Specially after you claiming your "4890"= 480.
Let me guess your 275=5890 now. Grow up 10% thats a laugh. Try %50. Or 100% w/ Heaven 2.1 benchmark LOl.

You have a clue as to how much power that 275 is gobbling while using a dx platform that is 10 years old=dx9
GTX275=215watts x2, 430watts, twice the wattage. !!Don't be a troll!!
Whats your point? What ever it is=diminished because of ignorance. You deserved that, sry.


Wow, you don't make any sense.

1) How am I trolling? That's one reason I didn't just RMA my PSU and keep running the CFX setup, the power bill was too high, it went up by like AU$50 just from a month of those cards.
2) Those cards were as fast as a GTX 480, you kept going "LOOK HERE'S PHYSX TO SHOW A DIFFERENCE YAY NVIDIA FTW", so I stopped trying to knock some sense into your nVidia love filled head.
3) GTX 480's average performance increase over the HD5870 was 15% average with FC2 (A crappy game that was also heavily nVidia biased) and 10% without, it's not as good of a card as you think it is, you know.
4) 50%? Where? I only saw 50% performance increase in Far Cry 2...Which was really, really bad. Or 100% on a benchmark? Cool, while you might get off by watching a benchmark all day, I'll continue playing games thanks.
5) I'm running SLI? I wasn't aware I had a second GTX 275 TwinFrozr or even an SLI bridge...?


----------



## OC Me

AlienBabelTech has a very in-depth Barts review here.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Eugenester*


I like how you say heavily overclocked. What about stock clocks? How would said overclocked card fare against a "heavily overclocked 6870"?


The 6870 at stock consistently outperforms the 460 at stock. For a non-overclocker, the 6870 is the better purchase. I was simply stating that you get more overclocking headroom with the GTX 460.


----------



## Eugenester

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Corrupted*


Why would anyone even half way competent compare a 6870 to a 460? *Not only are they nowhere near the same price point, AMD has already said the current price point for the 6870 (and the 6850), is only for 3 weeks before it gets raised back to originally intended levels.*












LOL @ this guy. THE 6870 WAS MADE TO COMPETE AGAINST THE 460! The only reason there is a price disparity is because nVidia LOWERED the prices on all 460's and 470's. Stop writing bull.


----------



## Eugenester

Quote:



Originally Posted by *OC Me*


AlienBabelTech has a very in-depth Barts review here.

The 6870 at stock consistently outperforms the 460 at stock. For a non-overclocker, the 6870 is the better purchase. I was simply stating that you get more overclocking headroom with the GTX 460.


 Exactomundo! Thats why most review sites had to put in a FTW version of the 460 to make it "fair".


----------



## Ihatethedukes

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Eugenester*


Exactomundo! Thats why most review sites had to put in a FTW version of the 460 to make it "fair".


You guys really don't have a clue what the OCing headroom on a 6870 is. We don't have any voltage control yet. In all likelihood it'll OC similarly or better than the 5870, or, between 1000-1050 Mhz when really pushed.


----------



## kcklub

I had my card for two years now. After reading all the reviews i will have to say my 4870 is ancient now. I will buy a 6970 when the price drop back down from inflation and i will always support amd gpu because they need some money to make great product


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Ihatethedukes*


You guys really don't have a clue what the OCing headroom on a 6870 is. We don't have any voltage control yet. In all likelihood it'll OC similarly or better than the 5870, or, between 1000-1050 Mhz when really pushed.


Not to mention which, the 6850 is probably going to OC like a complete beast, making the 460's OC capability somewhat moot.


----------



## dude120

Quote:



Originally Posted by *DrFPS*


So you pay the bills. So does everybody else. You just trolling. You should know I'm going to call you on it. Specially after you claiming your "4890"= 480.
Let me guess your 275=5890 now. Grow up 10% thats a laugh. Try %50. Or 100% w/ Heaven 2.1 benchmark LOl.

You have a clue as to how much power that 275 is gobbling while using a dx platform that is 10 years old=dx9
GTX275=215watts x2, 430watts, twice the wattage. !!Don't be a troll!!
Whats your point? What ever it is=diminished because of ignorance. You deserved that, sry.


2 4890s in crossfire = a 480 on a good day.

The only thing I'm hoping for is that both Nvidia and ATI keep up with the price cuts because of the similarly price and performing card.


----------



## Obakemono

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Skaterboydale* 
Whos up for buying a 5770?









But seriously is a 6870 a worthy upgrade from a 5770 though?

Yes. Two 6870s beat my three 5770s and even two 5830s. I bought two (6870s) for my brother for xmas to replace his 5830s. I am going to wait to replace my 5770s because the used card market is going to be flooded with 57xx & 58xx cards soon, I want to wait and see what the 69xx & 6770 cards look like and then I just might wait and see what the 7xxx cards will be like. I'm happy with my three 5770s, but I really wanted the 6850 to have two crossfire fingers, as I would get three for a beastly setup. I think that is the biggest downside to the 6850/70 is only one crossfire finger but AMD must have a reason for this.


----------



## Eugenester

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Ihatethedukes* 
You guys really don't have a clue what the OCing headroom on a 6870 is. We don't have any voltage control yet. In all likelihood it'll OC similarly or better than the 5870, or, between 1000-1050 Mhz when really pushed.

Damn, I was gonna say that. The card hasn't been out long enough to REALLY see what it cna do, so saying that you can overclock the 406 is a moot point.


----------



## AzO

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Corrupted* 
Why would anyone even half way competent compare a 6870 to a 460? Not only are they nowhere near the same price point, AMD has already said the current price point for the 6870 (and the 6850), is only for 3 weeks before it gets raised back to originally intended levels.

Get some glasses, or a really good doctor. The 68xx series price point is in direct comparison with the GTX460 1GB models.


----------



## sarngate

Quote:


Originally Posted by *AzO* 
Get some glasses, or a really good doctor. The 68xx series price point is in direct comparison with the GTX460 1GB models.









The 6850 is priced around there, but the 6870 is at the same price as the 470. The comparison between the 6870 and the 460 1GB IS stupid, because both performance and price are so different.


----------



## iandh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sarngate* 
The 6850 is priced around there, but the 6870 is at the same price as the 470. The comparison between the 6870 and the 460 1GB IS stupid, because both performance and price are so different.

Even after the price drops on the 260, the _average_ price _right now_ for a 260 1Gb is $220, and the average price for a 6870 is $240. The average price for a 470 is $260.

There are some more expensive on both sides, but I left them out. There are a couple cheaper 460's, just as there soon will be a couple cheaper 6870's. I also threw them out to keep the numbers fair.

You say the 6870 is the "same price" as the 470, yet the gap between the 6870 and 470 is *identical* to the gap between 460 and 6870.

When talking about the the 460 vs. 6870, you say the prices are "so different", yet when talking about 470 vs. 6870 you say they are the "same price", though the price differences are the same.

Odd.


----------



## sarngate

Quote:


Originally Posted by *iandh* 
Even after the price drops on the 260, the _average_ price _right now_ for a 260 1Gb is $220, and the average price for a 6870 is $240. The average price for a 470 is $260.

There are some more expensive on both sides, but I left them out. There are a couple cheaper 460's, just as there soon will be a couple cheaper 6870's. I also threw them out to keep the numbers fair.

You say the 6870 is the "same price" as the 470, yet the gap between the 6870 and 470 is *identical* to the gap between 460 and 6870.

When talking about the the 460 vs. 6870, you say the prices are "so different", yet when talking about 470 vs. 6870 you say they are the "same price", though the price differences are the same.

Odd.

Using averages is hardly a fair way of basing pricing, the 6870's have just launched so of course selection will be more limited. The only logical way to look at it is just lowest and highest price options. Which are as follows:

Lowest price 6870 - $240
Lowest price 470 - $250
Lowest price 460 1GB - $189

Highest price 6870 - $240
Highest price 470 - $299
Highest price 460 1GB - $250

It makes far more sense to look at the lowest price of each product, because higher prices are often due to overclocks, warranties and cooling options. The fact remains that if you look at the cheapest run of the mill card each time the 6870 is clearly not aimed at the 460 1GB.

I'll give you an example. I could have a BMW and a Mercedes which are both aimed at the same market and price point. If i take the BMW to AMG and get them to completely upgrade the vehicle, then it is no longer comparable to the Mercedes.

You have to compare like with like.


----------



## iandh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sarngate* 
Using averages is hardly a fair way of basing pricing, the 6870's have just launched so of course selection will be more limited. The only logical way to look at it is just lowest and highest price options. Which are as follows:

Lowest price 6870 - $240
Lowest price 470 - $250
Lowest price 460 1GB - $189

Highest price 6870 - $240
Highest price 470 - $299
Highest price 460 1GB - $250

It makes far more sense to look at the lowest price of each product, because higher prices are often due to overclocks, warranties and cooling options. The fact remains that if you look at the cheapest run of the mill card each time the 6870 is clearly not aimed at the 460 1GB.

I'll give you an example. I could have a BMW and a Mercedes which are both aimed at the same market and price point. If i take the BMW to AMG and get them to completely upgrade the vehicle, then it is no longer comparable to the Mercedes.

You have to compare like with like.


How is it hardly fair? Not everyone wants to buy the cheapest ass crap off-brand card they can find, and not everyone wants to buy the most expensive. In general, the reputable brand, non-OC cards are a bit more expensive than baseline once the market settles, and the prices I used are going to be the likely price points for the majority of purchases.

Your reasoning is completely backwards. Most people _stay away_ from the rock-bottom off-brand cards, and go with something a little more well known at a slightly higher price, but still cost effective. Very few people buy the highest end cards, because they don't always offer a good value, and are usually in shorter supply. The lower-midrange is where the _vast majority_ of GPU purchases take, and I placed my price guess for 460 1Gb, and the other cards, directly on that spot.

Just a bit above low end is where most people purchase... the sweet spot. You're picking the two opposite sides of the spectrum away from that spot, and also the price ranges which are least likely to provide any real workable info to speculate from. Sales and overpriced OC cards/specialty cards are NOT good predictors of a card model's overall standing in the market. The lower-midrange priced cards ARE.

I'm comparing oranges to oranges to oranges by picking the most stable lower-midrange price point to discuss upon for each card model. You're comparing oranges to apples to banannas by talking on price points that can go flying all over the place from week to week. Sometimes there are crazy good sales, and sometimes OC/specialty cards are ridiculously overpriced and then plummet due to poor sales or skyrocket due to reduced supply, and neither of them properly represent their brethren's place in the market... which is why taking a low average is both fair, and important to get a good understanding of where things _really_ are.

edit: As an addition, real time high and low price _can be good_ for people building systems _right now._ In fact, it's all that matters... what the card costs next week, or did cost last week, is generally irrelevant if you have your mind made up to make the purchase at that instant. However, for the same reason spot pricing is relevant for immediate purchases, it is irrelevant for long term speculation of a card's position and success in the market unless it is included into a trend of pricing from weeks prior.


----------



## selfsurf

am i the only that waiting for non-reference 6870s? i know how those blower type fans sound, and i'm not havin it.


----------



## iandh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *selfsurf* 
am i the only that waiting for non-reference 6870s? i know how those blower type fans sound, and i'm not havin it.

That's why whenever I have the money I'll probably spring for a 6850. I'm in CA, so with tax a 6580 is only $202 shipped, and a 6870 is $267 shipped (newegg). Tiger direct and NCIX don't charge me tax, but their card prices are higher.

With a heavy overclock, the 6850 is within 5% of the 6870's performance, but costs 30% less.


----------



## mothergoose729

At the price point of a GTX470 I would consider it over a 6850 ora 6870. If it weren't so damn hot and loud that is. I want a nonreference fan versions to come out and I will snag that up. Gigabyte has some interesting cooler, but I want to see a zalman or artic fan on their and then I will pounce.

Speaking of which, anyone have any info about the mounting wholes for the 6850 and 6870? Would one of the artic accellero or other passive coolers fit do you think?


----------



## ZealotKi11er

GTX470 @ Stock = HD 6870 @ Stock. At best HD can get 15% OC on the core and knowing ATi and how the core scales it will be 10% at best. GTX470 can easily get 30% OC. That alone put GTX470 15% higher in performance. 15% mean a new level. It the difference between Very high end and high end GTX480 vs GTX470, for 15% people pay 150$+. People should stop and wait for user to get their HD 6850/HD 6870 and OC them and check their potential. Also HD 6870 is clock so high by AMD to get good perfomance is not even funny. It like Nvidia coming up with GTX485 same space just 850Mhz core and get 20% performance. I personaly would not consider HD 6870 a good buy/card unless it can beat HD 5850 clock/clock. If it cant do that then its fain in my book. HD 6850 in the other has its very nicely prices and not much slower then 6870. 180$ is a price thats very attractive to many people.


----------



## Name Change

Quote:


Originally Posted by *iandh* 
That's why whenever I have the money I'll probably spring for a 6850. I'm in CA, so with tax a 6580 is only $202 shipped, and a 6870 is $267 shipped (newegg). Tiger direct and NCIX don't charge me tax, but their card prices are higher.

With a heavy overclock, the 6850 is within 5% of the 6870's performance, but costs 30% less.

With NCIX use pricematching.. it works perfect.. Only way I order from there is after I pm things..


----------



## iandh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mothergoose729* 
At the price point of a GTX470 I would consider it over a 6850 ora 6870. If it weren't so damn hot and loud that is. I want a nonreference fan versions to come out and I will snag that up. Gigabyte has some interesting cooler, but I want to see a zalman or artic fan on their and then I will pounce.

Speaking of which, anyone have any info about the mounting wholes for the 6850 and 6870? Would one of the artic accellero or other passive coolers fit do you think?

Yep, same here. I really like EVGA as a reseller, but as an alternative I'm forced into XFX. People cry and cry about them, but I've gotten nothing but top notch cards and superb service.

That said, 470 draws over 100w more than 6870 when OC'ed.

A good 500w supply costs _at least_ $20 less than a good 600w supply. In my case, my Seasonic 500w is $59 and the 600w version of the same line is $89. A Corsair 500CX (since we're talking budget) is $59, and a 600CX is $79.

I feel comfy with a 6870 and 500w PSU, but a 600w is the _minimum_ I would want to run a 470 from.

So let's just say $25... I made this point earlier in the thread, but now you've jumped from $240 vs. $260, to $240 vs. $285.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
GTX470 @ Stock = HD 6870 @ Stock. At best HD can get 15% OC on the core and knowing ATi and how the core scales it will be 10% at best.

You've seen the HD6870 get overclocked? afaik reviewers couldn't even get over 1Ghz on the HD5770 except the really high end MSI models so they're not really a good area to base max OC off...


----------



## mothergoose729

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
GTX470 @ Stock = HD 6870 @ Stock. At best HD can get 15% OC on the core and knowing ATi and how the core scales it will be 10% at best. GTX470 can easily get 30% OC. That alone put GTX470 15% higher in performance. 15% mean a new level. It the difference between Very high end and high end GTX480 vs GTX470, for 15% people pay 150$+. People should stop and wait for user to get their HD 6850/HD 6870 and OC them and check their potential. Also HD 6870 is clock so high by AMD to get good perfomance is not even funny. It like Nvidia coming up with GTX485 same space just 850Mhz core and get 20% performance. I personaly would not consider HD 6870 a good buy/card unless it can beat HD 5850 clock/clock. If it cant do that then its fain in my book. HD 6850 in the other has its very nicely prices and not much slower then 6870. 180$ is a price thats very attractive to many people.

The 6 series has new architecture elements, OC performance scaling at this point is unknown. Also, I would be very interested to see 30% performance scaling with OCing on a GTX 470 or 480 on air cooling. Not saying it hasn't happened but I don't think those kind of results are typical from what I have seen.

Also, it appears that the 6 series is already scaling much better in xfire. Two 6870s can be run for a similar price and in a similar power envelope to one GTX 480, with superior performance. You can run two GTX 470s for almost the same price, but with much higher power consumption. With the GTX 460s you get more power for less performance.

There are merits to both.


----------



## iandh

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mothergoose729* 
The 6 series has new architecture elements, OC performance scaling at this point is unknown. Also, I would be very interested to see 30% performance scaling with OCing on a GTX 470 or 480 on air cooling. Not saying it hasn't happened but I don't think those kind of results are typical from what I have seen.

Also, it appears that the 6 series is already scaling much better in xfire. Two 6870s can be run for a similar price and in a similar power envelope to one GTX 480, with superior performance. You can run two GTX 470s for almost the same price, but with much higher power consumption. With the GTX 460s you get more power for less performance.

There are merits to both.

30% OC on 470 with stock cooling = jet engine/blow dryer inside your computer.

I really couldn't deal with the amount of noise. That isn't speculation, I've actually played with OC-ing a 470 for a week or so. A 30% OC on that card puts out blistering heat and noise.


----------



## mothergoose729

Quote:


Originally Posted by *iandh* 
30% OC on 470 with stock cooling = jet engine/blow dryer inside your computer.

I really couldn't deal with the amount of noise. That isn't speculation, I've actually played with OC-ing a 470 for a week or so. A 30% OC on that card puts out blistering heat and noise.

A 30% OC would be about a 810mhz core clock correct? That still wouldn't linearly scale to 30% more performance, at a guess with shaders and memory optimized I would think it would be closer to 18-22%.

And yes, then there is the hair dryer noise and exhaust.

Zealot if you have evidence to the contrary please share.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mothergoose729* 
The 6 series has new architecture elements, OC performance scaling at this point is unknown. Also, I would be very interested to see 30% performance scaling with OCing on a GTX 470 or 480 on air cooling. Not saying it hasn't happened but I don't think those kind of results are typical from what I have seen.

Also, it appears that the 6 series is already scaling much better in xfire. Two 6870s can be run for a similar price and in a similar power envelope to one GTX 480, with superior performance. You can run two GTX 470s for almost the same price, but with much higher power consumption. With the GTX 460s you get more power for less performance.

There are merits to both.

I said 30% OC and not scaling. Also ATi did not change much. Its still just a HD 58XX molded. HD 6870 stock volts are 1.2v and they could only get 950Mhz at most. With same volts i got 950Mhz with my HD 5850 and after 1Ghz its was impossible to go more. The architecture even if it modified its still 40nm do at best it will OC 50Mhz more thats why i said 15% as for 1050Mhz core HD 6870 would get. I just feel sorry for those people that overclock card but get nothing out of this. To me HD 5870 also had that people but somehow people got it in their head that its much faster then HD 5850 but it was not. Price was always 100+ for HD 5870 compare to HD 5850 and for 5% more performance they got the HD 5870. Thats why i am saying that with OC GTX470 will end up faster. I got a bad GTX470 with very high VID and can still do 800Mhz which is 32% OC.

Edit: As far as power consumption my system peaks ~ 500W and 565W with furmark. Thats because i got 6 HDDs, Water cooling, 10 fans and Core i7. With a Core 2 Quad + Air cooling it would only hit 500W in furmark. That being said considering PSU efficiency thats 500W x 0.85 = 425W with a monster 1.087v and a 4.0Ghz Quad so a quality 500W is more then enough.


----------



## Phaedrus2129

Quote:

Shortly after AMD launched their new Radeon HD 6000 series, which featured their 960-core AMD Radeon HD 6850 and 1120-core AMD Radeon HD 6870 video cards, some reports surfaced that some retail manufacturers had shipped 6850 test samples with the same 1120 shader core Barts GPU that comprises the more powerful Radeon HD 6870 video card.

This creates a major problem for review websites, because many of them had unknowingly published their Radeon HD 6850 video card reviews to the public. Fortunately for AMD, although quite unfortunate for NVIDIA, many curious readers have now incorrectly perceived the Radeon HD 6850 to be capable of performance levels not possible from its correct GPU - even with maximum overclocking. While this incident excludes all unbranded AMD reference samples, partners such as Sapphire, HIS, PowerColor, and XFX appear to have sent "overpowered" samples to reviewers.
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...2388&Itemid=47

Whether this is true or not, crap is going to fly.


----------



## Behemoth777

Good thing I bought a 6870.


----------



## PyroTechNiK

Embarrassing to say the least.


----------



## mothergoose729

Oh dang...

I would be mad if I bought a card and it significantly underperformed compared to reviews. I definitely want to see the reviews from the reputable sites confirmed or redone.

That being said, would a simple GPU-Z screen shot give you a heads up to that? I don't imagine anandtech, guru3d, [H]ard OCP or hardware canucks would have missed that minor detail.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Merged. Remember to keep all post-launch news of the 6800s to this thread, not just reviews.


----------



## Darius Silver

Though a little shady, I didn't find a review that had a 6850 and 6870 neck and neck so meh.


----------



## Corrupted

lol. Sounds like a great way to move a lot of units on opening weekend.


----------



## SkillzKillz

The reviewers that received the 1120 version noticed and changed their results accordingly. I also never heard of an XFX model with 1120 shaders. There was only 1 review published with 1120 shader results and it did show about 5% more performance across the board as it was still clocked equal to a reference 6850. The review site made a note about this. Either way, almost all the reviews still used the correct 960SP version.


----------



## Am*

Wow. While I can't believe the new cards are already here, they certainly aren't what I was expecting (they seem to be getting beaten by their predecessors on quite a few pre-DirectX11 games, I guess the 6000 series are to 5000 series ATI cards what the 3000 series ATI cards were to the 2000 model GPUs from ATI back in 2007 -- a low budget, cheaper to manufacture alternative, and not necessarily a better performer).

I'm still very glad I got my GTX 460 768MB version , as it seems to be one of, if not the biggest bang-for-buck card to date.


----------



## sweffymo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Am** 
Wow. While I can't believe the new cards are already here, they certainly aren't what I was expecting (they seem to be getting beaten by their predecessors on quite a few pre-DirectX11 games, I guess the 6000 series are to 5000 series ATI cards what the 3000 series ATI cards were to the 2000 model GPUs from ATI back in 2007 -- a low budget, cheaper to manufacture alternative, and not necessarily a better performer).

I'm still very glad I got my GTX 460 768MB version , as it seems to be one of, if not the biggest bang-for-buck card to date.

The 6800 series replaces the 5700 series. The top single GPU card will be called the 6970, and the dual GPU card will be called 6990.

Edit: Also, the 6850 is around the same performance-wise as the 460 1GB, so...


----------



## sendblink23

Hey does any of the reviews show how does a CF 5770 performs compared to a single 6870? I'm not sure but ain't I suppose to be performing better than a single 6870?


----------



## Am*

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
The 6800 series replaces the 5700 series. The top single GPU card will be called the 6970, and the dual GPU card will be called 6990.

Edit: Also, the 6850 is around the same performance-wise as the 460 1GB, so...

I only glanced at a couple of in game performance results, so if what you say is true, way to completely confuse your target audience AMD...

Also judging by the pre-order prices, the 6850 is about Â£15 more expensive than my 768MB OC'd Cyclone (at a month's old pricing, as I got it about 4 weeks ago), which at its factory overclock, will perform on-par or better than the new card while also being cheaper.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
The 6800 series replaces the 5700 series. The top single GPU card will be called the 6970, and the dual GPU card will be called 6990.

Edit: Also, the 6850 is around the same performance-wise as the 460 1GB, so...

Nope, HD 68XX are not replacing anything. They are just a new subsection for 150-250$ price point.


----------



## Eugenester

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Am** 
Wow. While I can't believe the new cards are already here, they certainly aren't what I was expecting (they seem to be getting beaten by their predecessors on quite a few pre-DirectX11 games, I guess the 6000 series are to 5000 series ATI cards what the 3000 series ATI cards were to the 2000 model GPUs from ATI back in 2007 -- a low budget, cheaper to manufacture alternative, *and not necessarily a better performer*).

I'm still very glad I got my GTX 460 768MB version , as it seems to be one of, if not the biggest bang-for-buck card to date.

Not a better performer? The 6850 rp4es the 460 768Mb in pretty much everything, and was designed to compete against it. DO YOU STILL NOT UNDERSTAND 5750 = 6850 and 5770 = 6870????? Cmon man, it says that in every review.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sarngate* 
The 6850 is priced around there, but the 6870 is at the same price as the 470. The comparison between the 6870 and the 460 1GB IS stupid, because both performance and price are so different.

They are priced the "same", or rather 20-30 bucks apart because NVIDIA slashed the prices of the 460 and 470 the day before the 6800's came out. The comparison is NOT stupid, since the 6870 was made to compete against the 460 1GB. Just because one card performs better than the other doesn;t mean that they aren't in the same category.


----------



## Eugenester

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Am** 
I only glanced at a couple of in game performance results, so if what you say is true, way to completely confuse your target audience AMD...

Also judging by the *pre-order* prices, the 6850 is about Â£15 more expensive than my 768MB OC'd Cyclone (at a month's old pricing, as I got it about 4 weeks ago), which at its factory overclock, will perform on-par or better than the new card while also being cheaper.

Pre-orders, or anything fresh off the market, is expensive. 5770's were once $200, now they are close to $150-60.


----------



## CCast88

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
Nope, HD 68XX are not replacing anything. They are just a new subsection for 150-250$ price point.

I've been reading all your posts and I have been getting the impression that your dissing AMD for their new 68xx product line... am I correct??

Technically, yes, they are replacing the 5770, in theory, but the prices are higher (5830 price). I don't remember the price of the 5770 at launch.


----------



## sweffymo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Am** 
I only glanced at a couple of in game performance results, so if what you say is true, way to completely confuse your target audience AMD...

Also judging by the pre-order prices, the 6850 is about Â£15 more expensive than my 768MB OC'd Cyclone (at a month's old pricing, as I got it about 4 weeks ago), which at its factory overclock, will perform on-par or better than the new card while also being cheaper.

Yeah, but the 6850 overclocks to be as good as any GTX460 tested except for an MSI HAWK TALON 1GB at 1000 core... And the 1GB 460 has more ROPs than the 768MB, making it more powerful... You can't compare an OC'd card to one that is running stock...

Also, the 5700 series is being rebranded into the 6700 series... The 6800 series is intended to take the mid-range segment away from the 5700-series... I mean, the 6850 performs a lot better than the 5770 and costs around the same as the 5770 did at launch, so...


----------



## Am*

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Eugenester* 
Not a better performer? The 6850 rp4es the 460 768Mb in pretty much everything, and was designed to compete against it. *DO YOU STILL NOT UNDERSTAND 5750 = 6850 and 5770 = 6870????? Cmon man, it says that in every review.*

They are priced the "same", or rather 20-30 bucks apart because NVIDIA slashed the prices of the 460 and 470 the day before the 6800's came out. The comparison is NOT stupid, since the 6870 was made to compete against the 460 1GB. Just because one card performs better than the other doesn;t mean that they aren't in the same category.

Umm don't know if you noticed, but their pricing is worlds apart. 5770 costs under Â£100 here, and about Â£120-!30 when it was out. If what you're saying is true, why the hell is the 6870 priced at Â£190+? 5770 was a mid-range/budget card priced just slightly above that market price when it was out, how the hell are you comparing a card costing almost twice as much (6870)?

And the performance difference between 460 768MB and the 1GB is 2-3 frames at 1080p in demanding games. The 6850 seems to be about on-par with the GTX 460 1GB and their pricing is gonna be about the same after Nvidia cut prices again in a week or two, so your "6850 R4P3Z TEH 460" comment is exaggerated x1000000000000. Leave your fanboyism at the official forums before you post. GTX460 768MB was priced comparably to performance of the 6850 months ago (mid-August time) considering Nvidia usually had a practice of charging a premium for their products, even if they performed worse.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...6870-review/19

Look here for example. 4FPS difference between the 768MB cut down 460 and a 1GB 6850. Not forgetting the fact that they're showing average FPS and not minimum, which is where the Fermi cards shine.


----------



## sendblink23

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sendblink23* 
Hey does any of the reviews show how does a CF 5770 performs compared to a single 6870? I'm not sure but ain't I suppose to be performing better than a single 6870?

please someone correct me.. its just my assumptions

If what I am saying is true.. then I feel bad being forced to sell my CF 5770 for $200 just so it even convinces people to buy them








It doesn't even give me enough to buy a single 6870(which performs under a CF 5770).. or even worse ahahah an upgrade to CF 6870 =P


----------



## sweffymo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sendblink23* 
please someone correct me.. its just my assumptions

If what I am saying is true.. then I feel bad being forced to sell my CF 5770 for $200 just so it even convinces people to buy them








It doesn't even give me enough to buy a single 6870(which performs under a CF 5770).. or even worse ahahah an upgrade to CF 6870 =P

Huh?


----------



## tubers

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
Nope, HD 68XX are not replacing anything. They are just a new subsection for 150-250$ price point.

Now it all makes sense to me.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


Originally Posted by *CCast88* 
I've been reading all your posts and I have been getting the impression that your dissing AMD for their new 68xx product line... am I correct??

Technically, yes, they are replacing the 5770, in theory, but the prices are higher (5830 price). I don't remember the price of the 5770 at launch.

5770 was 200$ but dropped to 150 very fast. Technically they look to be in HD 5830 performance/price spot not HD 5770 which is much cheaper and if it was a replacement for HD 5770 they would discontinue that lineup but they did not. In short HD 5830 was a failure and ATi had to win the 150-250$ marked back by introducing this new series.


----------



## sendblink23

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
Huh?

Don't you understand my assumption question(read my post, it mentions my assumption in my own quote I included in my own post)...

Reading reviews of SLI 460... show recent results of CF 5770's.. and clearly it shows CF 5770 beats a 5850 & in some cases it beats or pretty much almost equals/close to a 5870.

Then now looking at reviews of the 6870.. it appears it performs pretty much right under a CF 5770(even if none of the 6870 reviews show a CF 5770 in it).. I'm just assuming comparing a same game with almost same settings on 1900x1200.

Ex: (I know the hardware tested wasn't the same & it wasn't same website reviewers... but its almost the same game settings)
Here is BFBC2 - DX11 at 1900x1200









So I am saying.... ain't a CF 5770 performing better than a single 6870? If its true then it stinks we are forced to sell our CF for $200($100 each) when it actually performs better than a single 6870 which costs more than what we are only able to sell them. This is just my assumption.. and if i am wrong please someone correct me.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
Also ATi did not change much. Its still just a HD 58XX molded.

HD4890 is a modded HD4870, HD4870s are lucky to get to 850Mhz and HD4890s routinely do 950Mhz, 1050Mhz if you get a good chip.


----------



## Hutchinson

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sendblink23*


Then now looking at reviews of the 6870.. it appears it performs pretty much right under a CF 5770(even if none of the 6870 reviews show a CF 5770 in it).. I'm just assuming comparing a same game with almost same settings on 1900x1200.

Ex: (I know the hardware tested wasn't the same & it wasn't same website reviewers... but its almost the same game settings)
Here is BFBC2 - DX11 at 1900x1200









So I am saying.... ain't a CF 5770 performing better than a single 6870? If its true then it stinks we are forced to sell our CF for $200($100 each) when it actually performs better than a single 6870 which costs more than what we are only able to sell them. This is just my assumption.. and if i am wrong please someone correct me.


Different reviews use different configs and settings so they can be compared but not taken to be an exact comparison of performance as you said. But there is quite a large disparity in performance for every one of the cards tested in each of those reviews. Take that into account and the 5770's crossfired are probably equal to or very slightly better than a single 6870. As it should be.


----------



## GTR Mclaren

so...are the 6850 reviews a little unfair ??


----------



## CCast88

Quote:


Originally Posted by *GTR Mclaren* 
so...are the 6850 reviews a little unfair ??

I would say no... I've checked out most reviews and the performance is right where it should be.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


HD4890 is a modded HD4870, HD4870s are lucky to get to 850Mhz and HD4890s routinely do 950Mhz, 1050Mhz if you get a good chip.


I knew someone would bring that up. HD 4890 was intentionally moded to OC higher and yes it need 1.4v sometimes because the extra core speed was ll it got over HD 4870. We will just see how far this will overclock but dont get disappointed.


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Brutuz* 
HD4890 is a modded HD4870, HD4870s are lucky to get to 850Mhz and HD4890s routinely do 950Mhz, 1050Mhz if you get a good chip.

It's "modded" in that the core is actually different. The die size is bigger because they added stuff to accommodate higher clocks.

http://hothardware.com/Articles/ATI-...V790-Unveiled/


----------



## sweffymo

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sendblink23*


Don't you understand my assumption question(read my post, it mentions my assumption in my own quote I included in my own post)...

Reading reviews of SLI 460... show recent results of CF 5770's.. and clearly it shows CF 5770 beats a 5850 & in some cases it beats or pretty much almost equals/close to a 5870.

Then now looking at reviews of the 6870.. it appears it performs pretty much right under a CF 5770(even if none of the 6870 reviews show a CF 5770 in it).. I'm just assuming comparing a same game with almost same settings on 1900x1200.

Ex: (I know the hardware tested wasn't the same & it wasn't same website reviewers... but its almost the same game settings)
Here is BFBC2 - DX11 at 1900x1200









So I am saying.... ain't a CF 5770 performing better than a single 6870? If its true then it stinks we are forced to sell our CF for $200($100 each) when it actually performs better than a single 6870 which costs more than what we are only able to sell them. This is just my assumption.. and if i am wrong please someone correct me.


That makes A LOT more sense.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sLowEnd*


It's "modded" in that the core is actually different. The die size is bigger because they added stuff to accommodate higher clocks.

http://hothardware.com/Articles/ATI-...V790-Unveiled/


Yeah, the RV790 has more transistors than the RV770...

I can hit 1050 on mine.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
I knew someone would bring that up. HD 4890 was intentionally moded to OC higher and yes it need 1.4v sometimes because the extra core speed was ll it got over HD 4870. We will just see how far this will overclock but dont get disappointed.

It was intentionally modded to clock higher in general, not OC higher, who says these cards don't have that? Or that the new shader design is more scalable in clock speed?

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sLowEnd* 
It's "modded" in that the core is actually different. The die size is bigger because they added stuff to accommodate higher clocks.

http://hothardware.com/Articles/ATI-...V790-Unveiled/

I was meaning he implied that a modded card won't OC better which is incorrect, I know what a HD4890 is and the difference between a HD4870 and HD4890.

Another example is CPU revisions, small changes but they can OC better or worse.


----------



## Eugenester

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Am**


Umm don't know if you noticed, but their pricing is worlds apart. 5770 costs under Â£100 here, and about Â£120-!30 when it was out. If what you're saying is true, why the hell is the 6870 priced at Â£190+? 5770 was a mid-range/budget card priced just slightly above that market price when it was out, how the hell are you comparing a card *costing almost twice as much* (6870)?

And the performance difference between 460 768MB and the 1GB is 2-3 frames at 1080p in demanding games. The 6850 seems to be about on-par with the GTX 460 1GB and their pricing is gonna be about the same after *Nvidia cut prices again in a week or two*, so your "6850 R4P3Z TEH 460" comment is exaggerated x1000000000000. Leave your fanboyism at the official forums before you post. GTX460 768MB was priced comparably to performance of the 6850 months ago (mid-August time) considering Nvidia usually had a practice of charging a premium for their products, even if they performed worse.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...6870-review/19

Look here for example. 4FPS difference between the 768MB cut down 460 and a 1GB 6850. Not forgetting the fact that they're showing average FPS and not minimum, which is where the Fermi cards shine.


 First off, you're pricing the cards in euros, not dollars. Sometimes the pricing is a little off. Second, the 5770 first retailed for $200, a good $40 higher than what it costs today. When does Â£120-130 times two equal Â£190 like you said? Secondly, show some proof that nVidia is going to cut the prices on the GTX 460. Thirdly, the link that you gave me shows only ONE game, Crysis Warhead. That is the LOWEST difference between the cards, while Modern Warfare 2 shows a 13 fps difference and Dirt 2 shows a FIFTEEN fps difference. Lastly, if I was an AMD fanboy, why am I using a Nvidia card and a Nvidia northbridge? Check my sig


----------



## mothergoose729

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


5770 was 200$ but dropped to 150 very fast. Technically they look to be in HD 5830 performance/price spot not HD 5770 which is much cheaper and if it was a replacement for HD 5770 they would discontinue that lineup but they did not. In short HD 5830 was a failure and ATi had to win the 150-250$ marked back by introducing this new series.


It would be far more accurate to say that the 5830 was the 5 series answer for the 150-250 price point. It was a very adequate answer until Nvidia introduced the GTX460 in the same price range. The 6850 and 6870 is just the six series equivalent of the same thing. No failure there, only a lot of win if you ask me. Three cards to fill my exact price range is not something I am complaining about, and I think a lot of people feel the same







.


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Anguilla*


After looking at all of the reviews in the OP, the 6850's of Sapphire, MSI and ASUS being voltage overclocked, but nowhere any mention of that being possible with XFX..

Because XFX uses a custom PCB, I wonder if you can raise the voltage on the 6850 from XFX? Anyone seen a mention of that anwhere?


See here:

Quote:



Unfortunately when using the Catalyst Control Center we are limited to 850mhz and we wanted to try and push the card further. We therefore decided to try the new beta of the Sapphire TriXX software which worked great, even allowing us *to increase voltage to 1300*.

Our initial overclocking session without increasing the core voltage ended up with a 860mhz limitation, so we raised the voltage to the maximum.


http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...rex-review/21/

Also, can this review be added to the OP? It's an excellent crossfire review. I also think that the CF reviews should be marked in some way in the OP.


----------



## sendblink23

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


See here:

http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...rex-review/21/

Also, can this review be added to the OP? It's an excellent *6850* crossfire review. I also think that the CF reviews should be marked in some way in the OP.


fixed









personal note.. reading that review makes me want to buy CF 6850 & just simply run them at 950/1133


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sendblink23*


fixed









personal note.. reading that review makes me want to buy CF 6850 & just simply run them at 950/1133


Ty.









That's been my plan all along but I won't take anything less than 1ghz/1.2ghz.


----------



## Anguilla

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


See here:

http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...rex-review/21/

Also, can this review be added to the OP? It's an excellent crossfire review. I also think that the CF reviews should be marked in some way in the OP.


Thanks








I didn't know the Trixx software could also be used with other brands than Sapphire


----------



## Am*

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Eugenester* 
First off, you're pricing the cards in euros, not dollars. Sometimes the pricing is a little off. Second, the 5770 first retailed for $200, a good $40 higher than what it costs today. When does Â£120-130 times two equal Â£190 like you said? Secondly, show some proof that nVidia is going to cut the prices on the GTX 460. Thirdly, the link that you gave me shows only ONE game, Crysis Warhead. That is the LOWEST difference between the cards, while Modern Warfare 2 shows a 13 fps difference and Dirt 2 shows a FIFTEEN fps difference. Lastly, if I was an AMD fanboy, why am I using a Nvidia card and a Nvidia northbridge? Check my sig









1. I compared pricing in pounds, not euros, because I don't live in US, we don't have rebates and pay the most for pretty much everything.
2. ATI cards are always cheaper here because AMD/ATI are based in Germany, and Nvidia is in USA. Same reason why EVGA cards cost through the roof here with crappy manufacturers like Palit taking over because they couldn't compete in US and can make more cash for their poorly manufactured craphics cards, even after an RMA on each one they can make a good profit judging by their crap quality control and customer service.
3. You're mentioning games that the GTX 460 768MB can max out flawlessly, almost even at 2560x1600 resolution (which is a resolution almost nobody runs their games at) and the difference is completely unnoticeable unless you're running FRAPS. If you're gonna compare performance, use games that would actually be a challenge for the cards today like Crysis Warhead, Cryostasis and Metro 2033, not MW2 which I can max out even on my crap rig perfectly.
4. The new ATI/AMD cards can't run half the games I play without either some unofficial patch, artifacting or generally crap performance (2005 and older) which my GTX 460 can without any modifications, as ATIs backwards compatibility gets worse with every driver release instead of getting better like Nvidias. I know, I used to own a 2900XT and after it burned out, tried to upgrade it to a 5770 back in January and it was a downgrade in most games. For example, I could run Call of Cthulhu flawlessly on 2900XT, yet it wouldn't even load on a 5770 (on a fresh installed OS, by the way). Now I'm maxing out games on my 460 that were made back in late 90s, which even my 2900XT couldn't run. ATI makes good cards for mainstream games, not for older/less popular ones. I'm sure this will change with time and as they gain more marketshare but at the moment, Nvidia is still the best for compatibility with older games. Even if the 460 got slaughtered in DX11 games by the new ATI cards (which it hasn't in the bang-for-buck department, not by a long shot), I'd rather keep the ability to play all my old games well than get 2FPS increase in new games at unplayable resolutions and have to lose the ability to run most of my old games (which make up the majority in my small games collection).
5. Finally, I don't need proof to tell you that they're dropping prices on 460s. They dropped prices in late August when they had no worthy competitor. I bought mine over 4 weeks ago, by which time they dropped by Â£23 from release prices. The 768MB 460s are still selling like hotcakes here, with the 1GB 460s being second best sellers for people running performance rigs. Now that the 6850s are out, give it 1-3 weeks and the 460s will drop further in price.

*EDIT*: and which Dirt 2 review were you reading? The 768MB GTX 460 owns the 6850 or matches it, even with a crippled memory amount and cut down ROPs according to this (at stock frequencies, by the way) except at 2560x1600, due to the memory bottleneck of the 768MB version, where it is beaten by a tiny 2 FPS difference (average, not minimum FPS by the way):

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...-6850-review/5

As for your MW2 difference, you're again wrong. At 1680x1050 the 768MB owns the 6850 and even the 6870, which is very impressive, considering the 6870 costs AT LEAST 50-60% more depending on model, and barely gets "beaten" at 2560x1600 by 4-5 measley frames per second, while running at perfectly playable framerates even at this ridiculously high resolution, so until you post your source(s) I'm gonna call BS on your difference. If anything, the 460 "r4pes" the 6850, even with the cut down version, which proves again that without good drivers, even the best GPU in the world means nothing in real world performance.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.ph...=27053&page=12

Also, speaking of demanding games, look at the tiny difference between the 460 768MB version and the 1GB 6850 in BFBC2 at 1200p maxed out. 2-3FPS (keep in mind that the 460 768MB was made for 1680x1050 resolution, with the 1GB version made for SLI and 1080p+ resolutions...) maybe if that difference enlarges your e-peen, go ahead and spend the extra $20 or whatever it is. As it is now, 460 768MB is still one of, if not the best bang-for-buck card on the market, especially since they increased the price difference between 1GB and 768MB 460s. At least until 68XX/58XX cards drop in price and improve drivers, but since these cards are new and judging by last gen ATI cards, don't expect for either to happen until Christmas time or later (Q1 2011).


----------



## Gnomepatrol

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sendblink23* 
Don't you understand my assumption question(read my post, it mentions my assumption in my own quote I included in my own post)...

Reading reviews of SLI 460... show recent results of CF 5770's.. and clearly it shows CF 5770 beats a 5850 & in some cases it beats or pretty much almost equals/close to a 5870.

Then now looking at reviews of the 6870.. it appears it performs pretty much right under a CF 5770(even if none of the 6870 reviews show a CF 5770 in it).. I'm just assuming comparing a same game with almost same settings on 1900x1200.

Ex: (I know the hardware tested wasn't the same & it wasn't same website reviewers... but its almost the same game settings)
Here is BFBC2 - DX11 at 1900x1200









So I am saying.... ain't a CF 5770 performing better than a single 6870? If its true then it stinks we are forced to sell our CF for $200($100 each) when it actually performs better than a single 6870 which costs more than what we are only able to sell them. This is just my assumption.. and if i am wrong please someone correct me.

That isn't similar comparison at all. One is running at 4xAA the other at 8xAA. If you do the math based on the numbers in the 4xAA for xfire 5770s then you get around 80% scaling which if you look at the 28 fps the 5770 gets by itself in the 8xAA comparison would give you around 49-50 fps. Around the performance of 1 6870.

Although there is 1 problem. The 5xxx series does not scale that well with high levels of AA, so i am willing to be that that number actually drops below that of a single 6870 once tested correctly. Not only that take into consideration they are using beta drivers at this time. Given a driver update or two i think you'll start seeing 3-4 fps more on a single 6870. I know that seems like a stretch, but time will tell.


----------



## Am*

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sweffymo* 
Yeah, but the 6850 overclocks to be as good as any GTX460 tested except for an MSI HAWK TALON 1GB at 1000 core... And the 1GB 460 has more ROPs than the 768MB, making it more powerful... You can't compare an OC'd card to one that is running stock...

Also, the 5700 series is being rebranded into the 6700 series... The 6800 series is intended to take the mid-range segment away from the 5700-series... I mean, the 6850 performs a lot better than the 5770 and costs around the same as the 5770 did at launch, so...


I don't remember the 5770 being priced at Â£150+ unless you're talking about the overpriced OCed versions. At launch the 5770 cost Â£130 tops for a cheap version. The 460 768MB is priced at low-end 5770 launch prices, performs a lot better as well and is comparable to 6850 performance-wise while being cheaper, so (see my post above)... It's all looking good for the consumer.







AMD/Nvidia price war is here at last!


----------



## Redwoodz

First tests-MSI 6850 and Crossfire 6870/6850 together.Love MSI and their proprietary cards!http://tbreak.com/tech/2010/10/msi-r...-r6850-review/

Can't wait for the inevitable Cyclone and HAWK versions!







[/URL][/IMG]







[/URL][/IMG]


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...rex-review/21/

Also, can this review be added to the OP? It's an excellent crossfire review. I also think that the CF reviews should be marked in some way in the OP.

Done; I'll leave them as they are as you can see the "crossfire" part of some of the links, so they're easy enough to find, anyway.


----------



## Chisharpe

My Quick Look At The 6870 Crossfire

http://www.overclock.net/ati/852583-...crossfire.html


----------



## DrFPS

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Chisharpe* 
My Quick Look At The 6970 Crossfire

http://www.overclock.net/ati/852583-...crossfire.html

You missed number there. You mean 6870 XFire. Good review I might add t/y


----------



## Deathspawner

Quote:


Originally Posted by *sendblink23* 
Hey does any of the reviews show how does a CF 5770 performs compared to a single 6870? I'm not sure but ain't I suppose to be performing better than a single 6870?

I can't give a truly accurate answer to this, but when I last tested CF HD 5770, it scored 7473 in 3DMark Vantage Extreme (GPU Score), while the HD 6870 scored 7361. The same PC was used here, but the differences were that with the HD 6870, the CPU was overclocked (from 3.33GHz to 4GHz) and the memory was increased from 6GB to 12GB. If I had to _guess_, CrossFireX HD 5770's would be up to ~7-10% faster.

On a similar note, Techgage has finally posted its CrossFireX results for anyone wanting a second (or three-hundredth) opinion:

http://techgage.com/article/amd_rade...in_crossfirex/

Unfortunately, time didn't allow us to exhaust every game out there, but the ones we did include are pretty relevant.


----------



## Obakemono

I heard from a little bird that there MIGHT be a reference 6850 on the horizon, since I asked that bird the question. Waiting and hoping.


----------



## kpo6969

Quote:


Originally Posted by *GTR Mclaren* 
so...are the 6850 reviews a little unfair ??

http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...e-comparisons/

Depends on the review and if it was corrected if they used an 1120SP 6850.

Quote:

*KitGuru says*: The HD6850 and HD6870 are both worthy gold award winners, and we hope this article today has helped clear up performance differences between the cards. AMD partners seem genuinely embarassed by this mistake and are offering to reissue samples to publications who wish to retest.


----------



## amstech

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
5770 was 200$ but dropped to 150 very fast.

$179.00 at release.
Still sold at $169 10 months later.

It took FOREVER for the prices of Radeons to drop, Nvidia gave them little to no competition in terms of sales.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er* 
Technically they look to be in HD 5830 performance/price spot not HD 5770 which is much cheaper and if it was a replacement for HD 5770 they would discontinue that lineup but they did not. In short HD 5830 was a failure and ATi had to win the 150-250$ marked back by introducing this new series.

Its just that a 5770 performed, scaled and overclocked so well for so long it made many midrange GPU's and even some high end GPU's look silly.


----------



## CULLEN

When will 6970 be released?


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *CULLEN* 
When will 6970 be released?

November.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


Originally Posted by *amstech* 
$179.00 at release.
Still sold at $169 10 months later.

It took FOREVER for the prices of Radeons to drop, Nvidia gave them little to no competition in terms of sales.

Its just that a 5770 performed, scaled and overclocked so well for so long it made many midrange GPU's and even some high end GPU's look silly.

HD 5770 has been $130s for a long time now.


----------



## The-Beast

So, I figure this the best place to put this
http://fudzilla.com/graphics/item/20...-not-permanent

Seems initial reports were true, and this site was hit by the Nvidia fud bomb.


----------



## iandh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *The-Beast*


So, I figure this the best place to put this
http://fudzilla.com/graphics/item/20...-not-permanent

Seems initial reports were true, and this site was hit by the Nvidia fud bomb.


So basically it has nothing to do with GTX 460 and 470's actual market positioning, it was just Nvidia trying to take some of the wind out of ATI's sails (oops, pun).

The thing that irritates me about this is that it will allow room for the 6850 to creep up in price by $20-30, and the 6870 by $10-20.


----------



## luvsan

Quote:



Originally Posted by *iandh*


So basically it has nothing to do with GTX 460 and 470's actual market positioning, it was just Nvidia trying to take some of the wind out of ATI's sails (oops, pun).

The thing that irritates me about this is that it will allow room for the 6850 to creep up in price by $20-30, and the 6870 by $10-20.


That's not such good news.

I call foul play cause i want low prices lol, price fixing buttholes!


----------



## Deathspawner

Quote:



Originally Posted by *The-Beast*


Seems initial reports were true, and this site was hit by the Nvidia fud bomb.


I have no definitive answer on things, but last week when this was all going on, NVIDIA sent out a follow-up e-mail that stated:

_Further to our email last night about the GeForce GTX 460 1GB/GTX 470 price adjustment, please rest assured that our price adjustments *are in fact permanent*. Any claims that our pricing update is temporary *are patently false*._

(Bold is NVIDIA's)

I guess we'll just have to wait until mid-November and see if that's indeed true or not, but that blurb seems quite straight-forward.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *The-Beast*


So, I figure this the best place to put this
http://fudzilla.com/graphics/item/20...-not-permanent

Seems initial reports were true, and this site was hit by the Nvidia fud bomb.


Possibly true, considering they'd be losing money on each GTX 470 anyway.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Deathspawner*


I have no definitive answer on things, but last week when this was all going on, NVIDIA sent out a follow-up e-mail that stated:

_Further to our email last night about the GeForce GTX 460 1GB/GTX 470 price adjustment, please rest assured that our price adjustments *are in fact permanent*. Any claims that our pricing update is temporary *are patently false*._

(Bold is NVIDIA's)

I guess we'll just have to wait until mid-November and see if that's indeed true or not, but that blurb seems quite straight-forward.


Eh, they also said that the Fermi shown was real when it was faked back when it was in A1 silicon, just because they say it doesn't mean its true.

Plus that is vague, they could mean a pricing update before the one we mean, while I hope the prices do stay low, it is a possibility.


----------



## SkillzKillz

My future is looking bright.


----------



## Obakemono

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
My future is looking bright.










WHOA!!! Will that OC utility work for the 5xxx cards?


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Brutuz* 

Eh, they also said that the Fermi shown was real when it was faked back when it was in A1 silicon, just because they say it doesn't mean its true.

Plus that is vague, they could mean a pricing update before the one we mean, while I hope the prices do stay low, it is a possibility.

Nope, they couldn't be more clear. The current price cuts are not temporary...simple as that.


----------



## Redwoodz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
My future is looking bright.










sweet clocks! Looking good


----------



## RotaryKnight

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz* 
My future is looking bright.










holy crap....
thats a huge jump from 775mhz lol


----------



## Obakemono

Look at the default clock speed! 820?!?!??


----------



## pursuinginsanity

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Obakemono* 
Look at the default clock speed! 820?!?!??









This. Isn't the default speed of the XFX 6850s 775/1000, as opposed to 820/1100?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Wow, what are your temperatures exactly with that card at those clocks with that voltage?


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:



After what seemed like an eternity of tuning and testing, it finally chose a GPU speed of 990MHz, and a memory speed of 1215MHz. Definitely better than I thought it would allow, and more in-depth testing at these speeds proved that the system was stable.


Source


----------



## Electroneng

Here is a GPU-Z screen of my cards and pretty much a stock run on Vantage. Having an issue setting up a custom Fan profile. Afterburner 2.1 Beta 2 cannot handle it! Catalyst control Center is what I am using and setting a manual fan speed on both cards.

Asus stock speed in Vantage(set my Sapphire to this also) is faster then my 5850's that I had with a 28% Overclock and mature drivers! Will play with more benchmarks shortly!


----------



## AzO

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Electroneng*


Here is a GPU-Z screen of my cards and pretty much a stock run on Vantage. Having an issue setting up a custom Fan profile. Afterburner 2.1 Beta 2 cannot handle it! Catalyst control Center is what I am using and setting a manual fan speed on both cards.

Asus stock speed in Vantage(set my Sapphire to this also) is faster then my 5850's that I had with a 28% Overclock and mature drivers! Will play with more benchmarks shortly!


Why did you get two different brands? If you were going to use Afterburner why didn't you get MSI's cards?


----------



## Ihatethedukes

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AzO*


Why did you get two different brands? If you were going to use Afterburner why didn't you get MSI's cards?


Durr? Price and availability. Furthermore, because MSI is nice, you don't need an MSI card to use afterburner. Though they tend to be supported a few weeks earlier (sometimes not).


----------



## sendblink23

Quote:


Originally Posted by *AzO* 
Why did you get two different brands? If you were going to use Afterburner why didn't you get MSI's cards?

Different brands does not matter at all on crossfireX.... MSI Afterburner does not need to be msi brand your cards to use it.....and $$$ or availability is always an issue =P


----------



## Electroneng

Well, I have gotten the fan speed profiles working with afterburner. Had to disable ULPS in the registry. Cannot wait until voltage tweaking is available through afterburner! I am running them now as shown:

I have not tried any higher speeds yet.


----------



## PcG_AmD

This sucks,hd6000 series aren't really better than 5800 series and 5800 series prices are still as high as they were before 6800 series were released.
What is AMD thinking?,they release a 6870 worse than the previous 5870?...









I'm still perfect with my HD4850x2,I can play any game maxed out and have no problems with starcraft II.

AMD really needs to release something worth to buy if they want enthusiasts buying their cards.

My question is,*Is anyone in this forum getting an HD6800 series card?*


----------



## sweffymo

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PcG_AmD*


This sucks,hd6000 series aren't really better than 5800 series and 5800 series prices are still as high as they were before 6800 series were released.
What is AMD thinking?,they release a 6870 worse than the previous 5870?...









I'm still perfect with my HD4850x2,I can play any game maxed out and have no problems with starcraft II.

AMD really needs to release something worth to buy if they want enthusiasts buying their cards.

My question is,*Is anyone in this forum getting an HD6800 series card?*


The naming scheme changed... The 6800 series is one slot lower on the performance scale than the 5800 series is. The top-end single GPU card is going to be called the 6970.


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PcG_AmD*


This sucks,hd6000 series aren't really better than 5800 series and 5800 series prices are still as high as they were before 6800 series were released.
What is AMD thinking?,they release a 6870 worse than the previous 5870?...










AMD produced a card in the 6870 that is better than a 5850 and approaching a 5870, yet much cheaper than both.

Confused as to why you are confused.

I was planning on getting a 5850. Now I can get a better card for less.

So yes, I will be getting one.


----------



## luvsan

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PopcornMachine*


AMD produced a card in the 6870 that is better than a 5850 and approaching a 5870, yet much cheaper than both.

Confused as to why you are confused.

I was planning on getting a 5850. Now I can get a better card for less.

So yes, I will be getting one.


Also while we are repeating things(not saying you particularly just saying since people keep asking).

The scaling my god the scaling!


----------



## PcG_AmD

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PopcornMachine*


AMD produced a card in the 6870 that is better than a 5850 and approaching a 5870, yet much cheaper than both.

Confused as to why you are confused.

I was planning on getting a 5850. Now I can get a better card for less.

So yes, I will be getting one.


From what I can see the 6870 is not cheaper than the 5850.Besides what's the point?,my old 4850x2 is equal to a 5850 I've seen it a million times.

I'm confused because I used to update my video card all the time but now there is no reason too,but actually that's a good thing though.


----------



## Electroneng

Quote:



Also while we are repeating things(not saying you particularly just saying since people keep asking).


Exactly!

Read the information first then ask questions afterwards! It works a lot better this way!!









The 6870 is faster then the 5850. Advancements have been made since the 4800 series. You cannot even use DirectX 11. The 6870 is faster at stock clocks then an OC 4850 X2. In the U.S. the 6870 is cheaper then the 5850!


----------



## sendblink23

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PcG_AmD*


From what I can see the 6870 is not cheaper than the 5850.Besides what's the point?,my old 4850x2 is equal to a 5850 I've seen it a million times.

I'm confused because I used to update my video card all the time but now there is no reason too,but actually that's a good thing though.


69XX are the cards that will murder any 58XX series cards

Think of it this way... and you won't be entirely lost
5750<5770<6850<5850<6870
5870<6950<6970
5970<6990

that is my assumption


----------



## Electroneng

Quote:



Think of it this way... and you won't be entirely lost
5750<5770<6850<5850<6870
5870<6950<6970
5970<6990


Accurate! The 6870 will probably overtake the 5870 in a month or so with new drivers! The 5870 has mature drivers and 6870 is at Launch.

Crossfire setups - 6850,6870, or if you have $650 (for 2 cards), the 6950

If I was going to run a single card, then the 6970 or 6990 would be the pick.


----------



## PopcornMachine

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PcG_AmD*


From what I can see the 6870 is not cheaper than the 5850.


If you look at newegg, you can get 6870s for $240. The cheapest 5850 is $255.

And the 6870 uses less power and has some new features. It would be a upgrade to my 4830 cfx.


----------



## amstech

I was enraged at the naming scheme at first but I am over it now.
Do not focus your attention on the tags, but the chips.

The Cayman and ONLY the Cayman is AMD's new top dog, not a Barts.
*Barts is a midrange GPU*. The end.

And plus, the 6850 and 6870 are ballers.
Seeing CrossfireX 6870's (the new 5770) lay waste to SLi GTX 470's for a mere $240 a pop while running cooler and quieter (and of course using less power but do I have to say that still? What GPU wastes and uses more power then Fermi? ) has made many folks squirm.

Good. Time to suck it up Nvidia fan boy.
Aren't real GPU wars great?


----------



## Electroneng

Quote:

I was enraged at the naming scheme at first but I am over it now.
Do not focus your attention on the tags, but the chips.

The Cayman and ONLY the Cayman is AMD's new top dog, not a Barts.
*Barts is a midrange GPU*. The end.

And plus, the 6850 and 6870 are ballers.
Seeing CrossfireX 6870's (the new 5770) lay waste to SLi GTX 470's for a mere $240 a pop while running cooler and quieter (and of course using less power but do I have to say that still? What GPU wastes and uses more power then Fermi? ) has made many folks squirm.

Good. Time to suck it up Nvidia fan boy.
Aren't real GPU wars great?

Amstech, You Da Man!


----------



## jprovido

do you guys think a 6870 CF is equivalent to one 6970? wouln't that made them them a lot more powerful card than the gtx 580?


----------



## sendblink23

Quote:



Originally Posted by *jprovido*


do you guys think a 6870 CF is equivalent to one 6970? wouln't that made them them a lot more powerful card than the gtx 580?


no one knows yet


----------



## DuckieHo

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4002/a...p-asus-xfx-msi

Quote:



The 6800 series on the other hand turns that on its head, giving us a much more liberal launch when it comes to card designs. While the 6870 series launched and is still all-reference, the 6850 is the opposite, having launched with a number of custom designs. In fact you wonâ€™t find a reference 6850 in North America unless youâ€™re a hardware reviewer. With an all-custom launch the door is opened to a wide variety of cards with a wide variety of performance characteristics, so we have wasted no time in collecting a few cards to see what theyâ€™re capable of â€" after all weâ€™ve seen what the non-existent reference card can do, but how about the cards you can actually buy? And how about overclocking, do the latest 6850 cards continue the tradition of the *850 being strong overclockers? Today weâ€™re going to answer all of that and more.



Also... it looks like they are memory bandwidth bound:

Quote:



the 6850â€™s big performance pickup from overclocking is due to the memory overclock first, then the core overclock. As a result weâ€™re less concerned with core overclocking (and overvolting) as we are with memory overclocking.


----------



## dir_d

Wow Anand saying that the Asus 6850 "can more than give the GTX 460 1GB a solid kick to the curb."


----------



## Kand

Anand's also showing that a 6850, when overclocked can also have a kick at a stock 6870 in the nuts.


----------



## Kvjavs

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dir_d*


Wow Anand saying that the Asus 6850 "can more than give the GTX 460 1GB a solid kick to the curb."


Until two 3d applications are running at once, or alt tabbing a lot.

Then the driver just crashes


----------



## Kand

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kvjavs* 
Until two 3d applications are running at once, or alt tabbing a lot.

Then the driver just crashes









Zing. Zap. Pow.


----------



## Namwons

UH OH...this is bad news. if the 6850 is memory bandwidth limited...the 6900's are going to be even worse off on the same 256bit bus. i really hope AMD know this and this is why the 6900 will be delay (lets hope so plz).


----------



## dir_d

They said nothing about memory bandwidth limited.


----------



## DuckieHo

Quote:


Originally Posted by *dir_d* 
They said nothing about memory bandwidth limited.

They did.... memory bandwidth = frequency * bus * bits/cycle

You can't adjust bus width or bits/cycle.

Quote:

the 6850's big performance pickup from overclocking is due to the memory overclock first, then the core overclock. As a result we're less concerned with core overclocking (and overvolting) as we are with memory overclocking.


----------



## Zerkk

Good read, thanks.


----------



## OwnedINC

Meanwhile the memory hits a solid wall at 1150MHz (4.6GHz effective); none of our cards would do 1200Mhz (4.8GHz effective) which makes sense given that AMD purposely used a slower memory controller as a tradeoff for a smaller die.

So the 6870 should be able to go a bit higher?


----------



## BradleyW

Well i was impressed how the 6850 at OC clocks was only 2.7fps behind mass effect 2 max out. It seems to be a nice little card. The ASUS one seems to be cool and quiet plus efficient. Nice one.


----------



## Skrumzy

I'm curious about the XFX card though as I remember reading somewhere that there was a firmware update to fix the fan speed. Is this true and if so Anand doesn't mention if they updated it.


----------



## Derp

Going from 59 FPS to 71 FPS just from overclocking on air is epic. Too bad they are so damn loud.


----------



## Zerkk

I'm waiting on my XFX 6850's to arrive and I'm really curious to hear out loud it is in my case. I have all my fans on high since my office is a bit on the warm side so I doubt it'll be much louder than all of them. Still a bit of an upset to see that the cooling is a bit overkill on it. They could have toned the cooler down and at least added some extra's with it. Oh well, I'll enjoy regardless









But it seems like the Asus card is the best buy at the moment. No wonder it's hard to get your hands on one.


----------



## Sirius

Wow, the OCing ability of the 6850 is amazing 

Makes my 6870 purchases feel less justified lol, maybe I'll OC those a little


----------



## MSIalex

Too bad the price of the ASUS vs MSI cards are $5 difference instead of the $10+ as mentioned in the article:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...7531&Tpk=r6850

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...pk=asus%206850

And I should note, there is a typo on Newegg's site on the clock speed.


----------



## Derp

Quote:



Originally Posted by *MSIalex*


Too bad the price of the ASUS vs MSI cards are $5 difference instead of the $10+ as mentioned in the article:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...7531&Tpk=r6850

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...pk=asus%206850

And I should note, there is a typo on Newegg's site on the clock speed.


Why is that too bad?

EDIT: NVM, MSI rep... I get it.


----------



## MSIalex

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Sirius*


Wow, the OCing ability of the 6850 is amazing 

Makes my 6870 purchases feel less justified lol, maybe I'll OC those a little










The newest beta version of Afterburner supports 6800-series voltage adjustment. FYI.


----------



## Sirius

Quote:



Originally Posted by *MSIalex*


Too bad the price of the ASUS vs MSI cards are $5 difference instead of the $10+ as mentioned in the article:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...7531&Tpk=r6850

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...pk=asus%206850


Isn't that a good thing?

EDIT: whoops


----------



## MSIalex

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Derp*


Why is that too bad?

EDIT: NVM, MSI rep... I get it.


Why? Because that was one of the knocks against our card.... the price.

For $5 more you get better OC on the GPU and memory out of the box. Both are great buys but essentially ASUS "won" on the overclocking performance for temps and noise.


----------



## MSIalex

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Sirius*


Isn't that a good thing?










Yes, for you guys since I pointed it out.

The original article does not reflect this.


----------



## Sirius

Quote:



Originally Posted by *MSIalex*


Yes, for you guys since I pointed it out.

The original article does not reflect this.


Gotcha. Didn't think to notice you were a rep


----------



## dir_d

Quote:



Originally Posted by *DuckieHo*


They did.... memory bandwidth = frequency * bus * bits/cycle

You can't adjust bus width or bits/cycle.


What i meant is they didnt say the memory at stock was limiting the card from performing.


----------



## nardox

FYI, the Asus 6850 was $180 a few days ago when the card was just launched. I bought [email protected] $180. Newegg adjusted the price up by $5 recently.


----------



## lucas4

hope the 6850's hit ~Â£115 by January! i really want one instead of the planned GTX 460 768MB







!


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Merged and added link to the second AAT article to first post. Did you forget about this, Duckie?


----------



## SkillzKillz

This article definitely gives me a sigh of relief, because for stable overclocks I've only reached 930mhz core. Seeings as they could only reach 940mhz in the review I'm not too far off. Once I get back to testing I should achieve this.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *DuckieHo* 
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4002/a...p-asus-xfx-msi

Also... it looks like they are memory bandwidth bound:

Great post, thanks.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kand* 
Anand's also showing that a 6850, when overclocked can also have a kick at a stock 6870 in the nuts.

I've been saying this over and over.

Mind you, 6970s overclock as well so they do pull away with about 7% performance gain. Still not worth it, IMHO.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Skrumzy* 
I'm curious about the XFX card though as I remember reading somewhere that there was a firmware update to fix the fan speed. Is this true and if so Anand doesn't mention if they updated it.

Yep. With the BIOS out of the box the card idles at 70% fan speed, but when you download the BIOS update from XFX this lowers it to about 43%.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Zerkk* 
I'm waiting on my XFX 6850's to arrive and I'm really curious to hear out loud it is in my case. I have all my fans on high since my office is a bit on the warm side so I doubt it'll be much louder than all of them. Still a bit of an upset to see that the cooling is a bit overkill on it. They could have toned the cooler down and at least added some extra's with it. Oh well, I'll enjoy regardless









But it seems like the Asus card is the best buy at the moment. No wonder it's hard to get your hands on one.

Great purchase decision.









In my experience the XFX 6850 is not loud at all. I was extremely surprised at how quiet the card is. At 100% fan speed it is certainly noticeable, but that is only required for stress testing. When I'm gaming I don't notice it at all. I'm quite displeased with this article and what they said about the XFX model. How the hell can you complain about lower temps? Sure the card runs a bit louder than the Asus in exchange for better temps, but you can easily lower the fan speed to balance it out. Adurrrh. Poor review in this aspect.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nardox* 
FYI, the Asus 6850 was $180 a few days ago when the card was just launched. I bought [email protected] $180. Newegg adjusted the price up by $5 recently.

Great buy, great value.


----------



## PopcornMachine

I would love to see what vapor-x versions of the 6850 and 6870 can do.

I had pretty much decided on the 6870, but if the 6850 can overclock this well it might be the card to get.

On the other hand, 6870s with better cooling and components on a custom pcb could be very special. Starting to doubt it though. Getting tired of waiting.


----------



## Obakemono

Anyone have a Sapphire 6850? Or two? How do they run?


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Obakemono*


Anyone have a Sapphire 6850? Or two? How do they run?










Owner's thread:

http://www.overclock.net/ati/850691-...70-owners.html


----------



## Noir

What do you mean how do they run?????

Sapphire 6850 here


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Noir*


What do you mean how do they run?????

Sapphire 6850 here


I would think the only differences would be temperature and noise.


----------



## Noir

Temps

idle= 40C

load= 60c

NOTE: I live in a tropical country to room temps are a bit warm.

Nose:

My fan reached 77% and it is barely audible when i'm playing MOH.


----------



## MCBrown.CA

ATI must have a development center in coastal British Columbia run by someone who likes to ski or snowboard. A number of the 'codenames' for current and new GPUs are ski areas around Vancouver:

Whistler
Blackcomb
Seymour
Cypress

I have ridden all of them!!


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


Originally Posted by *jprovido* 
do you guys think a 6870 CF is equivalent to one 6970? wouln't that made them them a lot more powerful card than the gtx 580?

If it has around 2240 shaders, yeah.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Kvjavs* 
Until two 3d applications are running at once, or alt tabbing a lot.

Then the driver just crashes









Ironic, that just happened on my GTX 275.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *MSIalex* 
Why? Because that was one of the knocks against our card.... the price.

For $5 more you get better OC on the GPU and memory out of the box. Both are great buys but essentially ASUS "won" on the overclocking performance for temps and noise.

I'm curious, is there a TwinFrozr II equipped HD68x0 card coming out? I'd definitely buy that, I love this 275.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Bump. The 6950 and 6970 are now on Newegg, so I'm considering them released. Remember to follow the posted guidelines in the first post about reviews.


----------



## CAHOP240

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp;11650163*
> Bump. The 6950 and 6970 are now on Newegg, so I'm considering them released. Remember to follow the posted guidelines in the first post about reviews.


Whaaaaaaa???

You got a link? Just tried searching the egg and didn't see anything


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:



Originally Posted by *CAHOP240*


Whaaaaaaa???

You got a link? Just tried searching the egg and didn't see anything


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D+6950&x=0&y=0

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...D+6970&x=0&y=0


----------



## WorldExclusive

[H] Review goes live @ 12:01am PST

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1569165


----------



## CAHOP240

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *WorldExclusive;11650455*
> [H] Review goes live @ 12:01am PST
> 
> http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1569165


Looking forward to [H]ard, Guru3d and maaayyyyybeee Canuks


----------



## soilentblue

$369 for a 6970? oh man i definitely can't wait to see the reviews now.









i figured Asus would have one on the egg though..........


----------



## windfire

AMD ''Official'' confidential 45-page pdf file for HD6900:

http://www.chiphell.com/thread-147921-1-1.html
(post #1)

1. On page 35, that is a dual BIOS toggle switch!
2. 1536 SPs for 6970 on last page


----------



## jp27

Quote:



Originally Posted by *CAHOP240*


Looking forward to [H]ard, Guru3d and maaayyyyybeee Canuks


you forgot the most important of all, anandtech


----------



## jp27

Quote:



Originally Posted by *windfire*


AMD ''Official'' confidential 45-page pdf file for HD6900:

http://www.chiphell.com/forum.ph ... zODE1NTl8Njg1MzM%3D

On page 35, that is a dual BIOS toggle switch!


??/

404 - File or directory not found.
The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.


----------



## geoxile

Do they have 10.12 for the review?


----------



## saiyanzzrage

and im returning my unopened gtx 570...


----------



## Chrono Detector

First 6950/6970 review:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rade...w/10474-1.html

I'm not impressed to be honest.


----------



## hs101

Quote:



Originally Posted by *saiyanzzrage*


and im returning my unopened gtx 570...


Why do you say this now?


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chrono Detector*


First 6950/6970 review:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rade...w/10474-1.html

I'm not impressed to be honest.


VR-zone is pretty much on the bottom of my list for reputable information. I'll wait for Anand/TPU.

Feels kind of weird, this is the first time I've ever jumped the gun on anything without any credible information/experience to justify the purchase.


----------



## ____

What does GTX 570 GLH mean?

Edit: Shoulda googled first


----------



## Skripka

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chrono Detector*


First 6950/6970 review:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rade...w/10474-1.html

I'm not impressed to be honest.


Hopefully later drivers will be better optimized.


----------



## =JLumbs=

awwwww sheeeeet who wants to buy one of my 6870s its on newegg


----------



## saiyanzzrage

Quote:



Originally Posted by *hs101*


Why do you say this now?


it was a joke (a bad one)


----------



## RedVenom

6970 review

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...=605&Itemid=72


----------



## geoxile

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rade...w/10474-4.html

_
# AMD Radeon HD 6970 2GB
# AMD Radeon HD 6950 2GB
# Palit GeForce GTX 580 1536MB
# Palit GeForce GTX 570 1280MB
# Leadtek WinFast GeForce GTX 480
# MSI N470GTX (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470)
# ASUS EAH5870 V2 (AMD Radeon HD 5870)

# NVIDIA Release 260.99 WHQL
# NVIDIA Release 263.09 WHQL
*# ATI Catalyst Press Driver for Radeon HD 6900 Series*_

???


----------



## koven

Quote:



Originally Posted by *saiyanzzrage*


it was a joke (a bad one)


lol yeah.. i was gonna say, that's not very wise


----------



## ZealotKi11er

So from those benchmarks so fa is on pair with GTX570 and HD 6950 on pair with HD 5870 is most games.


----------



## SlackerITGuy

Hmmm that can't be right...

HD 6970 on par with the GTX 470?









EDIT: Jumped the gun a little, although they have the HD 6970 on par with the GTX 470 under BFBC2 and Crysis.


----------



## decimator

Quote:



Originally Posted by *slackeritguy*


hmmm that can't be right...

Hd 6970 on par with the gtx 470?










gtx *5*70


----------



## SlackerITGuy

Quote:



Originally Posted by *decimate*


gtx *5*70


See EDIT.


----------



## dantoddd

Those are terrible performance figures.The 570 looks like a better card, heck even the 480 looks better in some cases


----------



## ZealotKi11er

You get what you pay for. Nvidia is not stupid to price GTX580 500$ for no reason and AMD to price HD 6970 for 370$. In games that are not nvidia favored HD 6970 is a bit faster then GTX570 but i think in average they are tie. Also GTX570 should OC more.


----------



## ____

I am disappoint


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


















You get what you pay for. Nvidia is not stupid to price GTX580 500$ for no reason and AMD to price HD 6970 for 370$. In games that are not nvidia favored HD 6970 is a bit faster then GTX570 but i think in average they are tie. Also GTX570 should OC more.


This is either the result of losing an advantage due to architectural revision, or a poor launch driver. It's interesting to me that you left out graphs from the other benches which paint quite a different picture.


----------



## samstaee

Quote:



Originally Posted by *____*


I am disappoint


I was hoping for more also


----------



## dantoddd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *____*


I am disappoint


Well, that makes at least two of us. But I'm sure there are more. Makes you wonder *** these people were doing in their labs for the last 18 months


----------



## sub50hz

So, uh....

Wait for the reviews after the NDA clears. This should be routine for you people by now.


----------



## geoxile

They're not using 10.12

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...1&limitstart=3

# PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 (880 MHz GPU/1375 MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst Driver 10.11 Beta)

I don't think 10.12 is ready period, reviewers are probably using the included drivers.


----------



## CAHOP240

I've gotta say....the 570 is starting to win me over. Gotta wait and see some more reviews. Maybe some with the 10.12's and see if there's a difference.


----------



## CAHOP240

Quote:



Originally Posted by *geoxile*


They're not using 10.12

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...1&limitstart=3

# PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 (880 MHz GPU/1375 MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst Driver 10.11 Beta)

I don't think 10.12 is ready period, reviewers are probably using the included drivers.


10.12 has been released...


----------



## Mygaffer

So far that is great performance for the money. I suppose we'll see some price drops from Nvidia.

I still think I'll wait for 28nm products though, they'll be right in time for TESV, Skyrim.


----------



## Behemoth777

Premature drivers are definitely the issue here, although I don't think the 6970 will ever catch the 580. But for over $150 less, how can you really complain about 3-4 fps?

I'm definitely going to get the 6950. The overclocking results are outstanding, and a huge increase from stock.


----------



## goldbranch

Not impressed...
While the performance is mostly on par, somewhat higher here and there than 570, 6970 does cost more, produce more heat and consumes as much power as 570.

I miss the time when ATI was the king of price/performance ratio with 5850, 5770 and such.

Is ATI really going down or it's just NVIDIA is catching up?


----------



## decimator

Judging from the performance figures, it seems like the pricing of the 6970 is off...it should be priced slightly below the GTX 570, not slightly above. Who knows, maybe the new drivers will change this...


----------



## Gabe63

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dantoddd*


Well, that makes at least two of us. But I'm sure there are more. Makes you wonder *** these people were doing in their labs for the last 18 months


Way worse that I thought it would be. The 5870 is close to the 6970. Sad

570 > 6970 by this first review, I bet nvidia raises prices. Lets hope we see another picture when more reviews come out.


----------



## ____

I'm wondering, was the 69xx delayed because of TI's faulty thingamajigs, or because the programmers screwed up the drivers.


----------



## Mygaffer

I am wondering why in some games the 6970 clearly beats the gtx570 and it others it is clearly beaten. Maybe immature drivers?

You know, after reading both, I've got to say that if AMD doesn't squeeze more performance out these cards in the next few driver releases I will be disappointed.


----------



## Skripka

Quote:



Originally Posted by *____*


I'm wondering, was the 69xx delayed because of TI's faulty thingamajigs, or because the programmers screwed up the drivers.


No it was a parts shortage.


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sub50hz*


This is either the result of losing an advantage due to architectural revision, or a poor launch driver. It's interesting to me that you left out graphs from the other benches which paint quite a different picture.


Yeah, some performance figures are quite odd, I mean, the HD6970 either loses massively against the GTX 570 or it stays a nudge above it. Things like the BatteForge results in which *it loses to the HD5870 by 9 FPS* are obviously driver issues and should be fixed by driver revisions.

Funny thing is, it wins against the GTX570 in NVIDIA sponsored games such as Mafia II, Metro 2033 and *LE GASP*, in Heaven 2.1. Methinks its simply the larger gob of memory that it has, which leads to the following: *This card only entirely makes sense with a 30" monitor.* Below that we see benefits dwindle.


----------



## RedVenom

http://www.fudzilla.com/reviews/item...hd-6950-tested


----------



## Mygaffer

Also, where are the stereoscopic 3d reviews? Is there hardware support out there and game support?


----------



## Gabe63

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Skripka*


No it was a parts shortage.


Parts shortage, *** is going to buy this card?

This first review better be a bad review. There was no point coming out with a card at this performance. I better give up posting tonight. This bench must be wrong.


----------



## dantoddd

I'm building a new computer in a few weeks, and I think I'll go with a 570


----------



## Skripka

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Gabe63*


Parts shortage, *** is going to buy this card?

This first review better be a bad review. There was no point coming out with a card at this performance. I better give up posting tonight. This bench must be wrong.


Dude. They are not using optimized drivers. They probably are using 10.10e or some such.

Give it time and the scores will go up I'll bet.


----------



## Skripka

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Core2uu*


Methinks its simply the larger gob of memory that it has, which leads to the following: *This card only entirely makes sense with a 30" monitor.* Below that we see benefits dwindle.


No.

Many games eat the 1GB of VRAM most cards have even at 1680x1050. At 1080 lots of games see benefit, at Eyefinity most games benefit. More VRAM allows for more AA too without compromising framerates noticeably.


----------



## un-nefer

A couple more reviews are live chunky_chimp









Tweaktown:
6970
6950

TechPowerUp:
6970
6950


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dantoddd*


I'm building a new computer in a few weeks, and I think I'll go with a 570


Even with early drivers I'd rather pay $20 more and get a 6970 over a gtx570, at least at higher resolutions, and since I game at 2560x1600 it definitely makes sense for me.

Although really I am going to be waiting for 28nm products I think.


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dantoddd*


I'm building a new computer in a few weeks, and I think I'll go with a 570


Yeah, truth be told, the HD6970 is looking like a failed attack on the 570. At its current price it doesn't make sense.

I'm hoping that once a detailed review of the HD6950 comes out, it will at least be able to haul itself out with decent price/performance compared to... whatever the hell its marketed against.


----------



## CAHOP240

Guru3D
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/


----------



## nathris

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Gabe63*


Way worse that I thought it would be. The 5870 is close to the 6970. Sad

570 > 6970 by this first review, I bet nvidia raises prices. Lets hope we see another picture when more reviews come out.


5870 has *more* SPs than the 6970.

Something is wrong here. Hopefully Anand will clear it up.

The die size is way too large for 1536 SPs. I'm guessing the 6970 is a cut down die, or AMD has completely lost it.


----------



## un-nefer

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Core2uu*


I'm hoping that once a detailed review of the HD6950 comes out, it will at least be able to haul itself out with decent price/performance compared to... whatever the hell its marketed against.


There are a few reviews showing the 6950 now. From the results of the benchmarks, it looks to compete pretty well with the GTX480.

It also better then a 6870 and slightly worse then a 5870.


----------



## RideZiLightning

Quote:



Originally Posted by *CAHOP240*


Guru3D
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/


Ya and they used ATI Catalyst Beta 8.97.6.101206a?

Uh... how come everyone is using the beta or older


----------



## Vegetables

anandtech is up

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...radeon-hd-6950

edit: graphs dont appear to be up yet


----------



## SlackerITGuy

bit-tech.net review up:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...-6970-review/1


----------



## Mygaffer

Another thing I noticed is that the gtx480 beats the gtx570 at times. I thought they were pretty much the same card.


----------



## JMCB

Why is it that the 5970 is betting out the new 6970 in a good chunk of tests? Are the drivers really not that optimized, or is this card a dud? I think I'm going to stick to my 5870 crossfire setup. In fact, I think I might pick up a third one since the new cards will be coming out, and everyone will be thinking of upgrading.


----------



## dantoddd

This is absurd, the 5870 beats the 6950


----------



## thegoliath

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Mygaffer*


Another thing I noticed is that the gtx480 beats the gtx570 at times. I thought they were pretty much the same card.


they essentially are besides clocks and a bit of vram


----------



## WorldExclusive

[H] Review now live

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/...eo_card_review


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Mygaffer*


Another thing I noticed is that the gtx480 beats the gtx570 at times. I thought they were pretty much the same card.


Well GTX480 has 48 ROPs vs 40 ROPs and more RAM and RAM bandwidth.

Best quote: "My main concern is that half the games perform extraordinary well, and the other half seems to be grouping up tightly towards say a Radeon HD 5870."


----------



## geoxile

Quote:



Originally Posted by *CAHOP240*


10.12 has been released...


Where? Because all the reviews thus far aren't using it.


----------



## Skripka

Quote:



Originally Posted by *geoxile*


Where? Because all the reviews thus far aren't using it.


Because all the reviewers got their samples before 10.12 was released?

10.12 release notes:
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles...easeNotes.aspx


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dantoddd*


This is absurd, the 5870 beats the 6950


Of course it does... NOT. >_>








TPU uses the widest range of games in their testing and this graph basically collates ALL of the information (that is all benchmarks at all resolutions), so this is something you can't argue with.


----------



## SlackerITGuy

So it seems that my GTX 470 is just as good as these new cards under BFBC2 (which is what I play most of the time really).

Definitely avoiding HD 69xx.

Might move to a GTX 570 this January, along with Sandy Bridge.


----------



## Skripka

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SlackerITGuy*


So it seems that my GTX 470 is just as good as these new cards under BFBC2 (which is what I play most of the time really).

Definitely avoiding HD 69xx.

Might move to a GTX 570 this January, along with Sandy Bridge.


Making a decision like this based on drivers that clearly are not mature for the new cards is foolish.


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SlackerITGuy*


So it seems that my GTX 470 is just as good as these new cards under BFBC2 (which is what I play most of the time really).

Definitely avoiding HD 69xx.

Might move to a GTX 570 this January, along with Sandy Bridge.


GTX570 will be a nice step up for BC2 performance


----------



## Rpg2

Did the Anandtech review discuss why there are a lower amount of SPs for the 6900 series and their 5800 counter part?

Are the new SPs physically larger or too hot? Very long shot here, but maybe they're holding back performance for 7000 series?

I am very curious as to why that is the case of less SPs.

--Edit--

"As far as compute is concerned, the biggest advantage is that much of the space previously allocated to the t-unit can now be scrounged up to build more SIMDs. Cypress had 20 SIMDs while Cayman has 24; on average Cayman's shader block is 10% more efficient per mm2 than Cypress's , taking in to account the fact that Cayman's SPs are a bit larger than Cypress's to pick up the workload the t-unit would handle."

Found it. More space for SIMDs, but bigger SPs, apparently. Could of interpreted this incorrectly, not good with the technical stuff here.


----------



## Chill.E?E"C3

epic fail has just claimed the 6k's. GO back to the drawing board AMD and give us what we want.


----------



## dantoddd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Core2uu*


Of course it does... NOT. >_>








TPU uses the widest range of games in their testing and this graph basically collates ALL of the information (that is all benchmarks at all resolutions), so this is something you can't argue with.


what is there to argue it's embarrassing either way. 2% performance gain for about 40 extra dollars.


----------



## Enfluenza

6950 looks good to me.
but these review sites suck. i bet nvidia payed them to make them write a crappy lackluster review.
bad review is bad i guess.

i want guru3d and legit reviews!!!


----------



## ____

I'm giving AMD until Friday to straighten this up. After that, I'm going with the 570 or 580.


----------



## JMCB

Is the 6970 a dual-gpu? I couldn't remember if they stated anywhere that it was going to be. From the reviews that I read, I couldn't see it anywhere.


----------



## Skripka

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Enfluenza*


6950 looks good to me.
but these review sites suck. i bet nvidia payed them to make them write a crappy lackluster review.
bad review is bad i guess.

i want guru3d and legit reviews!!!


Guru3d's is already out.


----------



## sub50hz

Wow, what a strange gamut of results in these reviews.

Alright, I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and I wouldn't normally do this:

I'm willing to bet the 69x0 cards will show impressive results after a few driver revisions. Why? VLIW4. AMD has some toying to do with this architecture, and it would be silly of any of us to think driver zero will be an accurate reflection of Cayman's _real_ capability.

Hey, I could be wrong. I could be right. Who knows? Time will tell.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

6970CF scaled very well and close to GTX580 until i noticed CPU bottleneck.


----------



## SlackerITGuy

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Skripka*


Making a decision like this based on drivers that clearly are not mature for the new cards is foolish.


Well I did say I was waiting until January, but you gotta admit, they aren't looking as hot as we all thought.

Crazy that the GTX 570 is only $350. It's performance is top notch.


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *JMCB*


Why is it that the 5970 is betting out the new 6970 in a good chunk of tests? Are the drivers really not that optimized, or is this card a dud? I think I'm going to stick to my 5870 crossfire setup. In fact, I think I might pick up a third one since the new cards will be coming out, and everyone will be thinking of upgrading.


The 6970 is a single GPU card.
The 5970 is a dual GPU card.

The 69*90* will be dual.


----------



## rubicsphere

This is weird. Hard OCP has the 6970 killing the 570. I smell fish in the air.


----------



## aznofazns

Why do 90% of reviews nowadays exclude Crysis and Crysis Warhead? It's bewildering to me. Crysis still has undoubtedly the best looking graphics of any PC game and is still one of the best indicators of performance.

At any rate, the 6950 and 6970 look terrible. Tessellation performance is still a joke, for whatever it's worth. And I'm not even going to consider banking on AMD releasing drivers that aren't complete horse****. I've been a big supporter of AMD (ATI) for a while now, but I'm seriously considering switching over to Nvidia soon. The GTX570 is looking mighty tempting right now.


----------



## Skripka

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SlackerITGuy*


Well I did say I was waiting until January, but you gotta admit, they aren't looking as hot as we all thought.


10.11 did not support 6800 cards-so odds are it doesn't support 6900 either. With 10.12 just coming out yesterday all these reviews are either using beta drivers or the 10.10e hotfix.

I'll probably buy a 2nd 6850 once I see comparisons of 6900 with 6800 crossfired.


----------



## BreakDown

would the 6950 be a noticable upgrade from my 4890? 
i play at 1920*1200


----------



## SlackerITGuy

Quote:



Originally Posted by *staryoshi*


GTX570 will be a nice step up for BC2 performance










Definitely.

GTX 570:


----------



## Skripka

Quote:



Originally Posted by *aznofazns*


Why do 90% of reviews nowadays exclude Crysis and Crysis Warhead? It's bewildering to me. Crysis still has undoubtedly the best looking graphics of any PC game and is still one of the best indicators of performance.


Lots of reviewers are switching to using Metro2033 asit is DX11 and makes ALL current cards sweat at max settings.


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dantoddd*


what is there to argue it's embarrassing either way. 2% performance gain for about 40 extra dollars.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&PageSize=20

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...CE&PageSize=20

299.99-292.99 ≠ $40.00

Check your math, please. But I do understand where you're coming from. The difference in price just about makes them equal value which is something usually unseen on launch days.

And on unrelated note, why does the HD6970 only have 1536SPs? And the 6950 only 1408?

EDIT:

Quote:



Originally Posted by *rubicsphere*


This is weird. Hard OCP has the 6970 killing the 570. I smell fish in the air.


Remember, [H]ard goes for the "best gaming experience" approach to testing in addition to Apples-to-Apples testing. I honestly think their method of testing is quite refreshing and nice but that is why the results are a little rosier for the 69xx cards and leads to [H]ard recommending them a Gold Award.


----------



## Core2uu

DBL-post


----------



## SkillzKillz

They came out later and are worse, haha. Nvidia really turned things around this generation.


----------



## sub50hz

Yeesh, this thread is turning sour very quickly. It's almost like every time new cards are released, the collective IQ here drops a few points. By HD9xxx, we'll all be drooling and unable to type our furious allegiance to NV/AMD.

I love you guys.


----------



## hs101

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Core2uu*


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&PageSize=20

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...CE&PageSize=20

299.99-292.99 ≠ $40.00

Check your math, please. But I do understand where you're coming from. The difference in price just about makes them equal value which is something usually unseen on launch days.

And on unrelated note, why does the HD6970 only have 1536SPs? And the 6950 only 1408?

EDIT:

Remember, [H]ard goes for the "best gaming experience" approach to testing in addition to Apples-to-Apples testing. I honestly think their method of testing is quite refreshing and nice but that is why the results are a little rosier for the 69xx cards and leads to [H]ard recommending them a Gold Award.


First of all, how do you use newegg Canada and newegg America to compare prices of two products? Second of all, why did you neglect the rebate the came with the 5870? And finally, why dont you check your math: 5870 for $215. That's a 85 dollar difference.


----------



## dantoddd

Why are the hardOCP results so much better than everyone else's


----------



## hs101

They used the latest drivers (10.12).


----------



## Mygaffer

After reading all the reviews I would say unless you run at 2560x1600 you are better off with a gtx570. I love AMD but that is what the benchmarks are telling me.

Hopefully they can fix that with driver updates, bring up the performance in some of those odd games where it is too low.

Maybe it is because of the new VLIW4 shaders but it seems to do very well in some games, and not very well in others.


----------



## Domino

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Core2uu*


Remember, [H]ard goes for the "best... Although he doesn't (as far as I am aware).


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *hs101*


They used the latest drivers (10.12).


And yet they use such an archaic graph to show performance figures. Also, the poor choice of games found there.


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *hs101*


They used the latest drivers (10.12).


Nope.

Quote:



AMD supplied us with a driver which we are using for all AMD video cards here. The Catalyst Control Center reports the version to be: 8.79.6.2-101206a-109984E which is based on Catalyst 10.11. For the NVIDIA GPUs we are using 263.09 Beta.


----------



## savagebunny

*This just in, 580's out of stock. *


----------



## thegoliath

so i heard NVIDIA just sold a lot of 570/580s


----------



## timAHH

I've gotta say, I am disappointed by the performance of the 6970 when stacked up against the hype. It only trades blows with the 480 (although admittedly, the 6970 is faster more often than not), but the 580 is pretty much faster across the board.

Not to mention the 580 has been out for a while now and the 6970 got delayed.


----------



## Mygaffer

OK, I just read the HardCOP review and it paints a totally different picture, 6970 is right with the gtx580 in all games tested. What gives?


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:



Originally Posted by *hs101*


First of all, how do you use newegg Canada and newegg America to compare prices of two products? Second of all, why did you neglect the rebate the came with the 5870? And finally, why dont you check your math: 5870 for $215. That's a 85 dollar difference.










My bad.








But I don't see why an HD5870 at $215 is reason to harp only at the HD6950's pp ratio. That also makes it $15 cheaper than the cheapest 6870 on Newegg w/ rebate which it is faster than, also $5 cheaper than the cheapest GTX470 which it is also faster than.

The thing I can most agree on though is that I see an HD5870 at slickdeals for a pretty damn nice price that I should pick up.


----------



## Kand

Quote:



What's That New Switch?

If you look at the photo below you'll notice a tiny micro-switch next to the two CrossfireX connectors. The R6900 cards now have one firmware flashable dual-BIOS and one (non flashable) default BIOS, with the switch you can select BIOS 1 or 2.

AMD implemented the feature likely to prevent the RMA rate. They know very well that the enthusiast community often re-flashes their cards, often unsuccessful after which they enter a very expensive RMA procedure at AMD's


http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/6

I lol'd.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Mygaffer*


OK, I just read the HardCOP review and it paints a totally different picture, 6970 is right with the gtx580 in all games tested. What gives?


[H]ardOCP fails. Who the hell want to play games @ 1600p 8AA? Only then 2GB of RAM will be needed. Dont even bother looking at their reviews.


----------



## redhat_ownage

AMD stock just went down by $8 in the last 4 hours.


----------



## thegoliath

Quote:



Originally Posted by *redhat_ownage*


AMD stock just went down by $8 in the last 4 hours.


That would bring it to $0 LOL


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


[H]ardOCP fails. Who the hell want to play games @ 1600p 8AA? Only then 2GB of RAM will be needed. Dont even bother looking at their reviews.


I do.


----------



## dantoddd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Core2uu*


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&PageSize=20

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...CE&PageSize=20

299.99-292.99 ≠ $40.00

Check your math, please. But I do understand where you're coming from. The difference in price just about makes them equal value which is something usually unseen on launch days.


canadian dollars are not the same as USD.

Here a simple comparison
XFX HD-587X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5870 1GB = $269.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150476

XFX HD-695A-CNFC Radeon HD 6950 = $309.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-518-_-Product

it's from the same company so most of the other variables are kept to a minimum


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Mygaffer*


I do.


Why the hell are you still usign a HD 4890 then. If you are a 1600p game then you got to be having 3 x GTX480s ot 3 x HD 5870 2GB. SOrry but less then 5% use 1600p to game.


----------



## wolf2009

one more

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=22610


----------



## Asy

Quote:



Originally Posted by *timAHH*


I've gotta say, I am disappointed by the performance of the 6970 when stacked up against the hype. It only trades blows with the 480 (although admittedly, the 6970 is faster more often than not), but the 580 is pretty much faster across the board.

Not to mention the 580 has been out for a while now and the 6970 got delayed.


It also cost 140$ +/- than the 6970..Do you really expect it to destroy the performance of a card that cost that much more?


----------



## dantoddd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *redhat_ownage*


AMD stock just went down by $8 in the last 4 hours.


too bad the US exchange was closed while this was happeneing


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/6

I lol'd.


Sometimes the truth is hard to accept.

I really expected more out of this card. It seems a GTX 570 can be had cheaper and beats the 6970. Also scaling of the 6970 is around 75-80%.


----------



## Kand

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...50-review.html

Canucks with 10.12 drivers.


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...50-review.html

Canucks with 10.12 drivers.












They have the the 6970 beating the 570 in other games, but not in BC2? Interesting -_- (1920x1200 = much more relevant than 2560x1600 for the vast majority of single-card users)


----------



## Chill.E?E"C3

No worries about stocking issues that plagued the 5000 series. I say there will be plenty of these on the shelf everywhere.


----------



## geoxile

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...50-review.html

Canucks with 10.12 drivers.


Overall 1% weaker than the 570 at 1080p.

The 6970 is a fair MEH


----------



## rubicsphere

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chill.ʇɔǝɟɟ3*


No worries about stocking issues that plagued the 5000 series. I say there will be plenty of these on the shelf everywhere.


Dude we get it; you love NVIDIA. You are in every thread with this Negative Nancy BS.

On topic: 6950 looks good in that canucks review. Might have to swap my 460 for one.


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *staryoshi*











They have the the 6970 beating the 570 in other games, but not in BC2? Interesting -_- (1920x1200 = much more relevant than 2560x1600 for the vast majority of single-card users)


Also relevant is that BC2 is the only (Dx11. EVEN IF JUST MINIMAL) game we ACTUALLY play here on OCN.


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


Also relevant is that BC2 is the only game we ACTUALLY play here on OCN.


I bought this benchmarking software called Metro 2033 today, turns out it comes with a free game.


----------



## geoxile

Wait, isn't 10.12 (BETA RC2) just the 10.11 beta that previews the 10.12 UI?


----------



## Frank08

Performance isn't that great, I think AMD was pretty much taken by surprise with the GTX 570/580. Though they scale really good in CFX.


----------



## Tennobanzai

I'm guessing the 6950 will be the king performance/price wise with proper drivers.

The amount of fanboyism in this thread is amazing


----------



## CAHOP240

Sorry AMD. The GTX 570 won this round. Just pulled the trigger on the Evga one from newegg.


----------



## dantoddd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *CAHOP240*


Sorry AMD. The GTX 570 won this round. Just pulled the trigger on the Evga one from newegg.


you know, if the the 5870 drops down to the 250 levels then that is the winner.


----------



## parityboy

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Tennobanzai*


I'm guessing the 6950 will be the king performance/price wise with proper drivers.

The amount of fanboyism *tribalism* in this thread is amazing


Edited for clarity.


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *geoxile*


Wait, isn't 10.12 (BETA RC2) just the 10.11 beta that previews the 10.12 UI?


Well. I'm not exactly going to be confident about AMD's driver dev team at that. :I


----------



## 8-Ball

*sigh* I would trade my Eyefinity 6 edition 2gb 5870 for one of the GTX 570s...


----------



## Riou

This generation of top-of-the-line cards are pretty mediocre imho. 580 is barely an improvement over the 480. 6970 is barely an improvement over the 480.

I expected more, but alas maybe 28nm will show bigger gains than 40nm.


----------



## Domino

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Riou*


This generation of top-of-the-line cards are pretty mediocre imho. 580 is barely an improvement over the 480. 6970 is barely an improvement over the 480.

I expected more, but alas maybe 28nm will show bigger gains than 40nm.


I agree. But due note, not impressed with initial results before the 6970 is even released.


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


Also relevant is that BC2 is the only (Dx11. EVEN IF JUST MINIMAL) game *we* ACTUALLY play here on OCN.


Speak for yourself. Who is "we"? A random collective of peoples that play BC2 on OCN? I myself haven't touched BC2 in ages. It isn't a bad game by any means, I quite like it but there ARE people who don't cling onto the same game for ages and it isn't fair to generalize everybody into BC2 players when clearly *everybody on OCN does not play BC2*.

I'm not trying to defend the 69xx either, I'm just saying that there are other games that matter. I've been playing Black Ops, SC2 and NFS:HP in the past days. I don't care what you think of them, just that I play them and not BC2.


----------



## supra_rz

new review:

http://www.eteknix.com/graphics/his-...rd-review-471/


----------



## Tennobanzai

Quote:



Originally Posted by *supra_rz*


new review:

http://www.eteknix.com/graphics/his-...rd-review-471/


nice find


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Core2uu*


Speak for yourself. Who is "we"? A random collective of peoples that play BC2 on OCN? I myself haven't touched BC2 in ages. It isn't a bad game by any means, I quite like it but there ARE people who don't cling onto the same game for ages and it isn't fair to generalize everybody into BC2 players when clearly *everybody on OCN does not play BC2*.

I'm not trying to defend the 69xx either, I'm just saying that there are other games that matter. I've been playing Black Ops, SC2 and NFS:HP in the past days. I don't care what you think of them, just that I play them and not BC2.


Make like a tree, and get outta here. D:


----------



## soilentblue

as far as single cards that play at x1440 and x1600 it's not bad at all. especially for the price. not a bad launch at all.

also i don't play BC2 either. lol


----------



## Blameless

I so called it four weeks ago:

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Blameless*


Never expected it to match the 580, but most certainly expected it to be cheaper.

Personally, I expect it to go toe to toe, or be slightly faster than, the GTX 480 and eventual 570.

Hopefully there will be no comparable throttling "feature" to the 580.


Numbers don't lie, and with the originally reported 32 ROPs, 96 TMUs, 1536 shaders, and 176GB/s memory bandwidth being spot on, the card was never going to match the 580, overall.

The last few weeks saw a lot of misinformation spread around. Where the hell did that 1920 shader rumor come from?

Anyway, the price is nice, and it will be a competitive card.


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Blameless*


I so called it four weeks ago:

Numbers don't lie, and with the originally reported 32 ROPs, 96 TMUs, 1536 shaders, and 176GB/s memory bandwidth being spot on, the card was never going to match the 580, overall.

The last few weeks saw a lot of misinformation spread around. Where the hell did that 1920 shader rumor come from?

Anyway, the price is nice, and it will be a competitive card.












That's one of the earliest slides.


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


Why the hell are you still usign a HD 4890 then. If you are a 1600p game then you got to be having 3 x GTX480s ot 3 x HD 5870 2GB. SOrry but less then 5% use 1600p to game.


BS, you don't need multi-gpu setups to play 98% of games at high to max settings at my resolution. I can play most games just fine even on my single 4890.

Anyway, I DO need to upgrade, but I don't think any of the current cards from either side is worth it. I'm waiting for 28nm.


----------



## supra_rz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Tennobanzai*


nice find










i feel so much better that i have bought a 5870 instead of these


----------



## Blameless

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*











That's one of the earliest slides.


Thanks for the slide.

I didn't see the 1920 number reported till two weeks ago, but 1536 was mentioned before that. I guess an outdated report must have made a resurgence.


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Blameless*


Thanks for the slide.

I didn't see the 1920 number reported till two weeks ago, but 1536 was mentioned before that. I guess an outdated report must have made a resurgence.


Maybe they're planning an HD6980 of sorts, or something, with 1920SPs. It does look like kind of an odd number, but hey, it's a possibility.


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Mygaffer*


BS, you don't need multi-gpu setups to play 98% of games at high to max settings at my resolution. I can play most games just fine even on my single 4890.

Anyway, I DO need to upgrade, but I don't think any of the current cards from either side is worth it. I'm waiting for 28nm.


100% agree. also with the way devs are starting to really optimize games 2011 shows great promise for single card play at 1600/1440 resolutions. i am expecting crysis 2 to be the new benchmark for best graphics/best optimized games


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Core2uu*


Maybe they're planning an HD6980 of sorts, or something, with 1920SPs. It does look like kind of an odd number, but hey, it's a possibility.


1920 is just the next step in the shader count. it was a guess and the slide was FUD.


----------



## SkillzKillz

I don't think I could be more pleased. These cards are weak and huge. Power draw is the only plus, but they fail at everything else.

I just fell in love with my setup. And I already had 1.5months to boot


----------



## Blameless

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Core2uu*


Maybe they're planning an HD6980 of sorts, or something, with 1920SPs. It does look like kind of an odd number, but hey, it's a possibility.


At this point I'm think the 48 ROP, 1920 shader card is what AMD had planned for 32nm. When that didn't pan out, they had to cut back for 40nm.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


I don't think I could be more pleased. These cards are weak and huge. Power draw is the only plus, but they fail at everything else.

I just fell in love with my setup. And I already had 1.5months to boot










How is it a good thing for a new card to perform below expectations? It's not like it could possibly change how your setup performs.


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Blameless*


How is it a good thing for a new card to perform below expectations? It's not like it could possibly change how your setup performs.


i wouldn't even bother man.


----------



## whitingnick

This from *Guru of 3D* summed up my thoughts exactly. AMD didn't see the GTX 500 series coming.

Quote:



Both the Radeon HD 6950 and 6970 are products worthy of being called high-end, really they are positioned there well. However for whatever reason performance is not what we all had hoped for. Personally I think that AMD initially targeted the two products tested today against the GeForce GTX 480 and never realized that NVIDIA had a trump card with the two new (GTX 570/580) additions.


Well I'm disappointed, but they aren't bad cards, they just don't push the charts like I had hoped. I'm really liking the GTX 570 now.


----------



## Noir

Good thing i went with my 6850







Anyway here's hoping to a new price war next year with 7xxx and 6xx series from Both camps.


----------



## KamuiRSX

I'm actually pretty thrilled with the performance. Just some driver tweaking needed and this suckers will be flying past the GTX 580


----------



## SkillzKillz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Blameless*


How is it a good thing for a new card to perform below expectations? It's not like it could possibly change how your setup performs.


I get more value out of what I currently have.

Also good for Nvidia investors.


----------



## NrGx

Eh pretty underwhelming for me. Especially with their more friendly drivers (for linux particularly), the GTX 570 is still a better buy than the HD 6950 in my opinion.


----------



## thegoliath

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chill.ʇɔǝɟɟ3*


No worries about stocking issues that plagued the 5000 series. I say there will be plenty of these on the shelf everywhere.


qft


----------



## whitingnick

Quote:



Originally Posted by *KamuiRSX*


I'm actually pretty thrilled with the performance. Just some driver tweaking needed and this suckers will be flying past the GTX 580










Wait, you do know we're talking about AMD/ATI drivers right?







I don't think you'll see a big performance increase; but for AMD's sake, they better hope so.


----------



## supra_rz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *whitingnick*


Wait, you do know we're talking about AMD/ATI drivers right?







I don't think you'll see a big performance increase; but for AMD's sake, they better hope so.


have you seen the review of 10.11 vs 10.12?


----------



## geoxile

Quote:



Originally Posted by *supra_rz*


have you seen the review of 10.11 vs 10.12?


I'm thinking they actually used the 10.11 beta that previews the official 10.12 release's UI

They list it as 10.12 BETA RC2 which AFAIK isn't a real release of 10.12


----------



## supra_rz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *geoxile*


I'm thinking they actually used the 10.11 beta that previews the official 10.12 release's UI

They list it as 10.12 BETA RC2 which AFAIK isn't a real release of 10.12


oh well still there is a nice performance boost in the 5870.. it will be the same with 69**


----------



## Domino

time for new dwuivhar team?


----------



## supra_rz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Domino*


time for new dwuivhar team?


exactly

i feel like not changing my 5870 anymore, maybe wait for 7*** then?


----------



## Blameless

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


I get more value out of what I currently have.


I can see their being any influence on the value of the cards you have unless you were planning on selling them soon.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


Also good for Nvidia investors.










If you've got money in NVIDIA, then this would be a valid reason for wanting their competitors to do poorly.

However, these cards will likely be better for AMD's bottom line than a faster, more expensive, card would have been.


----------



## dantoddd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz*


I get more value out of what I currently have.

Also good for Nvidia investors.










Lol, if you look at things like that all the ATI factories spontaneously combusting is also a good thing.


----------



## AzO

It seems like nVidia's offerings have better minimum fps performance according to all these reviews sites vs the 69xx.


----------



## Darkapoc

I'd been waiting all night for it too oh well, always the January release of the last new gens.


----------



## GBCirino

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *SkillzKillz;11653272*
> I don't think I could be more pleased. These cards are weak and huge. Power draw is the only plus, but they fail at everything else.
> 
> I just fell in love with my setup. And I already had 1.5months to boot


not only you in love mate! today i cranked my 6850s to 1000c/1100m without big problems! i played a bit of Crysis 1 and was mesmerized by the performance =)


----------



## supra_rz

rest of reviews

http://www.overclockers.com/amd-hd6970-graphics-card-review/

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/amd_hd6970_hd6950_review/


----------



## ShawnH

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *supra_rz;11653902*
> rest of reviews
> 
> http://www.overclockers.com/amd-hd6970-graphics-card-review/
> 
> http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/amd_hd6970_hd6950_review/


Do any of the reviews have a value chart? Like price vs overall performance?


----------



## supra_rz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ShawnH;11653966*
> Do any of the reviews have a value chart? Like price vs overall performance?


i think only techpowerup does this, i am i wrong?


----------



## AzO

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *supra_rz;11653902*
> rest of reviews
> 
> http://www.overclockers.com/amd-hd6970-graphics-card-review/
> 
> http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/amd_hd6970_hd6950_review/


Stupid review, I don't know how they consider calling that a review. A bunch of synthetic benchmarks and 2 games benchmarks. That site fails miserably at reviews.


----------



## supra_rz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;11653984*
> Stupid review, I don't know how they consider it a review. A bunch of synthetic benchmarks and 2 games benchmarks. That site fails miserably at reviews.


still they show the performance mate









here is the best

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6970/31.html


----------



## AzO

*This is how you know review sites are full of turd:*

















*and ABT forced AA in UT3 and Batman: Arkham Asylum*

techpowerup makes no mention if they record maximum fps or average. Either way something is seriously wrong, ABT is showing the 6970 blowing the GTX580 out of the water then techpowerup saying the GTX580 is faster.

Makes no sense at all.









*Cannot trust review sites!*


----------



## supra_rz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;11654082*
> *This is how you know review sites are full of turd:*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *and ABT forced AA in UT3 and Batman: Arkham Asylum*
> 
> techpowerup makes no mention if they record maximum fps or average. Either way something is seriously wrong, ABT is showing the 6970 blowing the GTX580 out of the water then techpowerup saying the GTX580 is faster.
> 
> Makes no sense at all.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Cannot trust review sites!*


at least we know that 5870 users shouldn't make the move







just that


----------



## AzO

Yeah, wait for 6990.


----------



## supra_rz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;11654188*
> Yeah, wait for 6990.


wait for 7*** you mean


----------



## Wingzero

Guru3D is usually my choice of review site they seam to have the most "proper" real world figures you will actually achieve if you bought one of the cards.

I was never gonna jump ship from my 480 anyway but seeing these cards fail so hard agaisnt the 580/570/480 is just a bit dissapointing.

Sure from a price standpoint it's not all bad at all but enthusiasts don't care about price they care for performance and these are enthusiast cards.

6950 is what performing on par or below a 480.

No AMD I think i'll pass thanks.


----------



## firc_ops_gordo

Seeing as I just took delivery of a u2711 monitor , it does appear the 6970 is a viable upgrade for me from 2 4890s in crossfire. With a half decent overclock , it looks like the 6970 can compete with the 580 at 2560x1440. Not win by any means, but considering its price, I think it's competitive. Or am I on the wrong track ? Basing my opinion on the hardwarecanucks review. Just 11% slower at the res at stock speeds according to them.

That said , very underwhelming at 1920x1200/1080. I'm a bit disappointed with the performance at that res.


----------



## willieboy90

I always trust what the guys from Hardocp tell me to. They reviewed the new cards and also compared them to the GTx 580,570 and the AMD 5870.

In the end they give their thoughts about 6970 vs 5870, 6970 vs gtx 570 and so on.

To be clear, GTX 580 is the better card, but is way more expensive than the 6970. The 6970, same price level as the GTX570, beats the GTX 570.

So imho the 6970 is a very good card for its price.

Review by hardocp Check it out


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *willieboy90;11654303*
> I always trust what the guys from Hardocp tell me to. They reviewed the new cards and also compared them to the GTx 580,570 and the AMD 5870.
> 
> In the end they give their thoughts about 6970 vs 5870, 6970 vs gtx 570 and so on.
> 
> To be clear, GTX 580 is the better card, but is way more expensive than the 6970. The 6970, same price level as the GTX570, beats the GTX 570.
> 
> So imho the 6970 is a very good card for its price.
> 
> Review by hardocp Check it out


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *el gappo;11652726*
> You notice they are using completely different settings for a comparison?
> 
> You have to take anything from [H] with a mountain of salt and then disinfect your eyes with said salt.
> 
> I really wanted one of these for pcmark but I can't justify £100 extra for a little extra bandwidth.


Really? Gappo seems to think otherwise.


----------



## willieboy90

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kand;11654318*
> Really? Gappo seems to think otherwise.


It's true they use different specs on the comparisions. But start reading their arguments instead of only looking at figures. If the GTX 580 uses higher specs and performs the same they say the GTX 580 wins over the 6970. If the 6970 with lower specs gets better fps they say the GTX 580 still wins having higher specs. Clear







?

Anyway, *WHAT* review should be reliable...? + 10000 reps for someone that can give us one.


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *willieboy90;11654348*
> It's true they use different specs on the comparisions. But start reading their arguments instead of only looking at figures. If the GTX 580 uses higher specs and performs the same they say the GTX 580 wins over the 6970. If the 6970 with lower specs gets better fps they say the GTX 580 still wins having higher specs. Clear
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ?
> 
> Anyway, *WHAT* review should be reliable...? + 10000 reps for someone that can give us one.


Staryoshi's.


----------



## willieboy90

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kand;11654379*
> Staryoshi's.


and where is staryoshi's review if I may ask?


----------



## aldfig0

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;11654082*
> techpowerup makes no mention if they record maximum fps or average. Either way something is seriously wrong, ABT is showing the 6970 blowing the GTX580 out of the water then techpowerup saying the GTX580 is faster.
> 
> Makes no sense at all.


You do realize that they're using different settings right? One is testing with AA on and the other isn't, you cannot compare those results. Different architectures can handle AA more efficiently than others....
And seriously... maximum fps or average.... think for a moment please


----------



## Razi3l

Contagions reviews are always pretty awesome. He should be doing one on the 6970








On to the cards, performance seems decent (could be lower) but price is very good. Hopefully the next driver release improves performance


----------



## Kitarist

Yea the prices are great for both of those cards and i'm sure drivers will improve the perfomance


----------



## Namwons

i like reading anandtech reviews


----------



## thegoliath

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *rubicsphere;11652841*
> Dude we get it; you love NVIDIA. You are in every thread with this Negative Nancy BS.
> 
> On topic: 6950 looks good in that canucks review. Might have to swap my 460 for one.


----------



## traktor

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *willieboy90;11654303*
> I always trust what the guys from Hardocp tell me to. They reviewed the new cards and also compared them to the GTx 580,570 and the AMD 5870.
> 
> In the end they give their thoughts about 6970 vs 5870, 6970 vs gtx 570 and so on.
> 
> To be clear, GTX 580 is the better card, but is way more expensive than the 6970. The 6970, same price level as the GTX570, beats the GTX 570.
> 
> So imho the 6970 is a very good card for its price.
> 
> Review by hardocp Check it out


HardOCP is using 10.12 beta drivers if I understand it right.
Hardware Canucks also used 10.12, there's quite a difference between 10.11&10.12


----------



## test tube

It's quite the card... AMD has achieved greater performance in many places than the GTX 570 while having a die size of only 73% that of the 570 in comparison. ATI will probably shred nVidia when they get to 32nM, if nVidia catches up all ATI has to do is make dies as large as nVidia's.

Not only that but these cards have crazy double precision floating point performance, something like 130 DP GFLOPs... If there were a good program for folding these would slaughter nVidia's offerings.


----------



## ih2try

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *rubicsphere;11652841*
> Dude we get it; you love NVIDIA. You are in every thread with this Negative Nancy BS.
> 
> On topic: 6950 looks good in that canucks review. Might have to swap my 460 for one.


You got a 460 ? The guy you were talking with got an AMD flag on his wall.

Btw, u guys are mean. The HD 6900s ars faster than GTX 500 and so much cheaper !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look, 6970 beats GTX 570:










Stop talking bad about Hd 6900, that hurts us :< This what we hoped for, we're not disappointed at all. I'd buy a 6970 to cook my breakfast and keep me warm this winter.
AMD should make a sequel for that green ad !!!!!


----------



## Aeru

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *test tube;11654723*
> Not only that but these cards have crazy double precision floating point performance, something like 130 DP GFLOPs... If there were a good program for folding these would slaughter nVidia's offerings.


Should have a look at BOINC then.









If they really have way better DP performance than the 58xx/5970, they will own big time in MilkyWay.


----------



## Dirkonis

Feel free to move this where ever. Just got the email this morning. HIS sent out their launch newsletter so here yah go. Officially on sale.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161356&cm_re=6970-_-14-161-356-_-Product


----------



## Code-Red

Yea, I don't think AMD saw the 5xx series cards from nVidia coming (neither did I to tell the truth).

Disappointing.... they aren't bad cards, but I was hoping for more. The 460's will be good for some time I guess.


----------



## theyellowlemon

theres too many good cards to choose from. i cant decide.

more on topic though; i really like that the reference 6950 and 6970 come with 2GB of memory and backplates. the backplate certainly isnt needed but it definitely makes handling it safer. the 2GB of memory even on the 6950 is nice too.


----------



## melterx12

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;11654082*
> *This is how you know review sites are full of turd:*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *and ABT forced AA in UT3 and Batman: Arkham Asylum*
> 
> techpowerup makes no mention if they record maximum fps or average. Either way something is seriously wrong, ABT is showing the 6970 blowing the GTX580 out of the water then techpowerup saying the GTX580 is faster.
> 
> Makes no sense at all.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Cannot trust review sites!*


yep as soon as ATI fanboys see ATI's new card is worse than nvidia's, they blame the review sites


----------



## Tommie

Funny how all Nvdia owners think temperatures matter, while fan noise and power usage matter.

Temperature is what you find out when you open up GPU-Z. Fan noise and power usage are the things you notice when you are gaming.

The HD 6970 is equal to the GTX 570. The 6970 has some room for performance improvement, the GTX 570 is a bit cheaper. The GTX570 has PhysX, the HD6970 has lower power usage and lower fan noise. The GTX570 has CUDA, the HD6970 has eyefinity.

It's your choice people.


----------



## mxthunder

In a way I want to laugh, but I do feel bad. I was hoping that these cards would be real fast to instigate a price drop for the nvidia 5 series. But c'mon - the 6970 is barely faster than the 480, a card that was released 9 months ago.... thats pretty lame.


----------



## amstech

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Tommie;11655161*
> Funny how all Nvdia owners think temperatures matter, while fan noise and power usage matter.
> 
> Temperature is what you find out when you open up GPU-Z. Fan noise and power usage are the things you notice when you are gaming.
> 
> The HD 6970 is equal to the GTX 570. The 6970 has some room for performance improvement, the GTX 570 is a bit cheaper. The GTX570 has PhysX, the HD6970 has lower power usage and lower fan noise. The GTX570 has CUDA, the HD6970 has eyefinity.
> 
> It's your choice people.


Exactly.
The 6970 and 570 are dead even just about.


----------



## Kaze105

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Tommie;11655161*
> Funny how all Nvdia owners think temperatures matter, while fan noise and power usage matter.
> 
> Temperature is what you find out when you open up GPU-Z. Fan noise and power usage are the things you notice when you are gaming.
> 
> The HD 6970 is equal to the GTX 570. The 6970 has some room for performance improvement, the GTX 570 is a bit cheaper. The GTX570 has PhysX, the HD6970 has lower power usage and lower fan noise. The GTX570 has CUDA, the HD6970 has eyefinity.
> 
> It's your choice people.


In terms of temperature, a lot of AMD owners were saying the 480/470 were crap due to their heat.

With the 6970 and GTX 570 fairly even, I think ill go with the GTX 570 only due to being slightly cheaper.


----------



## Corrupted

I wish they were cooler and quieter. Seems strange for Nvidia to have the edge here.


----------



## RagingCain

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Corrupted;11655406*
> I wish they were cooler and quieter. Seems strange for Nvidia to have the edge here.


They learned from past mistakes


----------



## supra_rz

before anyone blaming the new card wait for some new drivers and then decide yourself


----------



## Liranan

Actually the problem with the 6900's is the voltage limiter, it's going to hurt OC so badly it makes them not worth it, from my point of view. If I were to buy a high-end card I'd buy an nVidia one, despite not liking their drivers at all.

I find this very disappointing and don't like what AMD have done. If someone can create a BIOS or driver that can remove this limitation it'd be wonderful. If that's not possible these cards will be a massive disappointment.


----------



## dir_d

Time to pick up a second 5870 from someone switching to the Green Side or stupidly getting a 6970.


----------



## Zerkk

Interesting.


----------



## Chrono Detector

I would have thought when it comes to lower power consumption with higher end specs AMD/ATI was the master here but boy I was wrong. NVIDIA managed to enable the full 512SP for GTX 580 while still being on 40nm but ATI failed this round, and for that they had to cut the shader count, and uses a 8 pin PCI-E connector along with a 6 pin PCI-E connector while the GTX 570 only uses 2 6 pin PCI-E, and not to mention that the GTX 570 is a prettier buy over the 6970.

Hope AMD/ATI can do better with 7xxx, and I blame TSMC for scrapping 32nm and move to 28nm - which caused AMD to be stuck on 40nm. If 6xxx was on 32nm I bet we would have seen a different story.


----------



## Gabe63

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *dir_d;11655553*
> Time to pick up a second 5870 from someone switching to the Green Side or stupidly getting a 6970.


x2, EF6 cards are hard to find though.


----------



## Baiyan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *supra_rz;11655506*
> before anyone blaming the new card wait for some new drivers and then decide yourself


I don't know which is worse, an underwhelming card (the actual situation) or a company that pushes a product out without adequate support (your supposed situation).

PS. still waiting for that magical performance rocketing driver for my 5850, not that it needs it.


----------



## gablain

i think this describes the best the situation right now :


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Baiyan;11655639*
> I don't know which is worse, an underwhelming card (the actual situation) or a company that pushes a product out without adequate support (your supposed situation).
> 
> PS. still waiting for that magical performance rocketing driver for my 5850, not that it needs it.


I'm getting dizzy watching your avatar.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Core2uu;11651999*
> Methinks its simply the larger gob of memory that it has, which leads to the following: *This card only entirely makes sense with a 30" monitor.* Below that we see benefits dwindle.


Wrong, there's Oblivion texture mods that could probably fill a 2GB framebuffer easily.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nathris;11652167*
> 5870 has *more* SPs than the 6970.
> 
> Something is wrong here. Hopefully Anand will clear it up.
> 
> The die size is way too large for 1536 SPs. I'm guessing the 6970 is a cut down die, or AMD has completely lost it.


Different kind of SPs, that's why a HD6870 can match a HD5850 despite the lower amount of SPs.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;11652394*
> Wow, what a strange gamut of results in these reviews.
> 
> Alright, I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and I wouldn't normally do this:
> 
> I'm willing to bet the 69x0 cards will show impressive results after a few driver revisions. Why? VLIW4. AMD has some toying to do with this architecture, and it would be silly of any of us to think driver zero will be an accurate reflection of Cayman's _real_ capability.
> 
> Hey, I could be wrong. I could be right. Who knows? Time will tell.


This, plus AMD still had optimization issues with the HD5870, HD4890 CFX is faster even though it should be slower (Both have 1600sps and are at 850Mhz with no memory bottleneck, HD4890 should be slower due to lower minimum FPS and CFX latency and the like.)

Reading the anand article...It looks like we have to blame TSMC for this not killing the GTX 580 on launch.


----------



## s13shaka

for the price CF 6950 sounds really nice


----------



## firc_ops_gordo

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *gablain;11655674*
> i think this describes the best the situation right now :


That's what I'm talking about. 11% less performance at 2560x1600 for around £150 less in price ? I know a very small minority game at that res but I do now and that's what's important to me. Sounds like an excellent deal









Still not sure if I'm going to pick one up but seriously considering it.


----------



## wholeeo

I game at 2048x1152 & 1080p. Which would be the better scenario for me,

GTX 570 (will SLI in future)
AMD 6970
AMD 6950
AMD 6870x2 CF

How well do 570's scale in SLI? I hear that AMD's 6000 series scale incredibly well.


----------



## Namwons

i think that for price to performance, the 6800 series is where its at really. 1 6850 for $190, then 1 6870 at $240, then x2 6850 at $380, x2 6870 at $480. that pretty much covers the whole range with just those two cards winning which is due to the amazing xfire scaling


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *willieboy90;11654415*
> and where is staryoshi's review if I may ask?


My GTX 570 will be here today, comparing it against the GTX 470. I feel honored to even be mentioned in this thread







(Will be testing a few synthetic benches and games at 1680x1050 and 1920x1200)

Vangtage, 3dMark 11, Heaven, Stone Giant
Far Cry 2, Just Cause 2, Metro 2033

Those are the games on the testing list for today, fewer than usual, so I may add a few in. Unfortunately I don't have the money to pick up a HD6950/70 at this time... but we'll see what happens closer to Christmas. Perhaps I can "borrow" one








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *willieboy90;11654303*
> Review by hardocp Check it out


Their use of "highest playable settings" and 2560x1600 resolution makes their review mostly unhelpful in my opinion.


----------



## Scorpii

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *firc_ops_gordo;11655745*
> That's what I'm talking about. 11% less performance at 2560x1600 for around £150 less in price ? I know a very small minority game at that res but I do now and that's what's important to me. Sounds like an excellent deal
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Still not sure if I'm going to pick one up but seriously considering it.


I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to here with regards to £150, but the GTX570 is cheaper than the 6970


----------



## dopey

Fail, but I blame TSMC. Weren't these supposed to be 32nm? At any rate, I'm glad I got my 5970 13 months ago for $500. Looks like I'll be keeping it until 28nm at least.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

I would wait for a member to test them if you are not to sure. Also OC ability should also be a factor here but we dont know how they OC because of CCC limitations.


----------



## Halfslashed

Tom's Hardware - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950-cayman,2818.html


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *dopey;11655867*
> Fail, but I blame TSMC. Weren't these supposed to be 32nm? At any rate, I'm glad I got my 5970 13 months ago for $500. Looks like I'll be keeping it until 28nm at least.


This, apparently some SMID stuff got cut, as well as PCIe 3.0 and other unknown features.

Driver issues are going to hamper this card at first.


----------



## chadamir

I sincerely hope this is a driver issue. Then again, I can't afford a new card anytime soon anyway


----------



## firc_ops_gordo

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Scorpii;11655857*
> I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to here with regards to £150, but the GTX570 is cheaper than the 6970


I'm referring to the difference in price between a 580 and 6970 here in the UK. In some cases , it can be as much as £170 (that's if going for a value brand of 6970). In other cases £130 to £150.

And as the hardwarecanucks review shows, the difference in performance at 2560x1600 ranges from 11 to 13% ? Unless I'm experience a maths fail of note, seems a very good option for those on 27/30" monitors.


----------



## Firann

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *firc_ops_gordo;11655952*
> I'm referring to the difference in price between a 580 and 6970 here in the UK. In some cases , it can be as much as £170 (that's if going for a value brand of 6970). In other cases £130 to £150.
> 
> And as the hardwarecanucks review shows, the difference in performance at 2560x1600 ranges from 11 to 13% ? Unless I'm experience a maths fail of note, seems a very good option for those on 27/30" monitors.


Going by the Hardwarecanucks, since they are the ones with the 10.12 drivers if i'm not mistaken, the 6970 card gets mixed results. In most games it is between 580 and 570 and sometimes it just trades blows with 570.

However for me the resolution I wanted to check was the 1980x1200 (since i play on a 1920x1080) and anything above that with max settings then the 6970 is a tad below 580GTX but better than the 570GTX.

Even in the Unigine Heaven benchmark its only 3fps lower than the 580 which is an impressive feat considering the last gen cards!

I believe with some better driver optimization it will catch up to the 580GTX.


----------



## Tommie

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Chrono Detector;11655612*
> I would have thought when it comes to lower power consumption with higher end specs AMD/ATI was the master here but boy I was wrong. NVIDIA managed to enable the full 512SP for GTX 580 while still being on 40nm but ATI failed this round, and for that they had to cut the shader count, and uses a 8 pin PCI-E connector along with a 6 pin PCI-E connector while the GTX 570 only uses 2 6 pin PCI-E, and not to mention that the GTX 570 is a prettier buy over the 6970.
> 
> Hope AMD/ATI can do better with 7xxx, and I blame TSMC for scrapping 32nm and move to 28nm - which caused AMD to be stuck on 40nm. If 6xxx was on 32nm I bet we would have seen a different story.


Look at the facts and not the connectors. People should be banned for making such misinformed posts. The 6970 uses LESS power than the 570. Albeit not a lot less.


----------



## LTBarganier

I've been gearing up to make a new build for quite some time now, and I've been waiting for the 6970 to come out to make my final decision on what GPU to get. I've decided on the GTX570, the higher price of the 6970 and the performance at 1980x1200 kind of let me down in all of these benchmarks i'm seeing. I don't know what I expected really, but the higher price point doesn't seem worth it at all. As someone new to computers, so far AMD seems pretty lackluster for the most part, although they provide some great budget solutions.

The 6950s in CrossfireX look very interesting though.


----------



## Tommie

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *whitingnick;11653328*
> This from *Guru of 3D* summed up my thoughts exactly. AMD didn't see the GTX 500 series coming.
> 
> Well I'm disappointed, but they aren't bad cards, they just don't push the charts like I had hoped. I'm really liking the GTX 570 now.


The Guru3d conclusion is wrong. They expected the 512 SP GTX580 a year ago. The 5970 was designed to counter that.The 5970 is still faster than the GTX580 today. The GTX580 isnt some mind blowing o my god where did that come from card. Its just GF100 done right.

AMD expected 32nm to be ready by the time these cards launched. Same with Barts.


----------



## LTBarganier

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Tommie;11656182*
> The Guru3d conclusion is wrong. They expected the 512 SP GTX580 a year ago. The 5970 was designed to counter that.The 5970 is still faster than the GTX580 today. The GTX580 isnt some mind blowing o my god where did that come from card. Its just GF100 done right.
> 
> AMD expected 32nm to be ready by the time these cards launched. Same with Barts.


I hate this 5970 argument. The 5970 is a dual GPU card, the 580 is a single gpu card. Two different ballgames.


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Riou;11653059*
> This generation of top-of-the-line cards are pretty mediocre imho. 580 is barely an improvement over the 480. 6970 is barely an improvement over the 480.
> 
> I expected more, but alas maybe 28nm will show bigger gains than 40nm.


"Tweaked" generations with mild improvements over the previous gen are not a new thing.
(For example, HD2000->HD3000, Geforce 8->Geforce 9)
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Corrupted;11655406*
> I wish they were cooler and quieter. Seems strange for Nvidia to have the edge here.


The 6970 runs at the same temps and noise as the GTX570.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/12/15/ati-radeon-hd-6970-review/10
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/24
What edge are you talking about here?


----------



## videoman5

So much disappoint.


----------



## Blameless

Architecture is nearly identical to the 68xx line (there is just more of it), and only modestly different from the 5xxx line, so don't expect miracles from new drivers.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11655704*
> Different kind of SPs, that's why a HD6870 can match a HD5850 despite the lower amount of SPs.


The 6xxx shaders are better, but another big reason why the 6870 matches the 5850 is simply because it's clocked higher and is a more balanced card. The 58xx cards had a surplus of shader power, the rest of the functional units held it back.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11655884*
> I would wait for a member to test them if you are not to sure. Also OC ability should also be a factor here but we dont know how they OC because of CCC limitations.


The 6970 is unlikely to be much of an OCer, but the 6950 should do pretty well. AMD would have pushed the 6970 clocks pretty hard to try to make a positive performance impression.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *LTBarganier;11656243*
> I hate this 5970 argument. The 5970 is a dual GPU card, the 580 is a single gpu card. Two different ballgames.


Not at the same price they aren't.


----------



## LTBarganier

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless;11656365*
> Not at the same price they aren't.


I was mainly talking about tech, not price. You can also buy 2 GTX460s for a low price and outperform the GTX580, but that doesn't make the 460 better card than the 580. The 5970 is the same situation, it's basically CFX HD5870s smushed into one card, but that doesn't make the HD5870 a better card.

I don't understand all of this amd vs nvidia fanboy stuff anyway. Why not just buy the best for your price range? I still haven't built my rig yet, but I think i'll probably end up going with the 570 in this case. The 6950s are really cool though. Only reason I have an intel nvidia logo under my avatar is because that's what i have in this POS laptop lol.

Regardless, I'm new to the PC hardware world. I've been researching for ~3 months, and to me it seems that AMD never seems to be able to quite get it right, but at the same time they also offer amazing budget solutions. When it comes to innovation, I feel that Nvidia and Intel take the prize, but usually at a higher price. The AMD Bulldozer CPUs I'm very excited for though


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless;11656365*
> Architecture is nearly identical to the 68xx line (there is just more of it), and only modestly different from the 5xxx line, so don't expect miracles from new drivers.
> 
> *
> The 6xxx shaders are better, but another big reason why the 6870 matches the 5850 is simply because it's clocked higher and is a more balanced card. The 58xx cards had a surplus of shader power, the rest of the functional units held it back.*
> 
> The 6970 is unlikely to be much of an OCer, but the 6950 should do pretty well. AMD would have pushed the 6970 clocks pretty hard to try to make a positive performance impression.
> 
> Not at the same price they aren't.


True, except for the fact that HD 68xx uses the exact same VLIW-5 SP model as the HD5/4/3/2k. It was just the balance of the logical units that was altered


----------



## Yor_

Pretty much very dissapointed with these new AMD cards. Don't like the benchmarks and reviews at all, and nvidia is offering faster and more complete cards in terms of features, a somewhat matured fermi chipset and its drivers. I loved my last card, an ATI 5870, and did not have any major problems at all (some minor quirks and driver problems), but Nvidia cards seem to be the better choice as of right now. Now I don't regret my EVGA GTX 570 SC purchase. Awesome card!.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *s13shaka;11655712*
> for the price CF 6950 sounds really nice


Given the fact that 6950s in CF are 15% faster than a stock HD 5970:










I don't really think so.


----------



## Kaze105

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sLowEnd;11656314*
> The 6970 runs at the same temps and noise as the GTX570.
> http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/12/15/ati-radeon-hd-6970-review/10
> http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/24
> What edge are you talking about here?


Some reviews showed the GTX 580 to be around 10 Celsius cooler than the 6970 at max load.


----------



## iamke55

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11656485*
> Given the fact that 6950s in CF are 15% faster than a stock HD 5970:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't really think so.


That's 18% faster. Still, can be made up for with overclocking the 5970.


----------



## GrizzleBoy

*looks at the reviews*

Hrmmmm..............these new cards.........do they suck or something?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *iamke55;11656512*
> that's 18% faster. Still, can be made up for with overclocking the 5970.


100 - 85 = 18?


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11656561*
> 100 - 85 = 18?


The 5970 is 15% slower than 6950 CF, but the 6950 CF is 17.6% faster than the 5970.

15/85 = 0.176

Or rather,

(100-85)/85 = 0.176


----------



## whitingnick

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Tommie;11656182*
> The Guru3d conclusion is wrong. They expected the 512 SP GTX580 a year ago. The 5970 was designed to counter that.The 5970 is still faster than the GTX580 today. The GTX580 isnt some mind blowing o my god where did that come from card. Its just GF100 done right.
> 
> AMD expected 32nm to be ready by the time these cards launched. Same with Barts.


I'm not saying the 500 series is revolutionary, and with that being said, AMD still fails to beat it out. That's sad and kinda ugly. They didn't see it coming. They've admitted the 6000 series was made to compete with nVidia's 400 series.

Who cares about the 5970 being _*slightly*_ better than the 580, it's dual-gpu vs. single-gpu. Personally, with all the driver trouble the 5970 has suffered, I'd rather stay with the 580 anyways.(This coming from a 4870X2, ATI owner)

So AMD lost this round. They were blindsided; hence the delay in launch. Now the only way they compete is in the pricing game... price vs. performance; and they at least have a chance to make up ground there.


----------



## LTBarganier

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *whitingnick;11656620*
> I'm not saying the 500 series is revolutionary, and with that being said, AMD still fails to beat it out. That's sad and kinda ugly. They didn't see it coming. They've admitted the 6000 series was made to compete with nVidia's 400 series.
> 
> Who cares about the 5970 being _*slightly*_ better than the 580, it's dual-gpu vs. single-gpu. Personally, with all the driver trouble the 5970 has suffered, I'd rather stay with the 580 anyways.


I like seeing somebody who has a seemingly unbiased opinion regardless of the fact that they have an AMD card. Taking the side of 1 of the 2 companies is ridiculous. Benchmarks, innovation, and price point speaks for itself. If ATI came out with a single GPU card that blew the 580 out of the water then I would think that it was an amazing card. They gave us a 6970 instead though, which seems relatively lackluster. Maybe next time AMD, at least you did a great job on the 6950s.


----------



## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *LTBarganier;11656439*
> I was mainly talking about tech, not price. You can also buy 2 GTX460s for a low price and outperform the GTX580, but that doesn't make the 460 better card than the 580. The 5970 is the same situation, it's basically CFX HD5870s smushed into one card, but that doesn't make the HD5870 a better card.


I'm speaking of price vs. performance and, to a lesser extent, power and size considerations. Tech, in and of itself is meaningless.

Since the price drop, a 5970 is competitive with a GTX 580.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *staryoshi;11656593*
> The 5970 is 15% slower than 6950 CF, but the 6950 CF is 17.6% faster than the 5970.
> 
> 15/85 = 0.176
> 
> Or rather,
> 
> (100-85)/85 = 0.176


Yep.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Anyone here would take a GTX580 over a HD 5970 any day. OC the GTX580 and it will beat the HD 5970 which is enough really since it will have better minimum fps, sable driver, no CF issues, faster and games which dont use CF, cooler. HD 5970 can OC too but you get my point.


----------



## whitingnick

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *LTBarganier;11656679*
> I like seeing somebody who has a seemingly unbiased opinion regardless of the fact that they have an AMD card. Taking the side of 1 of the 2 companies is ridiculous. Benchmarks, innovation, and price point speaks for itself. If ATI came out with a single GPU card that blew the 580 out of the water then I would think that it was an amazing card. They gave us a 6970 instead though, which seems relatively lackluster. Maybe next time AMD, at least you did a great job on the 6950s.


Thanks. I try and keep it real and unbiased. I call out a winner if I see it, and AMD isn't the winner this time. Props to nVidia for finally getting Fermi right and for launching the 500 series unexpectedly and catching AMD sleeping.

I also love business, and this was a great business move by nVidia. They'll surely cut into AMD's expected revenues.


----------



## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11656729*
> Anyone here would take a GTX580 over a HD 5970 any day. OC the GTX580 and it will beat the HD 5970 which is enough really since it will have better minimum fps, sable driver, no CF issues, faster and games which dont use CF, cooler. HD 5970 can OC too but you get my point.


They are both utter rip-offs, but yes, you are right, the 5970 has some issue the 580 does not.


----------



## RagingCain

So I must really be a larger rip-off right Blame? Seriously though, 2x 6970s have a good price with good performance, I can't help still feel disappointed at these results. Hell I miss Voodoo still.

Can I create you a cat avatar Blame? You need a cat avatar.

Chaching! Post 1000!


----------



## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *whitingnick;11656760*
> Thanks. I try and keep it real and unbiased. I call out a winner if I see it, and AMD isn't the winner this time. Props to nVidia for finally getting Fermi right and for launching the 500 series unexpectedly and catching AMD sleeping.


The 5xx aren't different enough from the 4xx for AMD to have been caught sleeping. They had plenty of time, and there is no way they could not have expected NVIDIA to revise the GF100. AMD did the best they could with 40nm when TSMCs 32nm process didn't manifest.

Honestly, all the disappointment seems to have stemmed from unrealistic expectations, and a perception that the absolute high end is going to be the deciding factor. Even the vast majority of OCNers aren't spending 400+ on a GPU.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *RagingCain;11656794*
> So I must really be a larger rip-off right Blame?


Well, unless you got some killer deals, your current sig system cost as much as much as my three best systems, and that's not a cost I could ever personally justify.

If you find value in your setup, there is nothing wrong with that.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *RagingCain;11656794*
> Can I create you a cat avatar Blame? You need a cat avatar.


I'm keeping my invisible man avatar a bit longer.


----------



## Gnomepatrol

I'll be honest was not expecting the 6xxx series to be this low performance wise.

Sucks, nvidia has no performance competition as of now for top end single gpu. The 6970 looks to be trading blows with the 570/480. Power consumption between the 570 and 6970 is within 5 watts.

AMD step up your game having your top end single gpu match nvidias second is not a good thing.

Looks like they are grabbing the middle again, or trying to. I think we are seeing the back side of AMD grabbing the market. Back to Nvidia, then two years later back to AMD. Oh the ebb and flow of the GPU market.

Dear AMD i have a calendar, i want good drivers. I do not need you to remind me what month it is with bad drivers I promise you, we will survive. Thank you


----------



## RagingCain

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless;11656896*
> The 5xx aren't different enough from the 4xx for AMD to have been caught sleeping. They had plenty of time, and there is no way they could not have expected NVIDIA to revise the GF100. AMD did the best they could with 40nm when TSMCs 32nm process didn't manifest.
> 
> Honestly, all the disappointment seems to have stemmed from unrealistic expectations, and a perception that the absolute high end is going to be the deciding factor. Even the vast majority of OCNers aren't spending 400+ on a GPU.
> 
> Well, unless you got some killer deals, your current sig system cost as much as much as my three best systems, and that's not a cost I could ever personally justify.
> 
> If you find value in your setup, there is nothing wrong with that.
> 
> I'm keeping my invisible man avatar a bit longer.


I knew what you meant







I can't justify my price tag to anybody but me, nor do I need to... unless I sell it to avoid bankruptcy









WELL, if you ever change your mind (avatar), please support the LoLcat movement = D

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gnomepatrol;11656913*
> I'll be honest was not expecting the 6xxx series to be this low performance wise.
> 
> Sucks, nvidia has no performance competition as of now for top end single gpu. The 6970 looks to be trading blows with the 570/480. Power consumption between the 570 and 6970 is within 5 watts.
> 
> AMD step up your game having your top end single gpu match nvidias second is not a good thing.
> 
> Looks like they are grabbing the middle again, or trying to. I think we are seeing the back side of AMD grabbing the market. Back to Nvidia, then two years later back to AMD. Oh the ebb and flow of the GPU market.
> 
> Dear AMD i have a calendar, i want good drivers. I do not need you to remind me what month it is with bad drivers I promise you, we will survive. Thank you


Meh, I was disappointed by the lack of oomph and innovation. It was essentially predictable performance, however, the price is indeed lower (at the moment) than $400~425 which I had anticipated. Wait till supply runs dry and the prices soar again like the 68xx did.

Blameless is right though, their architecture is the culprit. A smaller die and architectural changes are what bring about the most performance potential and gains.

Normally I agree that one can't compare single-GPUs to dual-GPUs but if the price and generation matches, I am beginning to ask myself why not? Is it unfair? Maybe, if you didn't buy one, but if they cost the same, why wouldn't you compare the two? The 6990 is essentially (predictably) going to be the biggest and baddest card for quite some time. I do not plan on being floored by its performance though.

You won't see the same increase in driver performance this round for two fold, the drivers NOW are not that bad. The drivers in Nov 09, where god awful, and secondly, despite being better than the 68xx cards, the 69xx cards would benefit from the same tweaks and bug fixes that were already found so anticipate a smoother launch.


----------



## Strat79

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *RagingCain*
> You won't see the same increase in driver performance this round for two fold, the drivers NOW are not that bad. The drivers in Nov 09, where god awful, and secondly, despite being better than the 68xx cards, the 69xx cards would benefit from the same tweaks and bug fixes that were already found so anticipate a smoother launch.


The 68xx cards still use the VLIW5 SP's, the 69xx cards are utilizing the VLIW4 SP's. There is potential for substantial gains still. Read the Anand article I linked, it has some very nice information on the new SP's and how it could possibly mean more performance through drivers later. Time will tell.


----------



## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Strat79;11657078*
> The 68xx cards still use the VLIW5 SP's, the 69xx cards are utilizing the VLIW4 SP's. There is potential for substantial gains still. Read the Anand article I linked, it has some very nice information on the new SP's and how it could possibly mean more performance through drivers later. Time will tell.


Good info in the anandtech review. We will have to see if new drivers can manifest a significant change.

However, what I'm concerned about is not AMDs shaders, but their ROPs, which are still weak (even after all the changes in the 69xx series) compared to NVIDIA's. Even if AMD can extract a noticeable boost in shader performance, the 69xx may very well be bottlenecked by fill rate (and to a lesser extent, memory bandwidth).


----------



## RagingCain

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Strat79;11657078*
> The 68xx cards still use the VLIW5 SP's, the 69xx cards are utilizing the VLIW4 SP's. There is potential for substantial gains still. Read the Anand article I linked, it has some very nice information on the new SP's and how it could possibly mean more performance through drivers later. Time will tell.


Excellent catch I hadn't read in-depth all the specs, but I should have caught the strangeness of the retro-grade. I will say this, if AMD can license some more "optimized" games we could actually see some total domination, but developers & drivers, have to use whats there. Lets hope we can see some excellent driver support (in my experience with ATi I wouldn't hold my breath) now that AMD appears to have active focus on drivers.


----------



## Strat79

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *RagingCain;11657282*
> Excellent catch I hadn't read in-depth all the specs, but I should have caught the strangeness of the retro-grade. I will say this, if AMD can license some more "optimized" games we could actually see some total domination, but developers & drivers, have to use whats there. Lets hope we can see some excellent driver support (in my experience with ATi I wouldn't hold my breath) now that AMD appears to have active focus on drivers.


Yeah, it could go both ways with AMD and drivers. Loads of potential performance possible, but their past doesn't inspire much confidence that they can will through with it in drivers. Talking in terms of their past with performance improvements, I haven't had any stability/bug issues like most have.


----------



## GTR Mclaren

6950 is the true winner here


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *staryoshi;11656593*
> The 5970 is 15% slower than 6950 CF, but the 6950 CF is 17.6% faster than the 5970.
> 
> 15/85 = 0.176
> 
> Or rather,
> 
> (100-85)/85 = 0.176


indeed









mathfail on my part.


----------



## timAHH

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Asy;11652699*
> It also cost 140$ +/- than the 6970..Do you really expect it to destroy the performance of a card that cost that much more?


With the hype of the 6970, actually yes, I did expect it to really deliver with performance.


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11657483*
> indeed
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> mathfail on my part.


Just remember, Math is Power!









And yes, the 6950 looks to offer good value. Lets hope we see some cutthroat pricing wars









I remember when I paid $450 for the 8800GTS 640MB almost 4 years ago. Now runner-up flagship cards start in the $350 category and below, it's awesome


----------



## RagingCain

Oh god Star, don't gets me started... I remember saving up for the Geforce 3 Ti 500! It was like 499, a dollar for every number after Ti!


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *staryoshi;11657586*
> *Just remember, Math is Power!*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And yes, the 6950 looks to offer good value. Lets hope we see some cutthroat pricing wars
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I remember when I paid $450 for the 8800GTS 640MB almost 4 years ago. Now runner-up flagship cards start in the $350 category and below, it's awesome


I know, that's why I'm studying Lineair Algebra and Calculus. My brain just needs a break I guess


----------



## ZealotKi11er

They said they used 5gb/s memory for HD 6950 and 6gb/s for HD 6970. In their OC they got same clocks for memory, some could not even get to 6gb/s. I wonder why? Also Considering HD 6870 has only 9% more shaders which translate to no more then 5% more fps and if memory OCs the same HD 6850 si the much better card.


----------



## solidsteel144

These cards were intended to take a bite out of nVidia's professional market.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

I just hope those AMD PII X4/X6 useres dont go out of their way to get 2 x HD 6950/70s to beat GTX570s in Intel Platform cause they will get very disappointed.


----------



## timAHH

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *solidsteel144;11657764*
> These cards were intended to take a bite out of nVidia's professional market.


You mean Quadro? I don't see that happening any time soon. The Quadro 6000 delivers an absolute rapefest to FirePro:
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/NVIDIA-Unleashes-Quadro-6000-and-5000-Series-Workstation-GPUs-Review/?page=1

http://www.techeye.net/hardware/nvidia-quadro-6000-takes-atis-high-end-crown


----------



## humpmasterflex1

from the reviews i have seen on youtube, 6970 is about the same performance wise as a GTX570 give or take 1 or 2 frames, and about 30 bucks cheaper.

Nvidia, common sense FTW!


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *timAHH;11657836*
> You mean Quadro? I don't see that happening any time soon. The Quadro 6000 delivers an absolute rapefest to FirePro:
> http://hothardware.com/Reviews/NVIDIA-Unleashes-Quadro-6000-and-5000-Series-Workstation-GPUs-Review/?page=1
> 
> http://www.techeye.net/hardware/nvidia-quadro-6000-takes-atis-high-end-crown


What relation do those FirePro cards have to Cayman? None, you say?


----------



## Corrupted

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *humpmasterflex1;11657945*
> from the reviews i have seen on youtube, 6970 is about the same performance wise as a GTX570 give or take 1 or 2 frames, and about 30 bucks cheaper.
> 
> Nvidia, common sense FTW!


The way you worded that makes it sound like the 6970 is cheaper...which obviously isn't the case.


----------



## RagingCain

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;11658002*
> What relation do those FirePro cards have to Cayman? None, you say?


Lol, I think he missed that part.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Corrupted;11658060*
> The way you worded that makes it sound like the 6970 is cheaper...which obviously isn't the case.


Fixed w/ Punctuation and less nVidia Bias-ness:
Quote:


> From the reviews that I have seen on YouTube, the 6970 is about the same performance as a GTX 570, give or take a frame or two. With GTX 570 also 30 bucks cheaper, it is a cost effective solution to any discernible buyer.


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *timAHH;11657836*
> You mean Quadro? I don't see that happening any time soon. The Quadro 6000 delivers an absolute rapefest to FirePro:
> http://hothardware.com/Reviews/NVIDIA-Unleashes-Quadro-6000-and-5000-Series-Workstation-GPUs-Review/?page=1
> 
> http://www.techeye.net/hardware/nvidia-quadro-6000-takes-atis-high-end-crown


I was thinking FireStream vs Tesla.
With the amount of FP64 performance the 6970 has, nVidia must be keeping an eye out.


----------



## melterx12

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Tommie;11655161*
> Funny how all Nvdia owners think temperatures matter, while fan noise and power usage matter.
> 
> Temperature is what you find out when you open up GPU-Z. Fan noise and power usage are the things you notice when you are gaming.
> 
> The HD 6970 is equal to the GTX 570. The 6970 has some room for performance improvement, the GTX 570 is a bit cheaper. The GTX570 has PhysX, the HD6970 has lower power usage and lower fan noise. The GTX570 has CUDA, the HD6970 has eyefinity.
> 
> It's your choice people.


1) Temperature directly impacts noise on these cards, because the fan adjusts speed based on the temperature, so temps do matter.

2)Youre telling me Im not going to notice the heat expelled out of the back of the case and into my room, but that i am going to notice how much power the card is taking from the outlet? I think its the other way around buddy.

3) The 6970 makes 42Dba of noise while the 570 makes 40, thats not much of a difference at all, but that also means that youre wrong. (taken from guru3d.com)

4)Nvidia cards have CUDA, ATI does not. ATI has eyefinity, Nvidia does not. However, how many people use more than one monitor on their setup? Probably a few. How many people use more than 2? Probably less than a few. How many people use 6 monitors? probably ~10 people on earth.

How many peple use CUDA for folding or PhysX? probably more than a few.


----------



## Draygonn

"And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that the 580 owners' epeen grew three sizes that day."


----------



## sub50hz

I wonder why people keep touting the GTX570 as "common sense", there are a few points I would like to address:

1. Drivers. We've been through this a million times, people, both with 5xxx and GTX4xx. Does anyone remember how disappointing the GTX480 vs. 5870 comparo was on launch? And look now, after drivers have matured for a new architecture. It's possible that AMD's driver team won't be able to milk Cayman for more, but I seriously doubt it.

2. Not everyone has SLI as an option. Lots of people have AMD chipsets, which are an obvious no-no to SLI with Fermi unless you use the age-old "SLI hack" which can only use old drivers which didn't let Fermi shine.

Eh, I thought I had more, but lunch time is over, anyway.


----------



## L.Hemsley

I gotta say, this cards are indeed a massive fail. They cant even beat the gtx 480? *** are these guys thinking? I was hoping for a 580 matching performance but I guess I will have to keep the hot as hell 480 for now. These cards belong in the Shame Report


----------



## melterx12

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;11658149*
> I wonder why people keep touting the GTX570 as "common sense", there are a few points I would like to address:
> 
> 1. Drivers. We've been through this a million times, people, both with 5xxx and GTX4xx. Does anyone remember how disappointing the GTX480 vs. 5870 comparo was on launch? And look now, after drivers have matured for a new architecture. It's possible that AMD's driver team won't be able to milk Cayman for more, but I seriously doubt it.
> 
> 2. Not everyone has SLI as an option. Lots of people have AMD chipsets, which are an obvious no-no to SLI with Fermi unless you use the age-old "SLI hack" which can only use old drivers which didn't let Fermi shine.
> 
> Eh, I thought I had more, but lunch time is over, anyway.


but is the 69XX series really a new architecture? or did they just take the 5XXX architecture and tweaked it just like Nvidia did with GF100?

Also, there are more people that can crossfire than sli, but there are far more people that don't SLI/CrossFire at all.


----------



## RagingCain

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *L.Hemsley;11658160*
> I gotta say, this cards are indeed a massive fail. They cant even beat the gtx 480? *** are these guys thinking? I was hoping for a 580 matching performance but I guess I will have to keep the hot as hell 480 for now. These cards belong in the Shame Report


You did realize a different company made these cards right? The only thing you really should be comparing them in terms of success are either the 58xxs or 68xxs which are from the same company.


----------



## melterx12

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *RagingCain;11658184*
> You did realize a different company made these cards right? The only thing you really should be comparing them in terms of success are either the 58xxs or 68xxs which are from the same company.


The Radeon 6XXX series are in direct competition with the Geforce 5XX series, so there is great reason to compare them.


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *melterx12;11658181*
> but is the 69XX series really a new architecture? or did they just take the 5XXX architecture and tweaked it just like Nvidia did with GF100?


Did you read any of the reviews? Cayman is not a 'tweak', it is to RV870 what Fermi is to GT200: completely new.


----------



## RagingCain

What are they in direct competition for?

You get X, Y, Z feature @ A, B, C price. All cards have merits, and both companies fairly cover every possible budget / performance gap there is.

In terms of success, does a slower card = fail? Does not having the fastest card on the market = fail? Okay then, AMD fails, until 6990 comes out (it will be the fastest card on the market.)

P.S. Whoever is doing Linear Algebra will appreciate the letters.


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;11658248*
> Did you read any of the reviews? Cayman is not a 'tweak', it is to RV870 what Fermi is to GT200: completely new.


It's basically the same architecture with reworked shaders and a twin graphic engine. Nothing radical.

Cayman:









Barts:










RV870:









What they've basically done with the Barts and Cayman is include hyper threading.

Ps. More reading material about VLIW5.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/4


----------



## ZealotKi11er

For people hoping for more performance out of the new design it going to be hard to delive because if it dint not come then that means 1600SP of HD 5870 would be faster then 1536SP of HD 6970 but clearly are not.


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11658355*
> For people hoping for more performance out of the new design it going to be hard to delive because if it dint not come then that means 1600SP of HD 5870 would be faster then 1536SP of HD 6970 but clearly are not.


Well, GT200 to GF100 was a radical change in Nvidia's architecture. RV770, 870, Barts to Cayman is not.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/nvidia-s-geforce-gtx-480-and-gtx-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-/3


----------



## saulin

Interesting prices at Newegg

Mmmm EVGA GTX 480 = $430 and $30 MIR = $400
GTX 470 $210 after MIR
GTX 570 $350
GTX 580 $510

Radeon 6850 $185
Radeon 6870 $240
Radeon 6950 $300
Radeon 6970 $370

AMD has good price performance for sure on the 6870 and 6950 but the GTX 570 is a better buy than the 6970 and the GTX 480 and the GTX 580

The GTX 580 is overpriced because AMD failed to match it's performance, and it will stay this way most likely.

I think Nvidia cards are priced really good this round though, that's what competition does


----------



## timAHH

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;11658002*
> What relation do those FirePro cards have to Cayman? None, you say?


I don't see any new FirePro cards getting the 50-100% boost needed to overtake the Quadro 6000, especially when compared to the rather small boost from 5870 to 6970.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *saulin;11658455*
> Interesting prices at Newegg
> 
> Mmmm EVGA GTX 480 = $430 and $30 MIR = $400
> GTX 470 $210 after MIR
> GTX 570 $350
> GTX 580 $510
> 
> Radeon 6850 $185
> Radeon 6870 $240
> Radeon 6950 $300
> Radeon 6970 $370
> 
> AMD has good price performance for sure on the 6870 and 6950 but the GTX 570 is a better buy than the 6970 and the GTX 480 and the GTX 580
> 
> The GTX 580 is overpriced because AMD failed to match it's performance, and it will stay this way most likely.
> 
> I think Nvidia cards are priced really good this round though, that's what competition does


You cant really compare flagship card for their price. No matter what you do you cant get faster then GTX580 so thats why it more expensive. It Terms of performance GTX580 should be ~ 450$.


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kand;11658312*
> It's basically the same architecture with reworked shaders and a twin graphic engine. Nothing radical.
> 
> Ps. More reading material about VLIW5.
> http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/4


I'm not sure I follow what you're trying to say... it's _very_ clear from the Anand article that Cayman is quite different than Cypress, despite those pretty-colored pictures looking very similar.


----------



## buste2

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;11658633*
> I'm not sure I follow what you're trying to say... it's _very_ clear from the Anand article that Cayman is quite different than Cypress, despite those pretty-colored pictures looking very similar.


Ok we get it. You're hardcore for AMD. Good for you...want a cookie?

If you don't like your replies, just leave it alone. If you really think the 6970 is better...again good for YOU...

Either way, the 69XX is a fail like the GTX 4XX. The 5XX is just flat out better _*as of right now*_...


----------



## RagingCain

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *buste2;11658677*
> Ok we get it. You're hardcore for AMD. Good for you...want a cookie?
> 
> If you don't like your replies, just leave it alone. If you really think the 6970 is better...again good for YOU...
> 
> Either way, the 69XX is a fail like the GTX 4XX. The 5XX is just flat out better _*as of right now*_...


Lol. Well I have two 580s, trust me, those 6970s don't "fail" but they are not the kings either.


----------



## geoxile

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;11658633*
> I'm not sure I follow what you're trying to say... it's _very_ clear from the Anand article that Cayman is quite different than Cypress, despite those pretty-colored pictures looking very similar.


I think you're thinking solely of shaders. From what we've seen it's basically a revised evergreen architecture except it has two graphics engines tied to a command processor. Now that said, I believe it's the shaders that are new architecture that is supposed to be for Southern Island


----------



## buste2

Well it's not like the 4XX "fail" either.

After leading all this time and delaying, this is the best AMD can do? They're pretty much playing it safe by lowering their prices. You really think AMD wants to sell their cards below $400? I doubt that...


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *geoxile;11658769*
> I think you're thinking solely of shaders. From what we've seen it's basically a revised evergreen architecture except it has two graphics engines tied to a command processor. Now that said, I believe it's the shaders that are new architecture that is supposed to be for Southern Island


In an overall sense, yes, it's _similar_ to Cypress/Evergreen, but it is most certainly not a rehash or revision of the same-ol we've been seeing ATI/AMD "improve on" for the last few years. Like has been said in several articles, Cayman seems like an experiment, although somewhat gone wrong at the turout of the 32nm cancellation. We'll see what happens over the next few drivers, I suppose.


----------



## RagingCain

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *buste2;11658777*
> Well it's not like the 4XX "fail" either.
> 
> After leading all this time and delaying, this is the best AMD can do? They're pretty much playing it safe by lowering their prices. You really think AMD wants to sell their cards below $400? I doubt that...


Well the 570/580 just came out, so nVidia only just got this performance out as well, its not a failure because this is where we are with the technology, nobody is doing it better.

It may fail to you because you expected more perhaps? I am also disappointed, but it doesn't "fail" any way you look at it. Good price, good performance, good temps, good noise ratio. Even the drivers are better this launch. Its getting down to which card/brand you want, instead of which benchmark is better.


----------



## Mitchell7

Think I'll be waiting on the HD 6990 if I decide to upgrade my current video card. The HD 6950 and 6970 are looking pretty good so far though.


----------



## geoxile

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;11658812*
> In an overall sense, yes, it's _similar_ to Cypress/Evergreen, but it is most certainly not a rehash or revision of the same-ol we've been seeing ATI/AMD "improve on" for the last few years. Like has been said in several articles, Cayman seems like an experiment, although somewhat gone wrong at the turout of the 32nm cancellation. We'll see what happens over the next few drivers, I suppose.


Similar like 4k to 5k. 5k was a derivation of the 4k architecture which was based on the 2k architecture. For AMD's sake we'd better hope that this change isn't a new architecture because it's hardly what I'd consider new.


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *geoxile;11658989*
> For AMD's sake we'd better hope that this change isn't a new architecture because it's hardly what I'd consider new.


Then what do you call a completely revised shader design? Surely, this is "new", is it not?


----------



## geoxile

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;11659005*
> Then what do you call a completely revised shader design? Surely, this is "new", is it not?


Now you're just backtracking. I already mentioned shaders are new but the graphics/rendering engines are still based on Evergreen. IIRC ATI even admitted that they were optimizing Evergreen's architecture with 6k


----------



## SyncMaster753

In HardOCP's review:

They overclocked the 6970 core by *~8%*
Their benchmark scores increased by *~8%*.
You don't often see a linear performance increase.

Once voltage control is available for these cards i think we'll see some pretty nice results. At 1050 Core it's possible we could see 15% performance increase over stock which would put it right with the GTX580, (only $140 Cheaper and with 2GB Ram.)

Also, Driver improvements should help these cards as pointed out in Anandtech's review.

If i were going to buy a single card right now, it would be a tossup between the 570/6970
If i were going dual cards, 6950 CF without a doubt.


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *geoxile;11659081*
> Now you're just backtracking. I already mentioned shaders are new but the graphics/rendering engines are still based on Evergreen. IIRC ATI even admitted that they were optimizing Evergreen's architecture with 6k


I still don't think a complete redesign of the shader blocks and thread scheduling is something I would consider "optimizing", but I'll have to agree to disagree on semantics (aka a waste of bickering time).

And yes, at some point I believe AMD stated their plan was to use 6xxx as a stepping stone and implement only some of the features that the next-gen GPU would bring in full force.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Cayman's full FP64 and FP32 performance *<* Cypress full FP64 and FP32 performance.
HD 6970 FP64 performance > HD 5870 FP64 performance (due to the fact that Cypress is crippled to 20% and Cayman 25%).

Then again Cayman is not a completely new architecture designed from scratch. The HD6970 is to the HD5870 as the GTX 580 is to the GTX 480 minus the cut in shaders. More tesselation units, AMD fixed their geometry performance and nVidia fixed their texture mapping performance. Also HDMI 1.4a and such were adopted along with better coolers and higher clocks.

If you get a clear picture of the situation, you'll notice that aside from the fact that VLIW-4 has about 90% of the performance of VLIW-5, AMD also cut off one SIMD engine (64 SPs) to continue the small chip trend. Only thing that went wrong is the fact that Cayman was never meant to be released at the 40nm node, but at 32nm.

According to some insider news (I got it from Anandtech), Cayman was originally designed to have 1920 VLIW-4 SPs, a bigger PCI-e 3.0 controller along with some more features. But since the 32nm process was cancelled AMD had to cut some stuff in order to maintain the PCI-e spec and a smaller chip (dual-GPU).

This will make the HD7k series much more interesting next year.[/B]


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11659424*
> Cayman's full FP64 and FP32 performance *<* Cypress full FP64 and FP32 performance.
> HD 6970 FP64 performance > HD 5870 FP64 performance (due to the fact that Cypress is crippled to 20% and Cayman 25%).
> 
> Then again Cayman is not a completely new architecture designed from scratch. The HD6970 is to the HD5870 as the GTX 580 is to the GTX 480 minus the cut in shaders. More tesselation units, AMD fixed their geometry performance and nVidia fixed their texture mapping performance. Also HDMI 1.4a and such were adopted along with better coolers and higher clocks.
> 
> If you get a clear picture of the situation, you'll notice that aside from the fact that VLIW-4 has about 90% of the performance of VLIW-5, AMD also cut off one SIMD engine (64 SPs) to continue the small chip trend. Only thing that went wrong is the fact that Cayman was never meant to be released at the 40nm node, but at 32nm.
> 
> According to some insider news (I got it from Anandtech), Cayman was originally designed to have 1920 VLIW-4 SPs, a bigger PCI-e 3.0 controller along with some more features. But since the 32nm process was cancelled AMD had to cut some stuff in order to maintain the PCI-e spec and a smaller chip (dual-GPU).
> 
> This will make the HD7k series much more interesting next year.[/B]


Yeah next gen will bring good cards out. 100% more performance FTW.


----------



## calavera

I didn't even know these were in stock. 2GB of vram is definitely enticing especially for multi monitor users like me.


----------



## AzO

It's fun reading about a bunch of stupid people arguing with each other about the dumbest things.

Like how some people here expect a $360 card (6970) to beat a $525 card (GTX580).

*What's even dumber is that 90% of you people can't afford any of these cards in the first place!*


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *SyncMaster753;11659082*
> In HardOCP's review:
> 
> They overclocked the 6970 core by *~8%*
> Their benchmark scores increased by *~8%*.
> You don't often see a linear performance increase.
> 
> Once voltage control is available for these cards i think we'll see some pretty nice results. At 1050 Core it's possible we could see 15% performance increase over stock which would put it right with the GTX580, (only $140 Cheaper and with 2GB Ram.)
> 
> Also, Driver improvements should help these cards as pointed out in Anandtech's review.
> 
> If i were going to buy a single card right now, it would be a tossup between the 570/6970
> If i were going dual cards, 6950 CF without a doubt.


^^^^^this

the cards look to be waiting for more volts to really run them hard. they are also incredibly smooth on the surface which means not much engineering to make a waterblock for them. this could easily be a case of the 580 winning out the box and the 6970 being the o/c's favorite.


----------



## ____

I want to max out games at 1080p for at least the next year and a half. What is the most cost effective, most upgradeable, and most reasonable card to get? How much better would it be than an 8600M GT.


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *____;11659668*
> I want to max out games at 1080p for at least the next year and a half. What is the most cost effective, most upgradeable, and most reasonable card to get? How much better would it be than an 8600M GT.


You're on a laptop.....


----------



## L.Hemsley

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;11659628*
> It's fun reading about a bunch of stupid people arguing with each other about the dumbest things.
> 
> Like how some people here expect a $360 card (5970) to beat a $525 card (GTX580).
> 
> *What's even dumber is that 90% of you people can't afford any of these cards in the first place!*


5970 dont cost $360. I owned all of the highend cards prior to the 5xx and 6xxx launch. AMD knew they failed on the 6970 and that's why its cheaper. All this wait for nothing and now nvidia can charge all they want on the 580. Shame on AMD


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *LTBarganier;11656243*
> I hate this 5970 argument. The 5970 is a dual GPU card, the 580 is a single gpu card. Two different ballgames.


How so? Both put a picture on my screen, fit in a single PCIe slot and use a similar amount of power.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11656455*
> True, except for the fact that HD 68xx uses the exact same VLIW-5 SP model as the HD5/4/3/2k. It was just the balance of the logical units that was altered


I thought they did use VLIW4?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *LTBarganier;11656439*
> I was mainly talking about tech, not price. You can also buy 2 GTX460s for a low price and outperform the GTX580, but that doesn't make the 460 better card than the 580. The 5970 is the same situation, it's basically CFX HD5870s smushed into one card, but that doesn't make the HD5870 a better card.


It's one card, not two, it has two GPUs yes but its still one card.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kaze105;11656493*
> Some reviews showed the GTX 580 to be around 10 Celsius cooler than the 6970 at max load.


Due to the differences in cooler, not heat output, mind you.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *whitingnick;11656620*
> it's dual-gpu vs. single-gpu.


It's still one card, a similar price and a similar power consumption, there's no real argument for not saying they compete.

Yes, I would get a 580 over a 5970 because of other reasons (Lack of vram, driver issues, etc) but there's no reason they can't compete with each other.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *wumpus;11657249*
> I may be starting to agree. it isnt even as fast as a 480....


What? The only spots I didn't see with a 480 were obvious driver issues where it got beaten by a 5870...Or benchmarks that don't show real world performance.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *melterx12;11658103*
> 4)Nvidia cards have CUDA, ATI does not. ATI has eyefinity, Nvidia does not. However, how many people use more than one monitor on their setup? Probably a few. How many people use more than 2? Probably less than a few. How many people use 6 monitors? probably ~10 people on earth.
> 
> How many peple use CUDA for folding or PhysX? probably more than a few.


The only use where CUDA is actually used well is Folding, everywhere else is either a niche area or you'd be better off with a non-CUDA program/the difference is tiny and PhysX? How many games use GPU PhysX? In the market for these GPUs, I'd say its relatively equally split between dual/tri screen users and people who have a use for CUDA to be honest.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;11658149*
> I wonder why people keep touting the GTX570 as "common sense", there are a few points I would like to address:
> 
> 1. Drivers. We've been through this a million times, people, both with 5xxx and GTX4xx. Does anyone remember how disappointing the GTX480 vs. 5870 comparo was on launch? And look now, after drivers have matured for a new architecture. It's possible that AMD's driver team won't be able to milk Cayman for more, but I seriously doubt it.
> 
> 2. Not everyone has SLI as an option. Lots of people have AMD chipsets, which are an obvious no-no to SLI with Fermi unless you use the age-old "SLI hack" which can only use old drivers which didn't let Fermi shine.
> 
> Eh, I thought I had more, but lunch time is over, anyway.


Actually the SLI hack works with any drivers I'm pretty sure, it pretends to be an x58 chipset and then injects the SLI certificate into the BIOS, nVidia would have to change the scheme and make it backwards compatible with chipsets that are SLI capable but aren't getting BIOS updates.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *melterx12;11658181*
> but is the 69XX series really a new architecture? or did they just take the 5XXX architecture and tweaked it just like Nvidia did with GF100?
> 
> Also, there are more people that can crossfire than sli, but there are far more people that don't SLI/CrossFire at all.


They changed the way shaders work, its a tweak but nVidia's approach is a lot more straightforward (Each SP can do one instruction, AMDs has 4 execution processors in each SP now) so they can't optimize as much as AMD can but a lot of the tricks AMD had for the HD2, 3, 4 and 5 series won't work as well for this.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;11658248*
> Did you read any of the reviews? Cayman is not a 'tweak', it is to RV870 what Fermi is to GT200: completely new.


Nah, it's a tweak, the completely new shader architecture is meant to be the HD7000 series I think.

And Fermi was a tweak, they added DX11 support and improved the throughput in GPGPU related stuff dramatically, but the base architecture is the same.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kand;11658312*
> It's basically the same architecture with reworked shaders and a twin graphic engine. Nothing radical.
> 
> Cayman:
> [/img]http://semiaccurate.com/static/uploads/2010/12_december/cayman_pictures/Cayman_block_diagram.png[/img]
> 
> Barts:
> 
> [/IMG]http://apcmag.com/images/Barts_architecture.jpg[/IMG]
> 
> RV870:
> [/IMG]http://img.hexus.net/v2/graphics_cards/ati/5800/Arch.jpg[/IMG]
> 
> What they've basically done with the Barts and Cayman is include hyper threading.
> 
> Ps. More reading material about VLIW5.
> http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/4


It's not really including HT, it's more like making it a full dual core as each shader is still the same speed but they can fit more of them in.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *timAHH;11658499*
> I don't see any new FirePro cards getting the 50-100% boost needed to overtake the Quadro 6000, especially when compared to the rather small boost from 5870 to 6970.


Fermi had a decrease in shader for shader, clock for clock performance compared to GT200b but its GPGPU performance quadrupled, its possible there's speed increases we can't see in games.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *geoxile;11658769*
> I think you're thinking solely of shaders. From what we've seen it's basically a revised evergreen architecture except it has two graphics engines tied to a command processor. Now that said, I believe it's the shaders that are new architecture that is supposed to be for Southern Island


They've changed around the non-shader parts, but the shader area is a refreshed Evergreen architecture.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *SyncMaster753;11659082*
> If i were going to buy a single card right now, it would be a tossup between the 570/6970
> If i were going dual cards, 6950 CF without a doubt.


This.
Although I'd wait and see how well the 6970 OCs with good cooling and voltage control, I could get a 570 for $60 cheaper.


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;11659628*
> It's fun reading about a bunch of stupid people arguing with each other about the dumbest things.
> 
> Like how some people here expect a $360 card (5970) to beat a $525 card (GTX580).
> 
> *What's even dumber is that 90% of you people can't afford any of these cards in the first place!*


http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&Description=5970&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20

Cheapest 5970 is $469, next to that is already nearing $700.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11659718*
> It's not really including HT, it's more like making it a full dual core as each shader is still the same speed but they can fit more of them in.


Yeah, that's another way to put it.


----------



## A Russian :D

I think people are judging these cards way to fast like usual.
Remember when the 3870x2 came out it performed terrible compared to the 8800GTX but then it was the better card. When the GTX470/480 came out the GTX470 was slower then the 5850 and the 480 was like 5% faster then a 5870.

I think Nvidia got a break here with the 32nm cancellation. Then again Nvdia could have had the GTX580 on 32nm.


----------



## L.Hemsley

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11659718*
> How so? Both put a picture on my screen, fit in a single PCIe slot and use a similar amount of power.
> 
> the 580 > 5970 because it gets similar performance and it a single gpu= no microstuttering


----------



## AzO

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *L.Hemsley;11659703*
> 5970 dont cost $360. I owned all of the highend cards prior to the 5xx and 6xxx launch. AMD knew they failed on the 6970 and that's why its cheaper. All this wait for nothing and now nvidia can charge all they want on the 580. Shame on AMD


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kand;11659721*
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&Description=5970&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20
> 
> Cheapest 5970 is $469, next to that is already nearing $700.


My bad, meant 6970. Edited.

*Why does everyone keep thinking the GTX580 is 6970's competitor? AMD specifically said the 6990 will compete with the GTX580.*

The literacy rate in this thread is mind blowing.


----------



## Kand

Two against one isn't exactly a fair fight, and what if that one becomes a two in the near future?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;11659832*
> My bad, meant 6970. Edited.
> 
> *Why does everyone keep thinking the GTX580 is 6970's competitor? AMD specifically said the 6990 will compete with the GTX580.*
> 
> The literacy rate in this thread is mind blowing.


They are going to counter a 244W TDP $500 GTX 580 with a probably 300-400W TDP $700 dollars dual GPU card? Do you seriously think that?

I think people are more or less dissapointed because a $250 HD 5870/6870 or GTX 470 can be clocked to HD 6950 performance with little effort, and that a cheaper GTX 570 with more features and better tesselation performance competes with an HD 6970.

The GTX 580 is priced rediculously high in the US, but yeah it's a class on its own like the HD 6950 I guess.

PS:

I'm aware of the fact that you can overclock the HD 6950 too.


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *L.Hemsley;11659810*
> the 580 > 5970 because it gets similar performance and it a single gpu= no microstuttering


Yeah... Only one of them overclocks 225 MHz.


----------



## AzO

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


They are going to counter a 244W TDP $500 GTX 580 with a *probably* 300-400W TDP *$700 dollars dual GPU card?* Do you seriously think that?


Speculation, you got









AMD never priced their dual-gpu cards in the $700, btw.









Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I think people are more or less dissapointed because a $250 HD 5870/6870 or GTX 470 can be clocked to HD 6950 performance with little effort, and that a cheaper GTX 570 with more features and better tesselation performance competes with an HD 6970.


Ummm, AMD stated that the 6970 competes with the GTX570.







So what's you're problem?

I have cpus and gpus from both camps in my house. I just don't understand why stupid people like to argue about such meaningless things all the time.

I don't know why some of you are even debating, 90% can't afford any of these cards anyway.


----------



## Mongol

6990 vs. SLI 580 if GTX 595 isn't out in time...

Before anyone else does, here's a self doh.


----------



## HA3AP

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


They are going to counter a 244W TDP $500 GTX 580 with a probably 300-400W TDP $700 dollars dual GPU card? Do you seriously think that?

I think people are more or less dissapointed because a $250 HD 5870/6870 or GTX 470 can be clocked to HD 6950 performance with little effort, and that a cheaper GTX 570 with more features and better tesselation performance competes with an HD 6970.

The GTX 580 is priced rediculously high in the US, but yeah it's a class on its own like the HD 6950 I guess.

PS:

I'm aware of the fact that you can overclock the HD 6950 too.


Based on the reviews Ive seen my my 5870 (stock) matches or is within 3% tops with the 6950(stock), which is a disappointment, lets see if the 7k can deliver with their new architecture, if not, back to the green team for me. Highly doubt that the 6950 can match the oc on my reference from ATI 5870...


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *HA3AP*


Based on the reviews Ive seen my my 5870 (stock) matches or is within 3% tops with the 6950(stock), which is a disappointment, lets see if the 7k can deliver with their new architecture, if not, back to the green team for me. Highly doubt that the 6950 can match the oc on my reference from ATI 5870...


Memory shows that it can hit 1500Mhz so it can beat yours and 1050Mhz is possible with voltage but considering how hot the stock one is running its going to he hard to go pass 1Ghz. HD 5870 is a very underrated card just because of some god dam tessellation which i dont case and only benchmarks use.


----------



## ____

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


You're on a laptop.....


Now that I just got accepted into the college of my choice, I'm building a desktop from scratch. And then I will play all those games I missed out during the last 4 years while I was slaving away in high school.

I. am. so. happy.


----------



## HA3AP

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


*Memory shows that it can hit 1500Mhz* so it can beat yours and 1050Mhz is possible with voltage but considering how hot the stock one is running its going to he hard to go pass 1Ghz. HD 5870 is a very underrated card just because of some god dam tessellation which i dont case and only benchmarks use.


That's the max that the core can handle, and it won't even get close to that with stock cooling, there have been 5870 clocked that high under LN2. My card is capable of the current clock with stock cooler, it can go higher, but don't wanna push it for 24/7 use


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


They are going to counter a 244W TDP $500 GTX 580 with a probably 300-400W TDP $700 dollars dual GPU card? Do you seriously think that?


Wasn't the 580 up to 350w fully loaded without the limiter?

And AMD would probably have the HD6990 at 300w, it's 190w for a HD6970 iirc and they can underclock it like the HD5970.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *HA3AP;11660649*
> That's the max that the core can handle, and it won't even get close to that with stock cooling, there have been 5870 clocked that high under LN2. My card is capable of the current clock with stock cooler, it can go higher, but don't wanna push it for 24/7 use


1500Mhz HD 6950 can hit on the memory, Core is different.


----------



## saulin

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AzO*


It's fun reading about a bunch of stupid people arguing with each other about the dumbest things.

Like how some people here expect a *$370 *card (6970) to beat a $525 card (GTX580).

What's even dumber is that 90% of you people can't afford any of these cards in the first place!


Well I think the point is that the card is $370 because it failed to provide better performance. I'm sure AMD would have loved to be able to beat the GTX 580 in performance. However it looks like all they did is match the GTX 480/570 performance because that's all they could do given the current architecture and time frame.

Even then, the GTX 570 is a better option over the 6970 anyways.

Also some people do not care about what's the best bang for the money but what's the fastest performing video card out there.


----------



## HA3AP

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


1500Mhz HD 6950 can hit on the memory, Core is different.


Actually the max core its capable of is 1500Mhz and since you used that to compare to my core, I responded accordingly...


----------



## CAHOP240

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *saulin;11660766*
> Well I think the point is that the card is $370 because it failed to provide better performance. I'm sure AMD would have loved to be able to beat the GTX 580 in performance. However it looks like all they did is match the GTX 480/570 performance because that's all they could do given the current architecture and time frame.
> 
> Even then, the GTX 570 is a better option over the 6970 anyways.
> 
> Also some people do not care about what's the best bang for the money but what's the fastest performing video card out there.


One of the few times I agree with saulin. GTX570 seems like the better card to get over the 6970. A little over clocking and the 570 can easily reach 580 perfromance. I waited to see what the 6970 would bring and decided to go ahead and get the EVGA SC 570 for the same price.

I'm sure driver revisions will help improve performance but I think AMD has tapped out this arch. Can't wait to see what the 7k series will do though.


----------



## scottb75

The 6970 is nice but nothing revolutionary. I like the price though, its very reasonable.

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by **********;11660128*
> 6990 vs. SLI 580 if GTX 595 isn't out in time...


On pure performance alone, I think SLI GTX580 wins that fight, obviously. In terms of product portfolio, and assuming GTX595 even makes an appearance, HD6990 will see its opposite number in either GTX595 or GTX580.

In terms of performance and pricing, I think HD6990's closest competitors will be either a) GTX570 SLI (depends on prices), b) HD6950 CfX.

I think the latter will quite possibly be the more dangerous competitor, in terms of price/performance. It all depends on what AMD can squeeze onto a single card; downclocked "top dog" GPUs like last time, or something a little more beefy.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;11659628*
> *What's even dumber is that 90% of you people can't afford any of these cards in the first place!*


This statement owns every "new high-end GPU" thread: past, present _and_ future.


----------



## HA3AP

I predict the msrp for 5990 will be at $499 or below


----------



## parityboy

Quote:



Originally Posted by *HA3AP*


I predict the msrp for *5990* will be at $499 or below


If you said that 18 months ago, I'd agree


----------



## HA3AP

Quote:



Originally Posted by *parityboy*


If you said that 18 months ago, I'd agree










Dual gpu solutions are always cheaper then the corresponding crossfire cards, Im predicting the 6990 to use dual 6950's which retail around 300$, therefore 600$ for crossfire set up, or 500$ for 6990...

PS: Canadian prices are used to make projected predictions.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *HA3AP*


Dual gpu solutions are always cheaper then the corresponding crossfire cards, Im predicting the 6990 to use dual 6950's which retail around 300$, therefore 600$ for crossfire set up, or 500$ for 6990...

PS: Canadian prices are used to make projected predictions.


If HD 6990 ever comes out it will be priced 599$ No question there unless GTX580 is like 400$ by the time it comes out and HD 6950 is 200$ then 499$. Also we should expect HD 6950 CF performance.


----------



## melterx12

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sub50hz*


Did you read any of the reviews? Cayman is not a 'tweak', it is to RV870 what Fermi is to GT200: completely new.


is that suppose to be a good thing? they made a whole new architecture and it performs almost identically to the HD 5XXX series...

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AzO*


My bad, meant 6970. Edited.

*Why does everyone keep thinking the GTX580 is 6970's competitor? AMD specifically said the 6990 will compete with the GTX580.*

The literacy rate in this thread is mind blowing.










LOL, so AMD basically just said that their competition for the GTX 580 is going to be a dual GPU card.

[FAIL]


----------



## A Russian :D

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AzO*


My bad, meant 6970. Edited.

*Why does everyone keep thinking the GTX580 is 6970's competitor? AMD specifically said the 6990 will compete with the GTX580.*

The literacy rate in this thread is mind blowing.










Yeah I thought this would be well known ever since the 38xx series when AMD focused on the low die size strategy. Following the low die size you can expect

-Nvidia will always have the most single powerful GPU but with a huge die area
-AMDs dual core card will be the one to compete with Nvidia's top (5970 vs 480, 6990 vs 580)
-AMDs single core cards will* never* cost $500 unless nvidia drops behind 2 generations.

Ok why do people complain about dual cores being compared to a single? GTX480 vs 5970 the 480 consumes more power...

You do understand its part of AMDs strategy ? It has worked pretty well for them. small die size and aimed at the mid market. Dual core set up for the top performance.


----------



## Jura55ic

Quote:



Originally Posted by *melterx12*


is that suppose to be a good thing? they made a whole new architecture and it performs almost identically to the HD 5XXX series...

LOL, so AMD basically just said that their competition for the GTX 580 is going to be a dual GPU card.

[FAIL]


Does it matter if the competition is a dual GPU card? At least they can make a Dual GPU card that works


----------



## eternal7trance

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Jura55ic*


Does it matter if the competition is a dual GPU card? At least they can make a Dual GPU card that works










You call the 5970 that still a lot of people have problems with, a card that works?

If the best AMD can do to beat the 580 is to make a dual GPU option, they just lost.

However I do like how well the 6970 beats the 570 and I may consider that.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *melterx12*


LOL, so AMD basically just said that their competition for the GTX 580 is going to be a dual GPU card.

[FAIL]


The power consumption of the GTX 580 is practically equal to any dual GPU card ATI releases.

THAT is a fail.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *eternal7trance*


You call the 5970 that still a lot of people have problems with, a card that works?

If the best AMD can do to beat the 580 is to make a dual GPU option, they just lost.


The HD3870x2 and HD4870x2 and HD4850x2 being good cards doesn't count, just cause their most recent had problems, it means this one will.

_Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight._


----------



## GBCirino

i want to see a cheap 6950 with 1gb of memory for a crossfire configuration THAT would be great...


----------



## Shozzking

Why is everyone saying that its better to have a dual GPU card instead of a single powerful card? You're limited in expansion with the dual GPU card since you can only have 2 of them where you can have 4 580s.


----------



## decimator

I really don't understand the mentality that a company needs to have the fastest single-GPU solution to be on top...That's only for bragging rights. As long as AMD prices its products well, they will sell and AMD will make money. In fact, they might even make more money than nVidia due to the smaller die sizes of the 69xx cards compared to the GTX 5xx cards.

Personally, I'm waiting for Southern Islands and whatever nVidia has up its sleeve when Southern Islands parts hit retail.


----------



## Ha-Nocri

u ppl r really stupid. Don't u think AMD cant make faster GPU then NVIDIA's GTX 580?! ofc they can, but they won't. It would hurt NVIDIA's vanity and then a big war with no obvious end would arise where AMD would probably lose b/c they dun have that kind of material backup NVIDIA do...

This is what they wanted and the price is about right...


----------



## Kevlo

Seems to me that crossfire 6850 seems to be the best option as of now, unless AMD releases a new driver that drastically improves performance


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Shozzking*


Why is everyone saying that its better to have a dual GPU card instead of a single powerful card? You're limited in expansion with the dual GPU card since you can only have 2 of them where you can have 4 580s.


Because the idea of having a 6 slot airflow constricting power cruncher is surreal to them.
You'd be damned to try to keep such a setup cool with air cooling.


----------



## ablearcher

According to the guys at XS (who got it from Chiphell)

Quote:



Originally Posted by *XS*

If you unmount the cooler of a reference card, you could notice an obvious abrasion over the corner of the inner 6/8-pin power 
connector socket. No, it ain't by chance you've got a bad pick. It's common among all the popular review sites.

Yes, it's because if you don't polish that corner, you wouldn't be able to mount and install that cooler! Thus AMD spent a delay
to fix that - they polish every card by hand, therefore each card is guaranteed to be a *hand-crafted unique version*!


http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=263668
http://www.chiphell.com/thread-148220-1-1.html

Now I want my handcrafted Rolls Royce Radeon


----------



## gamervivek

Quote:



Originally Posted by *melterx12*


is that suppose to be a good thing? they made a whole new architecture and it performs almost identically to the HD 5XXX series...


Because the die size hasn't increased by that much. It's 15% faster than 58xx series at 2560, and some driver updates down the line, it would be 20-25 faster without the die increase that gtx4xx and gtx5xx has got. nvidia can't go any further on the same process, ati can.
Drivers are gonna make this card.


----------



## gamervivek

lol though I would think gtx580 was the cause, 880 is a funny number.


----------



## BlakHart

I hand polished myself when the egg sent me my shipping confirmation email for 2 6970's.


----------



## d-block

Seems like this would have been noticed sooner..


----------



## sLowEnd

Way to "cut corners"


----------



## darksideleader

and i thought Nvidia's quality control was bad.


----------



## allenottawa

I bet one of the PCB layout guys was like "hey, why do we have this gap in here? *moves power connector*" right before they started making them.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Merged. Remember that this is for post-release news, not just reviews.


----------



## RagingCain

Much better avatar chunky







, interested in a lol cat one ??

P.S. I will re-iterate, the 6970 is not a fail card. I wish you nVidia idiots would shut up, you make green machine on the whole look bad. You kids wouldn't know what "fail" is if you drove straight into it, with your Ford Pinto.


----------



## xd_1771

So uh... guys... In case anyone hasn't noticed...
They're out.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *RagingCain;11663105*
> Much better avatar chunky
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> , interested in a lol cat one ??


Nope, actually. Lolcats are passé and nobody's realized it yet.


----------



## RagingCain

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp;11663744*
> Nope, actually. Lolcats are passé and nobody's realized it yet.












*Sniff*


----------



## RagingCain

Don't egg it on, doesn't matter who can afford what.

Its quite simple for all, you are getting what you pay for.

You don't think 2 GB of VRAM is worth an extra 30 bucks? Get the 570 @ 1.3GB then. Don't like ATI's driver support for CFX? Then jump on a 580 for a single GPU experience. Don't like (or want to) spend a grand on just two video cards? Well you can nearly get three for the same price? Go for TrifireX 6970 or save some dosh and wait for the 6990 reviews.

Seriously agitated tonight, so I apologize in advance. Jackie D, some coke, and I, are going to watch Dawn of the Dead.


----------



## RAFFY

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *xd_1771;11663712*
> So uh... guys... In case anyone hasn't noticed...
> They're out.


Wow the 6970 is just $380 in the us


----------



## eternal7trance

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;11663966*
> You don't even own a 5970, how would you know? Because some forum on the internet said so? LoL, now that's fail and gullible. Hey tell your parents the internet said the world is going to end tomorrow.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's how ATI's strategy always been. Since the 3870x2, unless you've been living under a rock the past 3 years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> They can't even afford the card yet they argue about it. Idiots think they somehow own the card by arguing about it on the internet.


I don't need a 5970 to see the tons of problems it has. There's plenty of proof out there.

A dual gpu solution is worthless for those who like windowed mode. For the most compatibility and ease of use, the single GPU solution is always the best.


----------



## tubers

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ablearcher;11662476*
> According to the guys at XS (who got it from Chiphell)
> 
> http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=263668
> http://www.chiphell.com/thread-148220-1-1.html
> 
> Now I want my handcrafted Rolls Royce Radeon


OMG xD I'd feel so bad about the dude who made the measurement mistakes..


----------



## tasospaok123

Considering the prices here in greece, (6970 380 Euros and 6950 308) i say the 6970 is really TOO cheap for its power!


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tasospaok123;11665239*
> Considering the prices here in greece, (6970 380 Euros and 6950 308) i say the 6970 is really TOO cheap for its power!


How much is GTX 570?


----------



## dopey

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *eternal7trance;11662181*
> You call the 5970 that still a lot of people have problems with, a card that works?
> 
> If the best AMD can do to beat the 580 is to make a dual GPU option, they just lost.
> 
> However I do like how well the 6970 beats the 570 and I may consider that.


Mine works great. It seems plenty of people have problems with every card, pebkac tbh.


----------



## jprovido

I was supposed to upgrade my 6870 twins to 6970 twins but I was really dissapointed with the revies. is it worth it for me to upgrade?


----------



## ZealotKi11er

With your CPU not a good idea.


----------



## jprovido

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11665495*
> With your CPU not a good idea.


don't worry about the CPU. the cpu upgrade is coming. what I'm asking is is it worth it if I upgrade to 6970CF considering I'll spending quite a bit for the upgrade


----------



## GBCirino

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11665495*
> With your CPU not a good idea.


???

games, optimized for at least 4 cores that are running at 4.0 ghz, will not be bottlenecked by the cpu

i dont get the idea of the 4gb of mem... that amoung of memory comes with a price...


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jprovido;11665553*
> don't worry about the CPU. the cpu upgrade is coming. what I'm asking is is it worth it if I upgrade to 6970CF considering I'll spending quite a bit for the upgrade


HD 6950 all the way for CF. They are so close to HD 6970 put lower clocks makes them seem so far apart.


----------



## jprovido

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11665784*
> HD 6950 all the way for CF. They are so close to HD 6970 put lower clocks makes them seem so far apart.


from the reviews I've read then performance is not that far from 6870CF. im gunning for the 6970's


----------



## ZealotKi11er

9% more SP and thats it which would translate to 5% more performance clock per clock. Personally i would not get either since its 600$ investment unless you get 450$ for ur current GPUs.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11660698*
> Wasn't the 580 up to 350w fully loaded without the limiter?
> 
> And AMD would probably have the HD6990 at 300w, it's 190w for a HD6970 iirc and they can underclock it like the HD5970.


That's why they built a power limiter, just like AMD did. Not really a correct comparison to compare a power limited one to one without. If the HD 6990 is going to be dual 6970s, nVidia could very well counter it with dual GTX 570 since they use about the same amount of power, have better temperatures and are cheaper.



















6950s on the contrary....
But those won't quite cut it since they're only about 18-20% faster than an HD 5970 overall.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11666368*
> That's why they built a power limiter, just like AMD did. Not really a correct comparison to compare a power limited one to one without. If the HD 6990 is going to be dual 6970s, nVidia could very well counter it with dual GTX 570 since they use about the same amount of power, have better temperatures and are cheaper.
> 
> [/IMG]http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image//skymtl/GPU/HD6900/HD6900-82.jpg[/IMG]
> 
> [/IMG]http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image//skymtl/GPU/HD6900/HD6900-83.jpg[/IMG]
> 
> 6950s on the contrary....
> But those won't quite cut it since they're only about 18-20% faster than an HD 5970 overall.


nVidia couldn't counter it with a dual GTX 570 though, the heat output (Not temperature, that matters more on the cooler than the actual heat output of the card, nVidia coolers tend to be better than ATIs because they have to be to handle the heat output) would be massive.

Think of it like saying a Pentium 4 runs cooler than an Athlon64 when the P4 is using a TRUE when the Athlon64 is using its stock cooler.


----------



## Clairvoyant129

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11666833*
> nVidia couldn't counter it with a dual GTX 570 though, the heat output (Not temperature, that matters more on the cooler than the actual heat output of the card, nVidia coolers tend to be better than ATIs because they have to be to handle the heat output) would be massive.
> 
> Think of it like saying a Pentium 4 runs cooler than an Athlon64 when the P4 is using a TRUE when the Athlon64 is using its stock cooler.


What are you blabbering about? Both HD6900 series and GTX5** series use vapor chambers. TRUE and stock cooler comparison is way off.


----------



## Aaroman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Clairvoyant129;11666893*
> What are you blabbering about? Both HD6900 series and GTX5** series use vapor chambers. TRUE and stock cooler comparison is way off.


true, the coolers look extremely similar


----------



## DESTRUCTION

Iv Bought My New Zalman VF3000A FOR MY 6870HD


----------



## AzO

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jprovido;11665482*
> I was supposed to upgrade my 6870 twins to 6970 twins but I was really dissapointed with the revies. is it worth it for me to upgrade?


I think you should upgrade your hdd to a ssd first. WD Green? 5400rpm drive, comon...


----------



## ih2try

Quote:


> If you unmount the cooler of a reference card, you could notice an obvious abrasion over the corner of the inner 6/8-pin power connector socket. No, it ain't by chance you've got a bad pick. It's common among all the popular review sites.
> 
> Yes, it's because if you don't polish that corner, you wouldn't be able to mount and install that cooler! Thus AMD spent a delay to fix that - they polish every card by hand, therefore each card is guaranteed to be a hand-crafted unique version!


Source
Quoted from XSforums

Pictures from TPU:



















Anandtech:









from another review site:










People are saying this is the truth reason behind the delay. I think at least, it is one of the reasons.


----------



## I_dalder_I

Looks like a high quality proc too me


----------



## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Clairvoyant129;11666893*
> What are you blabbering about? Both HD6900 series and GTX5** series use vapor chambers. TRUE and stock cooler comparison is way off.


And both my Coolermaster 212 and my Noctua NH-D14 use heatpipes. Guess which one cools better...

NVIDIAs current gen cards still put out more heat than the 69xx cards (though it's not that far off). They just have a superior cooling system as well.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Aaroman;11666965*
> true, the coolers look extremely similar


The Radeon has less ventilation, and probably an inferior fan/ducting.


----------



## BradleyW

What is polished exactly?


----------



## windfire

I have started a thread here already:
http://www.overclock.net/ati/890606-reason-delay-hd69xx-series.html

There is a speculated reason behind the ''cutting corner'' as well.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Clairvoyant129;11666893*
> What are you blabbering about? Both HD6900 series and GTX5** series use vapor chambers. TRUE and stock cooler comparison is way off.


Vapor Chambers are not the be all end all of cooling, I found that my HD4890 that had a single 8mm heatpipe and more fins ran cooler than the two I had with a VaporX cooler, case in point, the GTX 580 has more heatpipes, more surface area on the fins, superior ducting and better ventilation than the HD6970s cooler does, hence it can cool better, you won't get any better cooling without going to a Arctic Cooling Accelero like design.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Aaroman;11666965*
> true, the coolers look extremely similar


Not on the inside.


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11667568*
> Vapor Chambers are not the be all end all of cooling, I found that my HD4890 that had a single 8mm heatpipe and more fins ran cooler than the two I had with a VaporX cooler, case in point, the GTX 580 has more heatpipes, more surface area on the fins, superior ducting and better ventilation than the HD6970s cooler does, hence it can cool better, you won't get any better cooling without going to a Arctic Cooling Accelero like design.
> 
> Not on the inside.












But.. There are no heatpipes on the 580's heatsink.


----------



## Nowyn

Well that's a solid solution from an engineering standpoint lol


----------



## mxthunder

haha I bet the engineer that made that mistake got canned.

Pretty unique piece of information

just realized, maybe this is why a lot of review sites did not take the cooler off in the review.


----------



## Newbie2009

I must say I am a little confused at some of the review scores. In terms of the new Nvidia & AMD cards, both look nice but nothing mind blowing, but they were nver going to be.
Nvidia released the cards which should have been released on fermi launch. AMD's new cards are just a little upgrade and not the full new architecture, 50% is new.
Although it does look like amd were caught off guard by nvidia with the 5 series, these cards were never going to be worth getting if you have a HD5XX or GTX 4xx.


----------



## godofdeath

watch out for nvidia fanboys


----------



## godofdeath

you forgot linus tech tips


----------



## MacA

Misleading title is misleading.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

This time around ATi cards are a bit hotter. Nvidia played a lot with G110 to lower heat output not just by putting a better cooler.


----------



## TFL Replica

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacA;11667776*
> Misleading title is misleading.


You're right. That title made me think of Lian Li.

Hand crafted brushed aluminum HD5970 with 52 stylish hand painted small black screws and DVI ports separately available in 9 colors as exclusive accessories.

I'm disappointed it's only about cutting a corner.


----------



## criminal

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *godofdeath;11667699*
> watch out for nvidia fanboys


Problems happen. Bad way to fix the problem I say.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

ATI sure is funny. I wish the body shop could "polish" my car that well.


----------



## Nautilus

Bad mistake. Engineers should have foreseen that in the blueprints...


----------



## Riou

Whoever designed the reference heatsink is to blame.


----------



## rmp459

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *godofdeath;11667699*
> watch out for nvidia fanboys


why... this is just funny... since when does plastic shavings affect a GPU in terms of performance...


----------



## criminal

Makes me want a 570!


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kand;11667614*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But.. There are no heatpipes on the 580's heatsink.












I thought that was the GTX 580s heatsink?


----------



## srsdude

Well.. to Nvidia I go. this - do not want


----------



## RagingCain

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *rmp459;11668233*
> why... this is just funny... since when does plastic shavings affect a GPU in terms of performance...


[IDIOT]
First off, West Ham fails, NEWCASTLE! Secondly, its more aerodynamic now, and which means better cooling which means higher GPU clock potential!
[/IDIOT]


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11668344*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I thought that was the GTX 580s heatsink?


Thats the crappy GTX470 cooler with so much pipes with no meat at all. pipes are good but also take a lot of surface area.


----------



## smoothjk

Cutting corners, literally. Kinda funny actually.


----------



## Radeon915

Quote:


> therefore each card is guaranteed to be a *hand-crafted unique* version!


How does polishing make something 'hand crafted'? And if they all have it, I wouldn't exactly call it unique either


----------



## smoothjk

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Radeon915;11668779*
> How does polishing make something 'hand crafted'? And if they all have it, I wouldn't exactly call it unique either


The hand-crafted part was obviously a joke (funny to me at least). And it's unique because everybody's card will be missing different chunks of plastic in slightly varying degrees.


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11668344*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I thought that was the GTX 580s heatsink?


There is a reason why information before release should be taken with a grain of salt.


----------



## slipstream808

I find this kinda scary. No not kinda. Just straight scary.


----------



## IcedEarth

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *criminal;11668158*
> Problems happen. Bad way to fix the problem I say.


How is this a bad approach?

It's the most efficient and cost effective approach to solving the problem rather than replacing the housing. Which means manufacturing more housings, this means setting up a new jig tool considering they are most probably injection moulded. That costs a lot of time and effort. This is also presuming you can even remove the housing, it may be permanently fixed to the PCB by a strong adhesive, in that case it could possibly mean starting from scratch which would be ludicrous for such a menial error.

This approach in no way affects the functionality nor the lifespan of the components.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Nautilus;11668190*
> Bad mistake. Engineers should have foreseen that in the blueprints...


I agree. This is a very careless mistake. Especially considering these things will be modelled on a CAD package and most CAD packages can allow you to detect design flaws in time, that's essentially what they were designed for.

I wonder what happened to the design technician who made this mistake.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Radeon915;11668779*
> How does polishing make something 'hand crafted'? And if they all have it, I wouldn't exactly call it unique either


I don't understand why Americans refer to this as 'polishing.' To me polishing indicates tidying something up by simply improving the finish, not altering the physical dimensions of something.









That's just me nit picking, I'm jesting so I don't want a debate.


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11668344*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I thought that was the GTX 580s heatsink?










Nope.


----------



## Boyboyd

Hand forged by the elves of rivendale!

Sorry, been playing too much lotro...


----------



## r34p3rex

Guess they really did "cut corners" this time


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *r34p3rex;11669152*
> Guess they really did "cut corners" this time


It's a hotfix.


----------



## xeeki

This is actually kinda' funny, somehow it gives the 6900-series more charm by my opinion.


----------



## Lemondrips

I don't think it's a big deal. I am still going to end up grabbing one.


----------



## =Tac=

I want a cooler with a panda on it...


----------



## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11667898*
> This time around ATi cards are a bit hotter. Nvidia played a lot with G110 to lower heat output not just by putting a better cooler.


Yes, GF110 is a bit more power efficient than GF100. However, it still has 400 million more transistors than Cayman. The GTX 580 still consumes more power than the 6970, therefore needs to dissipate more heat. Virtually all power consumed by a card becomes heat.

The GTX 580 runs cooler than the 6970 because it has a better cooler than the 6970.


----------



## subliminally incorrect

the only possible problem i foresee out of this is if you try to rma the card int he future and the vendor says its been "damaged" and voids your warranty... leaving you with a wuddafugg?? moment


----------



## IcedEarth

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *subliminally incorrect;11669847*
> the only possible problem i foresee out of this is if you try to rma the card int he future and the vendor says its been "damaged" and voids your warranty... leaving you with a wuddafugg?? moment


The vendors would have known about this issue from the very beginning and I'm sure they will circulate this to their RMA department so I don't think there is anything to worry about.

Besides, more and more vendors seem to be moving towards non reference PCB's and custom coolers any way so I guess this doesn't really affect as many people as it would have done back in the day.


----------



## ENTERPRISE

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *IcedEarth;11668859*
> How is this a bad approach?
> 
> It's the most efficient and cost effective approach to solving the problem rather than replacing the housing. Which means manufacturing more housings, this means setting up a new jig tool considering they are most probably injection moulded. That costs a lot of time and effort. This is also presuming you can even remove the housing, it may be permanently fixed to the PCB by a strong adhesive, in that case it could possibly mean starting from scratch which would be ludicrous for such a menial error.
> 
> This approach in no way affects the functionality nor the lifespan of the components.
> 
> I agree. This is a very careless mistake. Especially considering these things will be modelled on a CAD package and most CAD packages can allow you to detect design flaws in time, that's essentially what they were designed for.
> 
> I wonder what happened to the design technician who made this mistake.
> 
> I don't understand why Americans refer to this as 'polishing.' To me polishing indicates tidying something up by simply improving the finish, not altering the physical dimensions of something.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's just me nit picking, I'm jesting so I don't want a debate.


Could not have said it better.

Plus with regards to the ''Polishing'' statement. That is not polished lol, looks filed down to me. Polish to me means to tidy up a first process that will look messy etc.


----------



## DraganUS

bye reference cards.


----------



## Grobi

I can say nothing more but this: LoL! xD


----------



## murcielago585

I'm feeling pretty good buying the GTX 570 ahead of the 6970 release. Not only are the 6970 performance results kind of depressing, but it didn't change the 570 price. Plus, that looks horrid. If I took my cooler off I'd think the pci-e power port was melting or something. Way to go AMD, I guess I'm not surprised seed as their top single-gpu is at an all-time low in price, kind of like their CPUs...


----------



## IcedEarth

Quote:



Originally Posted by *murcielago585*


I'm feeling pretty good buying the GTX 570 ahead of the 6970 release. Not only are the 6970 performance results kind of depressing, but it didn't change the 570 price. Plus, that looks horrid. If I took my cooler off I'd think the pci-e power port was melting or something. Way to go AMD, I guess I'm not surprised seed as their top single-gpu is at an all-time low in price, kind of like their CPUs...


How you related a design flaw in a plastic housing to performance has baffled me. Well done.


----------



## OneAngryPlethora

They should have spent the delay working on the shaders not the power plugs.


----------



## OneAngryFrog

What an obvious overlook on the engineer's part! But I guess you could say that AMD spent most of the delay time "cutting corners"..


----------



## kimosabi

They made moar space for the cooler by spending 3secs chipping off a components corner. WHOA! It's a handcrafted graphics card!


----------



## strap624

I'm sure they've revised the cooler design by now, these are probably preliminary shipments of units. wait a few months we'll see revised coolers.


----------



## kimosabi

Hey, I had to bend and mod a little on my mobo's HS to fit the waterblock.

I've built my own motherboard!


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless;11669826*
> Yes, GF110 is a bit more power efficient than GF100. However, it still has 400 million more transistors than Cayman. The GTX 580 still consumes more power than the 6970, therefore needs to dissipate more heat. Virtually all power consumed by a card becomes heat.
> 
> The GTX 580 runs cooler than the 6970 because it has a better cooler than the 6970.


How about a GTX 570 that uses 20W less than an HD 6970 and has one SM disabled? He said that was not likely to be the case, while an HD 6970 would get the job done.

So dual 570 vs dual 6970. That's the question


----------



## Clairvoyant129

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless;11669826*
> Yes, GF110 is a bit more power efficient than GF100. However, it still has 400 million more transistors than Cayman. The GTX 580 still consumes more power than the 6970, therefore needs to dissipate more heat. Virtually all power consumed by a card becomes heat.
> 
> The GTX 580 runs cooler than the 6970 because it has a better cooler than the 6970.


How do you know it is better? Both offer similar performance in terms of dissipating heat.










Give me a link that shows the GTX 580 cooler is better because going by the pic, it looks nearly the same.

AMD also implemented PowerTune to keep TDP under control for their HD6900 series.
Quote:


> PowerTune is a power containment technology, designed to allow AMD to contain the power consumption of their GPUs to a pre-determined value. In essence it's Turbo in reverse: instead of having a low base clockspeed and higher turbo multipliers, AMD is setting a high base clockspeed and letting PowerTune cap GPU performance when it exceeds AMD's TDP. The net result is that AMD can reduce the dynamic power range of their GPUs by setting high clockspeeds at high voltages to maximize performance, and then letting PowerTune cap GPU performance for the edge cases that cause GPU power consumption to exceed AMD's preset value.


http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/7


----------



## TFL Replica

Quote:



Originally Posted by *kimosabi*


Hey, I had to bend and mod a little on my mobo's HS to fit the waterblock.

I've built my own motherboard!


Imagine if anyone who did that called it a handcrafted mobo. Your sig rig: Gigabyte EP45 UD3P (Handcrafted), F9 BIOS


----------



## BradleyW

Well, if the cooler now fits on and the card works then i don't see anything wrong with it.


----------



## Clairvoyant129

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *IcedEarth;11670037*
> How you related a design flaw in a plastic housing to performance has baffled me. Well done.


Um where does he relate it? He said, "*Plus* it looks horrid." And I agree, it has GTX570 performance and looks horrible. There shouldn't be any excuses for this kind of mistake.


----------



## IcedEarth

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Clairvoyant129;11670501*
> Um where does he relate it? He said, "*Plus* it looks horrid." And I agree, it has GTX570 performance and looks horrible. There shouldn't be any excuses for this kind of mistake.


Ok, I will explain...

He said the performance was depressing. Sure, it was hyped up and it didn't perform how we all wanted it to.

He then moved on to say that it would look like the PCI-E housing would have melted, then moved on to say how this doesn't surprise him seeing as their top GPU is at an all time low in price and we all know price is subject to performance.....

See what I'm getting at here? He didn't make a direct link sure, but either way how can something like this not surprise him just because it didn't perform how he expected it to? Performance or price isn't related to a menial design flaw at all. I can't be bothered to debate this, I just thought it was a bit of a nonsensical statement, that's all.


----------



## onoz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Boyboyd;11668986*
> Hand forged by the elves of rivendale!
> 
> Sorry, been playing too much lotro...


Elves of Rivendale would not have made this mistake.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *subliminally incorrect;11669847*
> the only possible problem i foresee out of this is if you try to rma the card int he future and the vendor says its been "damaged" and voids your warranty... leaving you with a wuddafugg?? moment


Wow. Didn't even think of that.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Clairvoyant129;11670501*
> Um where does he relate it? He said, "*Plus* it looks horrid." And I agree, it has GTX570 performance and looks horrible. There shouldn't be any excuses for this kind of mistake.


Looks horrible? Are you talking about the cooler/shroud, or the actual PCB? If you're talking about the shroud, then you've gotta be kidding me. If you're talking about the actual PCB, then you've got to be kidding me.


----------



## IcedEarth

Quote:



Originally Posted by *onoz*


Looks horrible? Are you talking about the cooler/shroud, or the actual PCB? If you're talking about the shroud, then you've gotta be kidding me. If you're talking about the actual PCB, then you've got to be kidding me.


He's referring to the PCI-E power cable housing due to the 'facial reconstruction' which you have to admit, does look unprofessional.


----------



## Clairvoyant129

Quote:



Originally Posted by *onoz*


Looks horrible? Are you talking about the cooler/shroud, or the actual PCB? If you're talking about the shroud, then you've gotta be kidding me. If you're talking about the actual PCB, then you've got to be kidding me.


I never said the shroud or the PCB looks horrible. I was responding to the fact that the PCI power housing looks badly done to fit the shroud. What are you talking about?


----------



## murcielago585

Quote:



Originally Posted by *IcedEarth*


Ok, I will explain...

He said the performance was depressing. Sure, it was hyped up and it didn't perform how we all wanted it to.

He then moved on to say that it would look like the PCI-E housing would have melted, then moved on to say how this doesn't surprise him seeing as their top GPU is at an all time low in price and we all know price is subject to performance.....

See what I'm getting at here? He didn't make a direct link sure, but either way how can something like this not surprise him just because it didn't perform how he expected it to? Performance or price isn't related to a menial design flaw at all. I can't be bothered to debate this, I just thought it was a bit of a nonsensical statement, that's all.


I'd say price and performance are related to quality. This is a low quality fix, so i'm not surprised they would price their top gpu so low. After an entire year, this is a rough upgrade for AMD fans...

EDIT: PS, I know you're just bitter because you're thinking of getting one...I can see right through the defensiveness! (haha, or saw another post of yours in another thread stating so)


----------



## IcedEarth

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *murcielago585;11670750*
> I'd say price and performance are related to quality. This is a low quality fix, so i'm not surprised they would price their top gpu so low. After an entire year, this is a rough upgrade for AMD fans...


That's just it though. You do realise that this little defect didn't define the price of the card. The card id priced according to the performance sector it resides in, in terms of competition.

Yes price is related to quality but this 'quality issue' isn't one that drives down prices. It doesn't affect functionality and it is hidden from view. That's why I don't understand why you are relating the two.

EDIT:

I am indeed thinking of getting one.









Luckily I'm fortunate to remain objective on this matter. This is coming from the engineer inside of me, not the PC enthusiast.


----------



## Bo_Punk_2.0

Quote:



Originally Posted by *OneAngryFrog*


What an obvious overlook on the engineer's part! But I guess you could say that AMD spent most of the delay time "cutting corners"..


----------



## onoz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Clairvoyant129;11670745*
> I never said the shroud or the PCB looks horrible. I was responding to the fact that the PCI power housing looks badly done to fit the shroud. What are you talking about?


I was wondering what you were referring to that looks so "horrible". I'm embarrassingly anal when it comes to over exaggerations, especially when it comes to something as small as the aesthetics of this card (it doesn't affect performance!). I assumed that you were referring to the PCI power housing, but I don't see why it looks "horrible". Unprofessional, hell yes. Horrible, not at all. That is all.

PS Just let it be known that I am no fanboy. I'd much rather get a GTX 570 (or wait for a GTX 560).


----------



## sub50hz

edit: Oup, wrong thread.


----------



## murcielago585

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *IcedEarth;11670807*
> That's just it though. You do realise that this little defect didn't define the price of the card. The card id priced according to the performance sector it resides in, in terms of competition.
> 
> Yes price is related to quality but this 'quality issue' isn't one that drives down prices. It doesn't affect functionality and it is hidden from view. That's why I don't understand why you are relating the two.
> 
> EDIT:
> 
> I am indeed thinking of getting one.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Luckily I'm fortunate to remain objective on this matter. This is coming from the engineer inside of me, not the PC enthusiast.


Haha, I know it makes no difference to the performance of the thing, but it's a rough fix. I'm much more impressed with the $300 6950 that managed to stay low-power and not too far behind the 570. The thing I'm not liking about these cards is how mixed the review results have been. Hardoc said it was beating the 570 a lot of the time, but this isn't the case on the Anandtech review, which is usually my primary source.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *godofdeath;11667716*
> you forgot linus tech tips


No, I didn't. I already explained why I wouldn't do that.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp;11090524*
> I'd rather keep it to official text-based reviews and news from dedicated sites; if I start adding videos I'd have to include user reviews/unboxings, and there would end up being just plain too many of them.


----------



## IcedEarth

Yeah I don't know what's happening with the performance aspect, I guess we need to wait for the first batch of good drivers geared towards improving the cards rather than this 'hotfix' batch.

Time will tell, but it isn't looking good. AMD must have known this though due to the pricing, the drivers can only do so much so I wouldn't expect a massive jump.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

That story has been posted here already and merged here already; done the same with the newer thread.


----------



## kimosabi

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TFL Replica*


Imagine if anyone who did that called it a handcrafted mobo. Your sig rig: Gigabyte EP45 UD3P (Handcrafted), F9 BIOS 










Deal.


----------



## grunion

Couple of multi card/eyefinity reviews HH and KG.

People seem to forget at which cards Cayman were targeted, the 470/480.

NV pulled a sucker punch on AMD and caught them off guard.

Folks screaming failure need to step back and see the big picture, if Cayman is a failure for not living up to your expectations...So then, by your logic, the GF110 is also a failure.

The GF110 hold the same perf edge over the GF100 as Cayman does over Cypress, so why then is Cayman a failure and GF110 is not?

I'll tell you why, because GF110 runs cooler, uses less power, and the stigma of the GF100 was aching to be forgotten.

Had GF110 not been released, we'd be looking at Cayman cards that cost ~$375 and $450 instead of $299 and $380.
And for that, thanks NV.

Check out the tri fire/eyefinity results in the above reviews, then reconsider your failure opinions.


----------



## groundzero9

Quote:



Originally Posted by *grunion*


Couple of multi card/eyefinity reviews HH and KG.

People seem to forget at which cards Cayman were targeted, the 470/480.

NV pulled a sucker punch on AMD and caught them off guard.

Folks screaming failure need to step back and see the big picture, if Cayman is a failure for not living up to your expectations...So then, by your logic, the GF110 is also a failure.

The GF110 hold the same perf edge over the GF100 as Cayman does over Cypress, so why then is Cayman a failure and GF110 is not?

I'll tell you why, because GF110 runs cooler, uses less power, and the stigma of the GF100 was aching to be forgotten.

Had GF110 not been released, we'd be looking at Cayman cards that cost ~$375 and $450 instead of $299 and $380.
And for that, thanks NV.

Check out the tri fire/eyefinity results in the above reviews, then reconsider your failure opinions.


Thanks for posting that







You are making me want to buy a second one...

Cue NV fanboys ragging on amd drivers


----------



## grunion

Quote:



Originally Posted by *groundzero9*


Thanks for posting that







You are making me want to buy a second one...

Cue NV fanboys ragging on amd drivers










What card did you come from?

And another thing, these are 2gb cards for a great freaking price, unheard of in the past.
Heck the ROG Matrix was a $500 card


----------



## groundzero9

Quote:



Originally Posted by *grunion*


What card did you come from?

And another thing, these are 2gb cards for a great freaking price, unheard of in the past.
Heck the ROG Matrix was a $500 card










5970 quadfire


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *murcielago585;11671113*
> Haha, I know it makes no difference to the performance of the thing, but it's a rough fix. I'm much more impressed with the $300 6950 that managed to stay low-power and not too far behind the 570. The thing I'm not liking about these cards is how mixed the review results have been. Hardoc said it was beating the 570 a lot of the time, but this isn't the case on the Anandtech review, which is usually my primary source.


Drivers, that's what it is.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *IcedEarth;11671155*
> AMD must have known this though due to the pricing, the drivers can only do so much so I wouldn't expect a massive jump.


Eh, you'd be surprised, it depends how much different VLIW4 is to VLIW5 is and how many optimizations they have for VLIW5 that they can easily port to VLIW4.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *groundzero9;11673282*
> Cue NV fanboys ragging on amd drivers


Which is funny because while they suck at the performance level in drivers (Or well, are mediocre), the actual issues tend to be due to unstable OCs most of the time from what I've seen.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *grunion;11673082*
> Couple of multi card/eyefinity reviews HH and KG.


Added. You guys can add anything I've missed to the first post for me, it's fine.


----------



## pursuinginsanity

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11674340*
> Which is funny because while they suck at the performance level in drivers (Or well, are mediocre), the actual issues tend to be due to unstable OCs most of the time from what I've seen.


'Most' people don't overclock, yet lots of people still have/had problems, so I'd say you're 'most'ly wrong with that broad, general statement. Statistics don't even back up your claim so I don't know from where else you'd be pulling that "fact."

Unstable overclocks were definitely not -my- problem, as my 5770 wasn't clocked. (I don't even want to hear PEBKAC, drivers were only ever installed on a clean OS) When things like missing/transluscent textures come and go, 2d screen flicker comes and goes, v-sync comes and goes.. and the only difference is which driver is installed? Do you think it takes a genius to figure it out?

If the drivers weren't the problem, maybe the card was just unstable, period. So, which is it? Are the drivers at fault, or is it the hardware itself? I'd rather be known for making poor drivers if I were AMD...









OT: The 6950s and 6970s are definitely underwhelming. Considering all the hype, the delays, and the year+ AMD have had to work on them, that's not a good sign. I'm sure things will change at 28nm however, and AMD has priced them right.

Disappointing performance makes the new naming/numbering scheme even more pointless.. The 6850 can't keep up with the 5850.. the 6970 can't keep up with the (still called a 'flagship' by AMD) 5970. This was supposed to all make sense once the high end cards were released. Yet, it is even more confusing.

Their product line is messed.


----------



## Distaste

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *grunion;11673082*
> Couple of multi card/eyefinity reviews HH and KG.
> 
> People seem to forget at which cards Cayman were targeted, the 470/480.
> 
> NV pulled a sucker punch on AMD and caught them off guard.
> 
> Folks screaming failure need to step back and see the big picture, if Cayman is a failure for not living up to your expectations...So then, by your logic, the GF110 is also a failure.
> 
> The GF110 hold the same perf edge over the GF100 as Cayman does over Cypress, so why then is Cayman a failure and GF110 is not?
> 
> I'll tell you why, because GF110 runs cooler, uses less power, and the stigma of the GF100 was aching to be forgotten.
> 
> Had GF110 not been released, we'd be looking at Cayman cards that cost ~$375 and $450 instead of $299 and $380.
> And for that, thanks NV.
> 
> Check out the tri fire/eyefinity results in the above reviews, then reconsider your failure opinions.


No offense but if AMD was targeting the 470/480 they were stupid. EVERYONE knew that NVidia had new cards already in the works, whether it was the 485, 475 or the 570 and 580. Sorry but AMD should know that just because 1 GPU is delayed it doesn't mean everything else in the pipeline is.

The AMD fans are the ones that screamed failure at the GF100 cards. Yet at the time the 470 was priced where it should have been and the 480 price was on par with the performance it gave over the 5870, considering the 5870 was $100 for 15% more performance over the 5850 the 480 having 15% over the 5870 for $100 was fine.

The heat and power issues that had generally never been a major issue before were blown way out of proportion. GF100 wasn't a fail, it just wasn't as good as it could have been, but there is a long long of GPU's that fall into that category.

Which brings us to today. The AMD fans made the 6900's "fail". Why? Months of them saying "The 6970 will beat the 580 for a cheaper price!". Seriously go back and look at those threads. The AMD fans had unrealistic expectations. Are the 6900's fail? No, but again I think they fall into that not as good as they could have been.


----------



## tayboitd

Honestly, the fact that it seems to be hot, hungry, somewhat underwhelming while overhyped card that trades blows with Nvidia's 2nd highest GPU screams 2900 all over again. Heck the X9XX part brings back those memories.


----------



## L36

6970 will be one hell of a value once drivers mature.


----------



## tubers

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *L36;11676524*
> 6970 will be one hell of a value once drivers mature.


I sure hope so. Are there any sites that "re" reviews these kinds of cards with the use of "significant" driver upgrades? I am very interested in the 6970, 6950 and GTX 570.

Also, when's the next gen cards gonna be hitting us (7XXX and 6XX)? Is it sometime Q3 2011?









I failed to watch the 5870 vs 470 drivers mature... after several months of GTX 470 release.. I heard the 470s with "driver updates" is on par if not better than the 5870 specially with higher AA.. never saw the proof of that (links to review sites)..

Any suggestions?


----------



## A Russian :D

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tubers;11676604*
> I sure hope so. Are there any sites that "re" reviews these kinds of cards with the use of "significant" driver upgrades? I am very interested in the 6970, 6950 and GTX 570.
> 
> Also, when's the next gen cards gonna be hitting us (7XXX and 6XX)? Is it sometime Q3 2011?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I failed to watch the 5870 vs 470 drivers mature... after several months of GTX 470 release.. I heard the 470s with "driver updates" is on par if not better than the 5870 specially with higher AA.. never saw the proof of that (links to review sites)..
> 
> Any suggestions?


The GTX480 was only 5% faster then the 5870 at first review
The 3870x2 was worse then the 8800GTX ultra at first review

This should have been GTX 570 on 32nm vs the 6970 on 32nm and the full 1920 shaders on 32nm.


----------



## L36

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *A Russian ;11676677*
> The GTX480 was only 5% faster then the 5870 at first review
> The 3870x2 was worse then the 8800GTX ultra at first review
> 
> This should have been GTX 570 on 32nm vs the 6970 on 32nm and the full 1920 shaders on 32nm.


Protip 1920 shaders of V5 = 1536 of the V4 which cayman uses.
1920 shader part here is irrelevant.
Like i said, the current drivers are designed for V5, and im surprised at all cayman even performed this well on drivers that are designed for a different architecture.

One advantage GF110 has is that the driver optimizations for 480 carried over to 580 without any changes. The chip simply had more things added, but no architecture change... Here AMD cannot just carryover the drivers, they have to rewrite em, they might be able to port some things from V5 to V4, but only a tiny fraction.

TL;DR AMD has to start from the ground up for cayman drivers.


----------



## A Russian :D

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *L36;11676726*
> Protip 1920 shaders of V5 = 1536 of the V4 which cayman uses.
> 1920 shader part here is irrelevant.
> Like i said, the current drivers are designed for V5, and im surprised at all cayman even performed this well on drivers that are designed for a different architecture.
> 
> One advantage GF110 has is that the driver optimizations for 480 carried over to 580 without any changes. The chip simply had more things added, but no architecture change... Here AMD cannot just carryover the drivers, they have to rewrite em, they might be able to port some things from V5 to V4, but only a tiny fraction.
> 
> TL;DR AMD has to start from the ground up for cayman drivers.


oh I see thanks for correction.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *pursuinginsanity;11674650*
> 'Most' people don't overclock, yet lots of people still have/had problems, so I'd say you're 'most'ly wrong with that broad, general statement. Statistics don't even back up your claim so I don't know from where else you'd be pulling that "fact."
> 
> Unstable overclocks were definitely not -my- problem, as my 5770 wasn't clocked. (I don't even want to hear PEBKAC, drivers were only ever installed on a clean OS) When things like missing/transluscent textures come and go, 2d screen flicker comes and goes, v-sync comes and goes.. and the only difference is which driver is installed? Do you think it takes a genius to figure it out?
> 
> If the drivers weren't the problem, maybe the card was just unstable, period. So, which is it? Are the drivers at fault, or is it the hardware itself? I'd rather be known for making poor drivers if I were AMD...


1) I never said they did, but in general the reports of issues with ATI drivers come from the enthusiast community...who do OC generally.
2) I didn't mean GPU overclocking by itself, CPU and RAM overclocking can also cause it, I had issues with ATI drivers until I lowered my CPU overclock 100Mhz and I've heard reports of other people on this site noticing the same thing.
3) Drivers run as part of the Windows kernel, considering how complicated the code can get and the fact that even a bone stock CPU/GPU will occasionally have a miscalculation (Instability is when there are too many to recover from), I just think ATI drivers are more sensitive to instability, but then again there are some issues that do happen...But nVidia has those too.


----------



## gamervivek

well I think ati drivers do need more cpu resources than nvidia ones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_long_instruction_word
Quote:


> The VLIW approach, on the other hand, executes operations in parallel based on a fixed schedule determined when programs are compiled. Since determining the order of execution of operations (including which operations can execute simultaneously) is handled by the compiler, the processor does not need the scheduling hardware that the three techniques described above require. As a result, VLIW CPUs offer significant computational power with less hardware complexity (but greater compiler complexity) than is associated with most superscalar CPUs.


As the complier is streamlined you'll see gains at lower resolutions if cpu bottleneck is lessened, and in general if the api calls from different games are handled better. Cayman has a long way to.
The only problem is, why should you have to wait for ati to improve their drivers for each game so that by the time you see any improvement in the catalyst release notes, you are already done with the game.


----------



## L.Hemsley

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *A Russian ;11676677*
> The GTX480 was only 5% faster then the 5870 at first review
> The 3870x2 was worse then the 8800GTX ultra at first review
> 
> This should have been GTX 570 on 32nm vs the 6970 on 32nm and the full 1920 shaders on 32nm.


Wrong. The 480 were significantly faster than 5% on the 5870s at launch. Stop cherry picking games to support a lie


----------



## Liranan

I don't really care who makes the best and fastest, I care about price/performance and once again AMD beat nVidia.

I have one serious problem with the 6870 and 6900's, and I've mentioned them before in the thread: they OC horribly. The 6850 is absolute price/performance king but I prefer the 6870, but 100MHz on the core is bad, and shows it's the same chip as the 6850 but almost pushed to its limits.

I'd love to wait for the GTX 560's but they won't be as 'nice' as the 6870's. They will be slightly better than the 460 and, probably, match the 6870 and will come with the same price tag. I love AMD's CPU's but I'm disappointed in their video cards, especially the limiter.

Anyone seen reviews in which they oc'd the core more than 100MHz?


----------



## DislxeicJohn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan;11678130*
> I don't really care who makes the best and fastest, I care about price/performance and once again AMD beat nVidia.


Are you talking about stock or overclocked? I'm sure the NVIDIA cards pass up AMD when you factor in overclocking.

570 hits over 1GHz on air.
580, not sure. I'm guessing 950MHz-1GHz or higher.
480 - 900-950
470 - 850-900
460 - 900-1000

Unless these AMD cards can hit around 1200MHz+, in the end they aren't the better buy. Now if you're going to keep your card stock, go with AMD. Because you'll only get 100MHz overclock anyways


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *L36;11676726*
> Protip 1920 shaders of V5 = 1536 of the V4 which cayman uses.
> 1920 shader part here is irrelevant.
> Like i said, the current drivers are designed for V5, and im surprised at all cayman even performed this well on drivers that are designed for a different architecture.
> 
> One advantage GF110 has is that the driver optimizations for 480 carried over to 580 without any changes. The chip simply had more things added, but no architecture change... Here AMD cannot just carryover the drivers, they have to rewrite em, they might be able to port some things from V5 to V4, but only a tiny fraction.
> 
> TL;DR AMD has to start from the ground up for cayman drivers.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *A Russian ;11676958*
> oh I see thanks for correction.


Nope, wrong. VLIW-4 has 90% the performance of VLIW-4. AMD simply cut of a SIMD engine when they found out 32nm was a no go.

Don't forget that despite the bigger die area 40nm caused, it also made the 69x0 cards a lot cheaper. 32nm was extremely pricey according to Anandtech. Imagine 6 SIMD engines (384 SPs) on top of that, more SPs isn't necessarily better. If that was true, the 6970 should be slower than the 5870 since the 5870 still has more shader power (1600 VLIW-5 vs 1536 VLIW-4). Note the cut off SIMD engine on Cayman and the fact that VLIW-4 has 90% performance of VLIW-5.


----------



## ih2try

HD 6900 really compete with GTX 400:

Quote:


> Temperature & Noise Testing:
> 
> AMD Radeon HD 6950 2GB Video Card Load Temperature:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> AMD Radeon HD 6970 2GB Video Card Load Temperature:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The GPU fan got up to 2629RPM during temperature testing on the AMD Radeon HD 6970 when the card hit 92C and at 67dB it was definitely audible over the CPU coolers fan. The AMD Radeon HD 6950 peaked at 83C and the Radeon HD 6870 peaked at 92C. It should be noted that AMD PowerTune is kicking on and limiting these cards from getting any hotter.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *You can see the throttling taking place in Furmark if you leave GPU-Z open and look at the GPU Core Clock. You can see that the core clock is jumping all over the place when Furmark is running.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *What happens if you run a game? When we played Just Cause 2 we were able to get the AMD Radeon HD 6970 very hot and extremely loud. In this shot you can see what happened when we fired up GPU-Z after playing Just Cause 2, sat on the menu and then we closed the game again. We hit 97C and the fan went up to 3942RPM or 57% while the game was running. None of the other games got this hot or loud, but when in CrossFire we saw the Radeon HD 6950 hit 95C as well. We felt that this was something that was worth pointing out to our readers.*


This reminds me of how the AMD fanboy call the throttle of GTX 580 with Furmark is a fail







But yeah, let's forgive them. We're talking about the temp in real game, most if not all reviews out there say the HD 6970 runs freaking hot, hotter than GTX 570/580 and now I also know that it runs extremely loud. This really beats the GTX 480 !

Because when the GTX 480, it runs hot but its fast as the fastest single gpu in the world and it has the PhysX and is really good at DX11, and no review says its loud. But this thing is slower than the GTX 570 and runs way hotter, louder, it costs more than the GTX 570. This card really is the king of fail, it got all the disadvantage of Nvidia and AMD.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DislxeicJohn;11678178*
> Are you talking about stock or overclocked? I'm sure the NVIDIA cards pass up AMD when you factor in overclocking.
> 
> 570 hits over 1GHz on air.
> 580, not sure. I'm guessing 950MHz-1GHz or higher.
> 480 - 900-950
> 470 - 850-900
> 460 - 900-1000
> 
> Unless these AMD cards can hit around 1200MHz+, in the end they aren't the better buy. Now if you're going to keep your card stock, go with AMD. Because you'll only get 100MHz overclock anyways


The 6870 can reach over 1100, with voltage bump. However, that's best case scenario, just like your overclocks. But I'm not going to water cool my GPU, so, I won't reach 900 with a GTX 460, especially as the EVGA 460 FTW can barely pass any tests. But then an AMD 975 can reach 7GHz too.

So, after carefully taking your advice into considering I ordered a 6870 today.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ih2try;11679223*
> HD 6900 really compete with GTX 400:
> 
> This reminds me of how the AMD fanboy call the throttle of GTX 580 with Furmark is a fail
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But yeah, let's forgive them. We're talking about the temp in real game, most if not all reviews out there say the HD 6970 runs freaking hot, hotter than GTX 570/580 and now I also know that it runs extremely loud. This really beats the GTX 480 !
> 
> Because when the GTX 480, it runs hot but its fast as the fastest single gpu in the world and it has the PhysX and is really good at DX11, and no review says its loud. But this thing is slower than the GTX 570 and runs way hotter, louder, it costs more than the GTX 570. This card really is the king of fail, it got all the disadvantage of Nvidia and AMD.


They both totally fail this time, but I'm not going to blame either, especially as 32nm wasn't viable.


----------



## ih2try

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan;11679251*
> They both totally fail this time, but I'm not going to blame either, especially as 32nm wasn't viable.


I'm sorry, only AMD fails, hard. uber fail. And nm isnt an excuse, because the GTX 500s are 40 nm and they're better at everything.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

I'd think it's right to say that GF100 = G80 and GF110 is G92. Cayman is the new HD2900XT.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11679341*
> I'd think it's right to say that GF100 = G80 and GF110 is G92. Cayman is the new HD2900XT.


Cayman is more like the HD3870, it needs better drivers and it's not as fast as the top of the line nVidia but it's fairly good competition.


----------



## un-nefer

They should have released it with the rumoured 1920 SPs and I'm sure it would have easily equalled the 580


----------



## windfire

Chinese card manufacturer Yeston soon releases a non reference HD6970 using ultra luxurious 15-phase power supply, including the 12-phase core power supply, 2-phase memory power supply and a separate 1-phase I / O auxiliary power supply.

Link:http://news.mydrivers.com/1/182/182193.htm


----------



## Electroneng

Quote:


> Anyone seen reviews in which they oc'd the core more than 100MHz?


I run my 6870's at 1050 core/1110 with a P8502 Score in 3DMARK11. I am switching these cards to my 1055T so the performance score will drop slightly. I will be replacing this rig with a bulldozer rig when they are released. Bulldozer 8 core with 6870's should be epic!


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


Cayman is more like the HD3870, it needs better drivers and it's not as fast as the top of the line nVidia but it's fairly good competition.


The HD 3870 was released as planned, the HD 2900XT was late (6970 was definately not as late) and performed worse than the 8800GTX against all expectations. I think HD2900XT is more suitable. Power consumption and heat production neglected.

I think I'll have to rephrase my statement. The GTX 580 is the new 8800 ultra and the GTX 480 is the new 8800GTX. HD 6970 is the new HD2900XT.


----------



## Domino

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I think I'll have to rephrase my statement. The GTX 580 is the new 8800 ultra and the GTX 480 is the new 8800GTX. HD 6970 is the new HD2900XT.


Can't be remotely close. The HD5970 still holds the crown for the fastest single graphics card on the market. Unless you can find a comparison in the GPU wars where you find an ATI card in the lead and gives similar results; it appear that this generation is more of a HD4000 series versus G200 series where a GTX295 is not present. Not only does heat and power consumption falls in line, but so does performance.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


The HD 3870 was released as planned, the HD 2900XT was late (6970 was definately not as late) and performed worse than the 8800GTX against all expectations. I think HD2900XT is more suitable. Power consumption and heat production neglected.

I think I'll have to rephrase my statement. The GTX 580 is the new 8800 ultra and the GTX 480 is the new 8800GTX. HD 6970 is the new HD2900XT.


Not even CLOSE. 2900XT did not even come close to 8800GTX let alone 8800 ULTRA. HD 6970 is as fast or faster then GTX480.


----------



## Liranan

I've just ordered a 6870. I could have ordered a 470 but didn't want to, as my room heats up enough as it is, with the three oc'd pc's I have here.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ih2try*


I'm sorry, only AMD fails, hard. uber fail. And nm isnt an excuse, because the GTX 500s are 40 nm and they're better at everything.


For a total failure AMD have the fastest card still, and they're about to release their 6990, which will beat the 580. Of course it's a dual GPU card but they're still on one PCB.

Also for cards that are better at everything I bought a 6870 because they put out more GFlops.

I hope nVidia release a dual GPU card too, the competition will be great.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


Not even CLOSE. 2900XT did not even come close to 8800GTX let alone 8800 ULTRA. HD 6970 is as fast or faster then GTX480.


I meant the fact that the new AMD flagship GPU is equal to or slower than nVidia's last gen flagship GPU. nVidia thought the HD 2900XT was going to be a beast so they released an 8800 ultra while the 8800GTX already got the job done. I didn't mean all of the details. The HD 6970 isn't a new architecture like the HD2900XT was either.


----------



## theyellowlemon

heres WSGFs 6970 and 6950 eyefinity review.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com...eatured_Review


----------



## Liranan

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I meant the fact that the new AMD flagship GPU is equal to or slower than nVidia's last gen flagship GPU. nVidia thought the HD 2900XT was going to be a beast so they released an 8800 ultra while the 8800GTX already got the job done. I didn't mean all of the details. The HD 6970 isn't a new architecture like the HD2900XT was either.


Then nVidia fail just as much, as their new flagship card can barely match AMD's previous one.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Liranan*


Then nVidia fail just as much, as their new flagship card can barely match AMD's previous one.


I did not say AMD failed right? Also I talked about flagship GPUs not cards, that's like saying OMG an HD 6970 still can't keep up with tri SLI 8800 ultra's.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *un-nefer*


They should have released it with the rumoured 1920 SPs and I'm sure it would have easily equalled the 580










I have a feeling it was 1920 SPs until TSMC screwed up the 32nm node.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


The HD 3870 was released as planned, the HD 2900XT was late (6970 was definately not as late) and performed worse than the 8800GTX against all expectations. I think HD2900XT is more suitable. Power consumption and heat production neglected.

I think I'll have to rephrase my statement. The GTX 580 is the new 8800 ultra and the GTX 480 is the new 8800GTX. HD 6970 is the new HD2900XT.


No, not really...GTX 480 didn't add as much as the 8800GTX, the difference was huge back then and the difference now is relatively small.

HD6970 fits better as the HD3870, it's still relatively unknown how good it could do (Drivers, their optimizations since HD2900XT can't carry over to VLIW4 easily), its late (HD3870 was late in the sense that it was what HD2900XT should have been) and it doesn't beat the nVidia card.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


Not even CLOSE. 2900XT did not even come close to 8800GTX let alone 8800 ULTRA. HD 6970 is as fast or faster then GTX480.


This, the HD2900XT equaled a 8800GTS 320MB iirc, although if you ran a dual GPU setup the HD2900XT equaled the 8800GTX because SLI didn't scale as well.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I meant the fact that the new AMD flagship GPU is equal to or slower than nVidia's last gen flagship GPU. nVidia thought the HD 2900XT was going to be a beast so they released an 8800 ultra while the 8800GTX already got the job done. I didn't mean all of the details. The HD 6970 isn't a new architecture like the HD2900XT was either.


Then HD48x0 works well too, the HD4890 didn't beat the GTX 285. (Unless both were seriously OCed as the HD4890 could clock further)


----------



## SkillzKillz

I still think the HD 6xxx series is full of win considering maybe 1% of people actually buy GPUs over $400


----------



## saulin

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Liranan*


Then nVidia fail just as much, as their new flagship card can barely match AMD's previous one.


Except AMD had to use 2 GPUs to get such performance









See this is how it went down.

The GTX 480 was 6 months late and was beating the 5870 by about 5-10% at lauch and was callad a big fail. It was hot and not fast enough. More than a year later AMD can barely match the GTX 480 in performance and it also runs hot.

If the GTX 480 was a failure back then, the 6970 is a bigger failure.

With that being said. IMO the price of the 6970 justifies the performance. To me AMD failed because I'm the kind of guy that looks at performance and does not like using 2 GPUs. However the pricing is not bad for the 6970. Not as good as the pricing of the GTX 570 but it's alright.


----------



## AzO

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ih2try;11679282*
> I'm sorry, only AMD fails, hard. uber fail. And nm isnt an excuse, because the GTX 500s are 40 nm and they're better at everything.


Don't see how it fails when the price justifies it's performance. You expect a $369 card to compete or beat a $525 GTX580? Hook me up with whatever you're smokin kid, must be some good ****.

*edit* 5870 seems like a pretty good deal, can be had for as little as $250.


----------



## dimwit13

well its about time i spout off.

i sit back and laugh at all the fools that say AMD failed/NVIDIA failed.
in your eyes, maybe-but who cares what you think.
how many people here work for either one of these companies, let alone, be high up enough in the company-

TO KNOW WHAT AMD AND NIVIDA WERE TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH!!
MAYBE THE DID EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE TRYING TO DO!!!

get a life, read a book or go work for AMD/NVIDIA and make a better card.

thanks for the entertainment!!!

-dimwit-

save it, i could really give a rats *ss what you think about me.


----------



## Domino

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *saulin;11682859*
> Except AMD had to use 2 GPUs to get such performance


That argument, since the beginning, has been invalid as it is the same argument used against dual and single core CPUs. 2 GPUs or CPUs is better than 1 as there is sheerly more CPU power behind the card then 1. Furthermore, AMD/ATI cards have produced far higher CPU SP and DP calculations then Fermi.








Quote:


> If the GTX 480 was a failure back then, the 6970 is a bigger failure.


Yuppers. The 6970, currently, is a bigger failure than the 480.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *dimwit13;11683988*
> i sit back and laugh at all the fools that say AMD failed/NVIDIA failed.


I sure don't. I think a company gladdy likes to be told how crappy or good their product is so they can either fix what they did wrong or continue doing what they did good.


----------



## pioneerisloud

How about this? The 6970 failed, the GTX580 failed....let's all just go back to the Voodoo 2? Seriously, you guys and your fanboy comments are REALLY getting annoying. The 6970 isn't the top dog card, so what? It's also priced PERFECTLY in its price range.

EDIT:
And if AMD failed SOOO hard, why is it that their YEAR OLD 5970 card is STILL the top dog single card solution?


----------



## Segovax

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *pioneerisloud;11684114*
> How about this? The 6970 failed, the GTX580 failed....let's all just go back to the Voodoo 2? Seriously, you guys and your fanboy comments are REALLY getting annoying. The 6970 isn't the top dog card, so what? It's also priced PERFECTLY in its price range.
> 
> EDIT:
> And if AMD failed SOOO hard, why is it that their YEAR OLD 5970 card is STILL the top dog single card solution?


I love VooDoo 2. I have a doll on my desk and a few different snakes/skeletons/candles lying around. Let's play some black magic!!


----------



## pioneerisloud

Why do we have to have these arguments EVERY time a new high end card is released? And why is it that NOBODY understands that both Nvidia and AMD usually trade blows with the top end card? I'll bet AMD takes the lead next round...and everybody dumps all over Nvidia for it. Same cycle every year, and it is REALLY getting annoying.


----------



## Strat79

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *pioneerisloud;11684198*
> Why do we have to have these arguments EVERY time a new high end card is released? And why is it that NOBODY understands that both Nvidia and AMD usually trade blows with the top end card? I'll bet AMD takes the lead next round...and everybody dumps all over Nvidia for it. Same cycle every year, and it is REALLY getting annoying.


Not only that, but people also need to realize that if AMD wanted to release a card that would beat the 580, they could easily. It would be huge and power hungry though, something AMD has tried very hard to not let happen. It not like they couldn't make the 6970 more powerful, rest assured they could, they just opted to keep it in the "small die" arena and sell it for a competitive price. They know what sells the most and makes the most money.(Hint: It isn't the "top dog" GPU's). If they thought for a second that a greater than 580 performance card would make more profit, they would do it. The costs of producing such a card just isn't economically sound though. They are much smarter business wise than 99% of the people on here that are calling this card a failure. I'm sure they will turn a nice profit.


----------



## tubers

Just wondering.. is AMD and Nvidia having "back/under the table" conversations regarding their release of cards? Like they're conscious that they'll both hit ther "architectural" or w/e ceiling very very quickly if they don't "negotiate"? Or it's just a stpd conspiracy theory of mine?..

"We already have the cards and tech for the cards for 5 years in the future.. how we gonna maximize money from customers, bro?" -Nvidia and ATI


----------



## ____

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tubers;11685365*
> Just wondering.. is AMD and Nvidia having "back/under the table" conversations regarding their release of cards? Like they're conscious that they'll both hit ther "architectural" or w/e ceiling very very quickly if they don't "negotiate"? Or it's just a stpd conspiracy theory of mine?..
> 
> "We already have the cards and tech for the cards for 5 years in the future.. how we gonna maximize money from customers, bro?" -Nvidia and ATI


That will never happen. Corporations are run by honest people who want the best for their customers and not for themselves.


----------



## AzO

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tubers;11685365*
> Just wondering.. is AMD and Nvidia having "back/under the table" conversations regarding their release of cards? Like they're conscious that they'll both hit ther "architectural" or w/e ceiling very very quickly if they don't "negotiate"? Or it's just a stpd conspiracy theory of mine?..
> 
> "We already have the cards and tech for the cards for 5 years in the future.. how we gonna maximize money from customers, bro?" -Nvidia and ATI
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *____;11686679*
> That will never happen. Corporations are run by honest people who want the best for their customers and not for themselves.
Click to expand...

Exactly, these 2 companies are known for their selfless honesty and integrity and will never do such a thing to their customers. Imagine what would happen if intelligent fanboys on this thread found out?


----------



## tubers

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *____;11686679*
> That will never happen. Corporations are run by honest people who want the best for their customers and not for themselves.


Hmm on a serious note.. I think there are more concerned on how they maximize their income from their work.. Not really saying this is completely bad to..
Quote:


> *AzO:*
> 
> Exactly, these 2 companies are known for their selfless honesty and integrity and will never do such a thing to their customers. Imagine what would happen if intelligent fanboys on this thread found out?


So this is likely to have been happening? But the GTX 2XX vs 4XXXHD seems to say this thing didn't happen? Hm...

Did ATI give this round away? xD


----------



## Gabe63

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tubers;11688662*
> Hmm on a serious note.. I think there are more concerned on how they maximize their income from their work.. Not really saying this is completely bad to..
> 
> So this is likely to have been happening? But the GTX 2XX vs 4XXXHD seems to say this thing didn't happen? Hm...
> 
> Did ATI give this round away? xD


You guys are killing me!


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tubers;11688662*
> Hmm on a serious note.. I think there are more concerned on how they maximize their income from their work.. Not really saying this is completely bad to..
> 
> So this is likely to have been happening? But the GTX 2XX vs 4XXXHD seems to say this thing didn't happen? Hm...
> 
> Did ATI give this round away? xD


HAHA, well done at missing the sarcasm.


----------



## Murderous Moppet

Is it possible to take the stock cooler off of one of these and use the stock backplate/heatspreader with a universal water block like with previous generations? I've looked at photos of the cooler and I can't tell.


----------



## Iching

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tubers;11685365*
> Just wondering.. is AMD and Nvidia having "back/under the table" conversations regarding their release of cards? Like they're conscious that they'll both hit ther "architectural" or w/e ceiling very very quickly if they don't "negotiate"? Or it's just a stpd conspiracy theory of mine?..
> 
> "We already have the cards and tech for the cards for 5 years in the future.. how we gonna maximize money from customers, bro?" -Nvidia and ATI


Cartels are everywhere and this is a prime example.


----------



## tubers

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan;11689367*
> HAHA, well done at missing the sarcasm.


Hmm.. Im pretty sure the sarcasm part was here:
Quote:


> Exactly, these 2 companies are known for their selfless honesty and integrity and will never do such a thing to their customers


I didn't get your point, sorry.


----------



## tubers

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Iching*


Cartels are everywhere and this is a prime example.


Oh.. just learnt the definition today:

*"a consortium of independent organizations formed to limit competition by controlling the production and distribution of a product or service; "they set up the trust in the hope of gaining a monopoly""..*

Should this impact "fanboyism/tribalism" if proven true?


----------



## Liranan

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Iching*


Cartels are everywhere and this is a prime example.


Obviously AMD, Intel and nVidia need eachother. If even a single one of them disappear it'd be disastrous for the other two.


----------



## Killam0n

If one quit, then who would we ***** about when our video cards don't perform acts of god?


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *saulin;11682859*
> Except AMD had to use 2 GPUs to get such performance


And nVidia required the power usage of two GPUs to beat one by an around 10%.
Yeah, I can do that too, but with that said...I'd be all over the GTX 570 if I was buying now.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Strat79;11685072*
> Not only that, but people also need to realize that if AMD wanted to release a card that would beat the 580, they could easily. It would be huge and power hungry though, something AMD has tried very hard to not let happen. It not like they couldn't make the 6970 more powerful, rest assured they could, they just opted to keep it in the "small die" arena and sell it for a competitive price. They know what sells the most and makes the most money.(Hint: It isn't the "top dog" GPU's). If they thought for a second that a greater than 580 performance card would make more profit, they would do it. The costs of producing such a card just isn't economically sound though. They are much smarter business wise than 99% of the people on here that are calling this card a failure. I'm sure they will turn a nice profit.


It's actually a fairly large die for an AMD card, although I have a feeling while it was still meant to be 32nm, it was going to have 1920 shaders and a few other cut features. (Only confirmed one is PCIe 3.0)
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan;11690760*
> Obviously AMD, Intel and nVidia need eachother. If even a single one of them disappear it'd be disastrous for the other two.


It depends, if the government didn't split up the remaining companies it could be very good for say, AMD if Intel disappeared, plus it'd be very good for us...If they wanted to, IBM could start designing CPUs again, if AMD is a anorexic geek and Intel is a 300lb Gorilla, then IBM is the massive giant with his head literally in the clouds.

With that said, Intel is trying very hard to put AMD in as small of a position as they can, so they can't compete (No money for R&D) but if the government goes "Hey...This is a monopoly" Intel can say "Well, AMDs still a competitor."


----------



## Liranan

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


With that said, Intel is trying very hard to put AMD in as small of a position as they can, so they can't compete (No money for R&D) but if the government goes "Hey...This is a monopoly" Intel can say "Well, AMDs still a competitor."


This is why, as long as AMD don't create another Phenom I, I'll be only buying AMD.


----------



## Strat79

Yeah Brutuz, it is a larger die than they usually put out. Mainly due to the cancelled 32nm node of course. It would have probably been 1920 shaders @32nm as well as being smaller than the 1536 shader part @40nm. They still could have made it bigger though, that is what I was saying. It is bigger than their norm, but they could have went even bigger and more powerful(while still being smaller or same size as the 580), just not economically. It wouldn't have been as much as a money maker as the one they put out. That is all I was trying to say, it isn't what most people think about on here, but they are trying to maximize profits, which does not always mean having the best top GPU out, at whatever size and expense it takes. They put out the best they could that would still make the most money for them, that is all.


----------



## Domino

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Strat79*


Not only that, but people also need to realize that if AMD wanted to release a card that would beat the 580, they could easily. It would be huge and power hungry though, something AMD has tried very hard to not let happen.


Oh exactly, but that in itself is a difficult task. To meet a thermal/power envelope is not as easy as "If we wanted to make a faster card, we could!" Their current card draws 250 watts, 50 more watts wouldn't give it massive differences in performance, nor would it be easy to cool. An inefficient card is harder to manufacture then one that does. Look at the original Fermi and how much of a flop that was. It just killed Nvidia's consumer graphics market until the GTX460 arrived.

To design a card that works and competes with the current generation, even in mid-range, is quite difficult to achieve under a new platform. We are dealing with an arch change with a entirely different shader formation. Give this card time and it will for sure gain some significant boosts; just like Fermi. At least this round, the 6990 will hold AMD as the fastest card on the market and won't suffer as much as Fermi did for Nvidia.


----------



## xgeko2

Just curious has anyone received a 6970 and played with the bios switch yet? Iv'e read a lot of reviews and they talk about it but no one seems to throw the little switch and see whats on the other bios from factory? I ordered one and will be getting it i think Wednesday to play with.


----------



## Rocker delMaL

Does anybody knows if the Saphphire BF BC 2 Vietnam Edition @Newegg comes with the special suitcase? 
here's the link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-916-_-Product


----------



## mark076h

The AMD "Mecha Rampage" demo that we posted about back in November has been officially released and available for download by AMD.
Quote:


> The HK-2207 real-time demo features a number of post processing effects (depth-of-field, lens flare, ghosting, aerial perspective/atmospheric, LUT, emissive and reflection) provided as an easy approach for developers and artists to adopt Microsoft® DirectX® 11 programming. This demo also uses a current trend in game engines utilizing deferred lighting and deferred shading allowing many more lights and rapid prototyping. A newly developed GPU accelerated physics particle system is introduced utilizing DX11 DirectCompute. Bullet Physics is used with a new fracture/destruction approach that also features procedurally generated unique debris leveraging DX11 tessellation.


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWL1Ikdqd9Q[/ame]


----------



## SpeedNuggeT

oh wow.


----------



## yang88she

Um, off to Google, bc my caffeine from 5am is wearing off


----------



## BradleyW

I guess the 69XX cards run this well?


----------



## Riou

Any DX11 card can run this demo, even Nvidia.


----------



## Strat79

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *BradleyW;11719233*
> I guess the 69XX cards run this well?


I would hope so. They would be shooting themselves in the foot if they couldn't


----------



## grunion

Don't waste your time.


----------



## Thingamajig

am i the only one who thought it was a bit...rubbish?


----------



## tubers

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Thingamajig*


am i the only one who thought it was a bit...rubbish?


 What is it for really? It looks like crap. (real question)


----------



## AzO

What it all comes down to is what your needs are.

If you want a multi-monitor setup or HTPC or both ATI would be the easier solution.

If you want raw graphics power then the GTX580 (or 2) will satisfy your needs.


----------



## MagicBox

And if you want to get the good stuff, the stuff Fermi and Southern Islands have been really designed for (28nm), you will wait and ride your current graphics


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:


> With the R6850 Cyclone Power Edition, MSI is offering a very potent product, in its baseline performance it is already a decent chunk faster than the reference 6850 products available on the market and there's great overclocking headroom left as well. As you have been able to see, with the help of a Voltage tweak with AfterBurner we were able to push the graphics core over a full GHz .. that's mighty impressive when you realize the default reference clock is just 775 MHz.


SOURCE

Not a bad overclocker it seems, and manages to play level with the GTX470 in most of the games.


----------



## Jzkillzone23

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Core2uu;11769023*
> SOURCE
> 
> Not a bad overclocker it seems, and manages to play level with the GTX470 in most of the games.
> [/SIZE][/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]


Intresting


----------



## staryoshi

The Cyclone is one of my favorite non-reference designs. Sexy card.


----------



## bl4ckdr4g0n

Is that a zalman cooler on there?


----------



## $till LegendaryU2K

why do they keep adding that same damn cooler on every product they seem to release?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *staryoshi;11769623*
> The Cyclone is one of my favorite non-reference designs. Sexy card.


It looks the same like the rest MUHAHA


----------



## Willhemmens

Quote:



Originally Posted by *$till LegendaryU2K*


why do they keep adding that same damn cooler on every product they seem to release?

It looks the same like the rest MUHAHA


Because the cooler works. I have one on my 460 1GB, it overclocks great with the cooler and is quiter than any other stock cooler I've had and mine atleast is as near silent your going to get with a stock air cooler.

You can just lock the fan speed right down at 40% which is 1200RPM and the card runs at 56'c after atleast 48 hours of folding, not much more you can for.


----------



## Redwoodz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *$till LegendaryU2K*


why do they keep adding that same damn cooler on every product they seem to release?

It looks the same like the rest MUHAHA


 That's because it is the best all-around stock cooler,period.Mine is running 275Mhz over stock and never get's over 70c and I have yet to hear it after 12 months of use.


----------



## dantoddd

I like this card. wonder how much it will cost


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:



Originally Posted by *$till LegendaryU2K*


why do they keep adding that same damn cooler on every product they seem to release?

It looks the same like the rest MUHAHA


It's a fantastic cooler for mid range cards. It's much quieter than most and it is amazingly efficient at displacing heat. That's why.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *bl4ckdr4g0n*


Is that a zalman cooler on there?


Nope, it's a proprietary design


----------



## Name Change

Cyclone cooler is a beast.. Nuff said..


----------



## -iceblade^

looks like a classic cyclone product.

looks sexy too. nice to see MSI pushing the bounds yet again







. is this better than the Toxic 6850 though?


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:



Originally Posted by *-iceblade^*


looks like a classic cyclone product.

looks sexy too. nice to see MSI pushing the bounds yet again







. is this better than the Toxic 6850 though?


The Toxic comes stock-clocked at 820Mhz while the Cyclone comes stock-clocked at 860MHz, so you can either interpret that as higher-binning or more agressive clocking by MSI. Regardless of that though both these cards can hit over 1GHz easily. Memory clocks from 1.1GHz stock up to 1.2GHz for both these cards.

The other comparison left is temperatures and noise and from what I can gather, the Toxic isn't as impressive in that as the Cyclone which has low temps and silence to match.


----------



## james8

wow when overclocked to 1 GHz it easily surpasses GTX 470 and HD 6870 at stock clocks. nice


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:



Originally Posted by *james8*


wow when overclocked to 1 GHz it easily surpasses GTX 470 and HD 6870 at stock clocks. nice


Many lesser cards can overcome superior cards when overclocked







But when both are overclocked, the scales tip again of course.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Merged; review link added to first post.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

What i dont like about this card is that it has no RAM cooling and the VRM cooler looks so small i wonder what temps it gets when you add voltage.


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11772880*
> What i dont like about this card is that it has no RAM cooling and the VRM cooler looks so small i wonder what temps it gets when you add voltage.


From the review:
Quote:


> Voltage tweaking was done with AfterBurner (download here), we applied 1250MMv on the core. Our stable end result was 1017 MHz on the core and 4800 MHz on the memory. The temps did increase, but remained steady at roughly 65 Degrees C only. DBA levels go up towards 42~43 DBa if you use roughly 75% fan RPM. All acceptable.


Not bad I'd say. That Cyclone cooler works really well.


----------



## Brutuz

I prefer the TwinFrozr cooler.


----------



## damric

Quote:


> Looks like Santa brought an extra present for us hardware enthusiasts this year. Thanks to a less secure locking method AMD's new Radeon HD 6950 can be unlocked to a full blown HD 6970 with a few mouse clicks.
> 
> As detailed in our article, you can safely perform the flashing process from within Windows. In case something goes wrong it is easier than ever to recover the card thanks to AMD's new Dual-BIOS feature.
> 
> We tested the unlock on three HD 6950 cards: one AMD engineering sample, one HIS media sample and one ASUS retail card. All of them unlocked perfectly and run at HD 6970 speeds now.


Source










These cards also have a back-up BIOS built-in







Do I see the sale of 6950 going up UP UP


----------



## farmdve

Great news for 6950 owners


----------



## cky2k6

Order being placed.


----------



## damric

I wonder if they did this on purpose, as a marketing scheme to sell a ton of 6900 series cards (assuming it costs them just the same to make either 6950 and 6970).


----------



## beers

Gander it would work on :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125356&cm_re=6950-_-14-125-356-_-Product
?
Probably the cheapest 6950, I'd buy one right now if that were the case


----------



## cky2k6

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *damric;11784443*
> I wonder if they did this on purpose, as a marketing scheme to sell a ton of 6900 series cards (assuming it costs them just the same to make either 6950 and 6970).


I dunno, but a 6970 just isn't a good value. The 6950 already gets 97% of the performance at the same clocks, and now theres no difference, the 6950 is a no brainer even compared to a gtx570 for the price.


----------



## nagle3092

Low blow to all 6970 buyers.


----------



## -iceblade^

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nagle3092;11784475*
> Low blow to all 6970 buyers.


this.

it happens though


----------



## amstech

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *-iceblade^;11784495*
> this.
> 
> it happens though


Very interesting indeed.
Just some of them or all of them?

The 6950 pwns the $300 segment.


----------



## beers

This pushed me over the edge...ordered..
Yay no more 3870


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cky2k6;11784472*
> I dunno, but a 6970 just isn't a good value. The 6950 already gets 97% of the performance at the same clocks, and now theres no difference, the 6950 is a no brainer even compared to a gtx570 for the price.


The other difference is that they have different memory chips. HD 6970 has 6gb/s rated were HD 6950 are rated for 5gb/s


----------



## geoxile

I'd think this is just for the current batch, not unlike the release of Phenom II x2s and the X3, they locked perfectly fine PII X4 cpus to meet the merchandising quota for the lower tier PIIs IIRC.


----------



## tianh

Would this work on a Sapphire 6950?

*edit: read the link and yes it would. If I waited for a non reference cooling design from sapphire can it still be done?


----------



## MaxFTW

Wait... Did AMD just counter pwn Nvidia?



I just brought a 5850... Now im getting one of these


----------



## IntelLover

This is just like the GTX465s all over again? I bet some company is going to come an make a "golden" edition that can 100% unlock after these run out.


----------



## Razi3l

Oh God YES! I can't wait to get mine back from RMA


----------



## Kand

I'd buy one, but a GTX 570 costs about the same as a 6950 here.

So.

Nope. 28nm plz.


----------



## Mygaffer

Interesting. The only thing I would worry about is that the memory is stable, AMD uses two different types of memory on the 6970 and the 6950, the memory used on the 6950 isn't rated as for as high a speed as the memory on the 6970. It might be stable at the 6970's stock clocks, but it probably won't overclock as high. It may not even be stable at the unlocked speeds in all cards.

I'm still trying this as soon as I get home!


----------



## Frosty88

Well...I just cancelled my order for a Sapphire 6970.

Should I pull the trigger on two 6950s? I think so!


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kand;11784631*
> I'd buy one, but a GTX 570 costs about the same as a 6950 here.
> 
> So.
> 
> Nope. 28nm plz.


Then GTX 570 is the better card.


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11784652*
> Then GTX 570 is the better card.


At this point, neither are. :I


----------



## grunion

2x6 vs 1x6 + 1x8









Power constraints, wonder if these guys will hit a wall?


----------



## Jean-Luc

I hope nvidia drops the 570's price to 299.99 now.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *grunion;11784669*
> 2x6 vs 1x6 + 1x8
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Power constraints, wonder if these guys will hit a wall?


There are solder pads so one _can_ solder on a 8pin connector, no?








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Jean-Luc;11784690*
> I hope nvidia drops the 570's price to 299.99 now.


They dont have to, and they wont. Anyways, once i get mine back from RMA i'll definately report back and see what happens


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *grunion;11784669*
> 2x6 vs 1x6 + 1x8
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Power constraints, wonder if these guys will hit a wall?


Doubtful. It's a difference of 75w between the 2x6 and 1x6 + 1x8 and the 6970 is rated to be 250w where 1x6 + 1x8 allots for 375w total including the PCI-E 2.0 lane.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Hmm, it seems a lot of people tried and got artifacts. It's not really that much of a problem though since the 6950 has a BIOS switch. What about the power limiter and such though?

This card is very interesting at 250 euros right now. Are the Cat. 10.12 drivers any better for HD 6900?

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=335318&page=3


----------



## kidwolf909

Tempted to make this a late Christmas present to myself. Not sure if I would keep the card though... I love my Golden Edition 470


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Frosty88;11784647*
> Well...I just cancelled my order for a Sapphire 6970.
> 
> Should I pull the trigger on two 6950s? I think so!


Just to be clear the 6970 is still a better card. One, the memory is the higher binned memory, two, it has the 8-pin power adapter.

While sure, you can unlock your card and it _may_ be stable at 6970 stock clocks, it almost definitely will not clock as high.

Still, I will be doing the unlock. I still may get a 6970 as well.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11784730*
> Hmm, it seems a lot of people tried and got artifacts. It's not really that much of a problem though since the 6950 has a BIOS switch. What about the power limiter and such though?
> 
> This card is very interesting at 250 euros right now. Are the Cat. 10.12 drivers any better for HD 6900?
> 
> http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=335318&page=3


Yea the preview ones? I've had no problems on my 6950 while i had it








Oh man, now i want my RMA to hurry up even more


----------



## Noir

So this is like CPU unlocking now LOL


----------



## beers

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Noir;11784990*
> So this is like CPU unlocking now LOL


Card unlocks have been around for ages








Same crap happened back in the day with a 9800 unlocking pipelines to a 9800 Pro..


----------



## JY

omg!!! are you serious? i asked if this could be done a while ago. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im doing it


----------



## Yvese

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *beers;11785025*
> Card unlocks have been around for ages
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Same crap happened back in the day with a 9800 unlocking pipelines to a 9800 Pro..


What about Geforce 6800XT's unlocking to GT's? Or maybe I got that wrong. But I do remember that the Geforce 5200 was unlockable to something higher.

This is awesome if this works perfectly









Still wont buy one though. Will wait for a game that brings my 5850 to its knees. By that time the 7xxx and 6xx series will be out


----------



## damric

Maybe I can unlock my wife into Adrianna Lima


----------



## SlackerITGuy

Still not tempted enough to get one of these 6950s cards.

Cayman's AA performance lags way behind NVIDIA's GTX 400/500 series cards.

In fact, under BFBC2 (which is where I spend most of my gaming time on), the min FPS of these cards are not that different from my GTX 470.

Hardware Canucks:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/38899-amd-radeon-hd-6970-hd-6950-review-16.html

bit-tech:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/12/16/ati-radeon-hd-6950-review/9

Sticking with my GTX 470 until the GTX 570 drops down to the low $300s.


----------



## JY

anyone know where i could buy an 8 pin socket to solder onto it? i would overclock it past the 6970 clocks and i would need the connector


----------



## LingLing1337

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *SlackerITGuy;11785284*
> Still not tempted enough to get one of these 6950s cards.
> 
> Cayman's AA performance lags way behind NVIDIA's GTX 400/500 series cards.
> 
> In fact, under BFBC2 (which is where I spend most of my gaming time on), the min FPS of these cards are not that different from my GTX 470.
> 
> Hardware Canucks:
> 
> http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/38899-amd-radeon-hd-6970-hd-6950-review-16.html
> 
> bit-tech:
> 
> http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/12/16/ati-radeon-hd-6950-review/9
> 
> Sticking with my GTX 470 until the GTX 570 drops down to the low $300s.


^OT but what performance changes do you see in BC2 with the modded Quadro drivers (compared to 260.99?)


----------



## tryceo

The memory shouldn't matter because you can overclock it








Both are 256 bit, and even the card length of both cards are the same. I think they are the same card only with some cores locked.


----------



## SlackerITGuy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *LingLing1337;11785449*
> ^OT but what performance changes do you see in BC2 with the modded Quadro drivers (compared to 260.99?)


Significant performance changes.

With R260 branch drivers, I would get anywhere from ~60% to ~90% GPU usage.

265.90: ~90% GPU usage *AT ALL TIMES.*

Best driver set for Fermi based cards without a doubt.


----------



## runnin17

If I didn't just get an amazing deal for dual 5850's I would be all over this. Oh well, my directCU's overclock to 960 core easily and thus are more than enough for me for at least a year or two.


----------



## Riou

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *damric;11784372*
> These cards also have a back-up BIOS built-in
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Do I see the sale of 6950 going up UP UP


There is a dip switch near the crossfire fingers. That switches the bios afaik.


----------



## txtrkandy

Thats......soo......TEMPTING!!!


----------



## jprovido

I can only get my hands on powercolor 6950's here in Manila. is it safe to say all 6950's are unlockable?? very very very tempting indeed. deals like this when you feel like you're getting more than you paid fore makes it really irresistible for me


----------



## damric

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Riou;11785534*
> There is a dip switch near the crossfire fingers. That switches the bios afaik.


Yeah, AMD made this flashing absolutely idiot proof


----------



## Internets

Damn... I just purchased my GTX 570 as well.


----------



## jprovido

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *damric;11785793*
> Yeah, AMD made this flashing absolutely idiot proof


lol so true


----------



## beers

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jprovido;11785791*
> is it safe to say all 6950's are unlockable??


It looks like everything at the moment is based on reference design..


----------



## Pillz Here

This is epic. Almost makes me want to switch back to the red side.


----------



## bak3donh1gh

Would anyone say it would be worth it to upgrade to a 6950(flash it) over crossfire 4890s?


----------



## jprovido

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *bak3donh1gh;11785885*
> Would anyone say it would be worth it to upgrade to a 6950(flash it) over crossfire 4890s?


hmmm..not much of an upgrade really imo


----------



## awdrifter

Nice. But I think only some batches will be unlockable, just like the Phenom II dual and tri-core unlocks.


----------



## Gabe63

Gigabyte 6950 on the EGG for $279 after MIR.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125356&cm_re=6950-_-14-125-356-_-Product

Since they changed their warranty to a 3 year ser based warranty it looks like a good buy.


----------



## jprovido

calling all power color 6950 owners. unlock your cards now. ima buy one asap. help a brother out! thanks!!!


----------



## solidsteel144

Just remember guys... There is no guarantee that it will unlock stable.


----------



## allenottawa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jy360;11785165*
> omg!!! are you serious? i asked if this could be done a while ago. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im doing it


You win.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jy360;11764651*
> ok, so the 6950 and the 6970 are exacly the same gpu but the 6950 has some of its stream processors and one of the power connectors changed to another 6 pin. it still has the little socket for it to be an 8 pin so im wondering, is it possible to unlock those disabled stream processors?
> 
> edit: id just like to say, my system is not yet complete but I do have the card. just that I cant use it yet


----------



## Xinoxide

I 'quite' LITERALLY began the beginnings of the need to... yep... there it is. BRB.


----------



## Lostintyme

Wow, I might sell my 5870 to do this. REP+ man thanks!


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Razi3l;11784627*
> Oh God YES!


I think Razi3l just came...


----------



## calavera

nice, talk about friendly fire. hehe


----------



## Valcapsio

Thats extremely interesting...


----------



## sendblink23

this sounds very tasty on a good price - that is if you get lucky


----------



## yoshi245

Just tried this out with my Sapphire 6950, gonna run BC2 and Black Ops later, but my shaders are at 1600 exactly now heh. Didn't expect it to go that high.


----------



## Nutty

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yoshi245;11786497*
> Just tried this out with my Sapphire 6950, gonna run BC2 and Black Ops later, but my shaders are at 1600 exactly now heh. Didn't expect it to go that high.


Glitch. That's all there is to it.

Or it's a 5870 disguised as a 6970. Which means, you got jippied.


----------



## Frosty88

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yoshi245;11786497*
> Just tried this out with my Sapphire 6950, gonna run BC2 and Black Ops later, but my shaders are at 1600 exactly now heh. Didn't expect it to go that high.


You need the latest version of GPU-Z. I think it's a beta version or something. Either way, it should display 1536 once using the latest version.


----------



## pewpewlazer

Great. The one time I don't cheap out and instead buy the fastest card I can reasonably afford, this happens.


----------



## yoshi245

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Frosty88;11786724*
> You need the latest version of GPU-Z. I think it's a beta version or something. Either way, it should display 1536 once using the latest version.


Yeah, you're right, updated it, ran it. Showing proper numbers now though


















Ran it for about nearly half hour on Medal of Honor single player, stable.


----------



## hli53194

Don't understand how these companies work. Why would thy ever disable features on cards to sell them at lower prices? Wouldn't it be a better idea to just sell the card at a lower price WITH everything enabled so they steal all the business from their competitors? If the cost is the same, what's the point of disabling this stuff? Just sell everyhing including the 6970 at the 6950 price. Win win situation.


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *mbarry;11786923*
> Don't understand how these companies work. Why would thy ever disable features on cards to sell them at lower prices? Wouldn't it be a better idea to just sell the card at a lower price WITH everything enabled so they steal all the business from their competitors? If the cost is the same, what's the point of disabling this stuff? Just sell everyhing including the 6970 at the 6950 price. Win win situation.


6950's are 6970's that didn't meet AMD's standard.
Some of the Cayman chips work fine and were crippled to make enough 6950's. Some other chips had defects and instead of AMD throwing them away they just disabled some SP's and sold them as 6950's.


----------



## dude120

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jprovido;11785941*
> hmmm..not much of an upgrade really imo


Agreed crossfired 4890's leaves you around gtx 480 performance on a good day. That could actually be a slight downgrade depending on the game. Now two of these on the otherhand, would be an insanely good deal.


----------



## flyin15sec

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jy360;11785407*
> anyone know where i could buy an 8 pin socket to solder onto it? i would overclock it past the 6970 clocks and i would need the connector


I don't think you can just add a 8pin power adapter. Likely there are missing resistors, caps, voltage regulators or they are there but not the correct rating for the added power.


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *solidsteel144;11787067*
> 6950's are 6970's that didn't meet AMD's standard.
> Some of the Cayman chips work fine and were placed there to make sure there was enough 6950's on the market. Some other chips had defects and instead of AMD throwing them away they just disabled some SP's and sold them as 6950's.


Yes


----------



## Frosty88

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *solidsteel144;11787067*
> 6950's are 6970's that didn't meet AMD's standard.
> *Some of the Cayman chips work fine and were placed there to make sure there was enough 6950's on the market.* Some other chips had defects and instead of AMD throwing them away they just disabled some SP's and sold them as 6950's.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sLowEnd;11787361*
> Some of them are like that.
> Some are capable 6*9*70's that were converted to 6*9*50's for supply and demand reasons.


----------



## Drumheros

Need to get one now.


----------



## Vispor

It's no different than people buying a 1090t over an 1100t. Even the 1055t overclocks just as high if you have a decent enough mobo that can handle the high FSB.


----------



## Fear of Oneself

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *bak3donh1gh;11785885*
> Would anyone say it would be worth it to upgrade to a 6950(flash it) over crossfire 4890s?


yea, i would, you get DX11 and the advantages of single GPU, however, depending on the games you play, it won't be worth it because you'll get lower frames


----------



## Namwons

i have been saying this ever since we found out about the dual bios switch prelaunch


----------



## shnur

Hehe, that's pretty amazing! Now there's going to be a shortage of the 6950's...


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Frosty88;11787514*


Ah crud. Fixed.


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Frosty88;11787514*


Sound the alarms, I made a sentence error.


----------



## SyncMaster753

For all the 6950 owners: test your max OC before and after the flash, it would be interesting how high they clock as 6970's (because it seems that from the reviews that clockspeed made more of a difference than the number of SP's)

Still a sweet find, and with dual Bios' you can toggle what card it is haha.

*PS:* any 6970 owners want to try flashing their cards to 6950's and seeing how high they can OC?


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Can you add voltages with these Bios? I will probably pick up a HD 6950 just for this.


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11787887*
> Can you add voltages with these Bios? I will probably pick up a HD 6950 just for this.


Yes.


----------



## Brenslick

Oh jeez.....this is great news. A Week ago I was saying that the 6950 was priced to awkwardly to make any impact on the market. But if any 6950 can be unlocked, Say hello to the knew king of value, and the bad thing for nvidia is that it can't really drop the 570s prices without the unlock-ability of 6950s becoming a commonly known fact.


----------



## gerikoh

Selling my 6850s now.


----------



## tsm106

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *beers;11784460*
> Gander it would work on :
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125356&cm_re=6950-_-14-125-356-_-Product
> ?
> Probably the cheapest 6950, I'd buy one right now if that were the case


If you're tax free with Amazon, they have 6950's for 292 shipped.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *awdrifter;11785971*
> Nice. But I think only some batches will be unlockable, just like the Phenom II dual and tri-core unlocks.


AFAIK, all current product use bios to lock the shaders. Future batches will probably be fused lock on the silicon, so move it or lose it?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jprovido;11785791*
> I can only get my hands on powercolor 6950's here in Manila. is it safe to say all 6950's are unlockable?? very very very tempting indeed. deals like this when you feel like you're getting more than you paid fore makes it really irresistible for me


refer to above reply.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *flyin15sec;11787256*
> I don't think you can just add a 8pin power adapter. Likely there are missing resistors, caps, voltage regulators or they are there but not the correct rating for the added power.


I read the extra pins are ground. It's too late for me to rustle around to check misc 8pin pcie cables, but hmm...


----------



## beers

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tsm106;11788371*
> If you're tax free with Amazon, they have 6950's for 292 shipped.


No rebate, though


----------



## tsm106

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *beers;11788395*
> No rebate, though


Hehe, I didn't even look at that, oops. It's newegg and I get taxed so even with that it's not attractive enough. Now that I see it the rebate covers tax for poor Cali ppl but it's easier/cheaper for us to buy it from the place named after large woman.


----------



## eugenepvd

I bet there will be no 6950's left in like a week!


----------



## beers

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *eugenepvd;11788545*
> I bet there will be no 6950's left in like a week!


I keep refreshing on newegg to see if any go out of stock, hah.
I'd imagine by tomorrow at least one will, the Asus one already is..


----------



## dlee7283

so basically you are saving 50-70 bucks by using this method?


----------



## eugenepvd

Has anyone realy mod this from here succesfully and it did work?


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *eugenepvd;11788839*
> Has anyone realy mod this from here succesfully and it did work?


It works for most cards so far.


----------



## Diabolical999

Now that'd be awesome if the 6970 had disabled shaders that could be unlocked.


----------



## beers

Word.


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *beers;11789450*
> Word.


Syllable


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Diabolical999;11789045*
> Now that'd be awesome if the 6970 had disabled shaders that could be unlocked.


I guess so, except that card is already the top end card and since AMD can actually design a build-able gpu (sorry, troll) there are no disabled shaders on their top end. I've been waiting all weekend to get home and try this. Here I go!

I've been getting a weird BSOD since installing this 6950, system_service_exception, B3, anyone know what that is about? Is it a driver issue, is the card bad, or a conflict with some other piece of hardware I have? Whenever I try to hit "program" winflash I get a different BSOD, video scheduler or something, so I am pretty sure something is wrong with my new video card.


----------



## hollowtek

DAMN so tempted... must wate for 28nm...


----------



## BeDuckie

Just picked up my Sapphire 6950 today after a 2 hour wait this morning. All I can say is this is quite a pleasant surprise, especially since my card was able to be unlocked and overclocked to stock 6970 speeds in less than 5 minutes. This is some serious value for $300, with unlock rates seemingly perfect so far, I presume 6950 sales will skyrocket. I will attempt to push this card even further and further test stability tomorrow. Thanks AMD!


----------



## solidsteel144

I'm really glad to see so many success stories.









Go buy 6950's, people!

*wants more people in the 6900 series club*


----------



## beers

I hate how my Newegg order is sitting on Charged









FASTARRR
However, on the invoice they do say shipping from TN.

CMONNN TUESDAY..
Probably Wednesday


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *beers;11789626*
> I hate how my Newegg order is sitting on Charged
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> FASTARRR
> However, on the invoice they do say shipping from TN.
> 
> CMONNN TUESDAY..
> Probably Wednesday


It would suck if you got one that artifacts.


----------



## AuraNova

There, there beers, it will be here in due time.

On another note, Newegg just limited the Gigabyte 6950 to 5 per customer. (Yeah, I was watching the stock on them for a while.) I don't know about the others though.


----------



## beers

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *solidsteel144;11789637*
> It would suck if you got one that artifacts.


Meh, 6950 in stock form is better than a 512m 3870 trying to push games in 1080p


----------



## tsm106

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AuraNova;11789641*
> On another note, Newegg just limited the Gigabyte 6950 to 5 per customer. (Yeah, I was watching the stock on them for a while.) I don't know about the others though.


Ooh, the Visiontek is outta stock now.


----------



## Jean-Luc

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *solidsteel144;11789637*
> It would suck if you got one that artifacts.


Won't process till the morning.


----------



## beers

But it IS the morning


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *solidsteel144;11789637*
> It would suck if you got one that artifacts.


Well, mine artifacts. Judging by the type of artifacts I am guessing memory, which just means I'll downclock the memory a bit.

Anyway, to anyone interested here is my unlock:
Before unlock Unigine 2.1









And after the unlock. I'll come back and update if downclocking my memory gets rid of the artifacts. It only artifacted very briefly 4 different times during the Unigine benchmark.









Pretty frickin' sweet. I think memory if anything is where people will encounter problems, as the memory on the 6950 is a lower binned product not rated for the same speed as the memory being used in the 6970.

Edit: I should also note the card is getting nearly 10C hotter after the unlock. The price one pays I guess.


----------



## Artikbot

AMD just scored a big FTW in their marketing strategies.

The geek part will now buy more HD6950s than they would just because they get a higher value item for a lower price, and the top end market will still buy the HD6970s because they're unlocked and they can avoid the hassle of unlocking them


----------



## tsm106

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Mygaffer;11789699*
> Edit: I should also note the card is getting nearly 10C hotter after the unlock. The price one pays I guess.


Makes sense right? Most of the reviews show the 6970 to be hotter. It won't matter much under water.









http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1084/pg21/xfx-radeon-6970-and-radeon-6950-graphics-card-review-power-temp-noise.html


----------



## beers

Quote:


> AMD just scored a big FTW in their marketing strategies.


Heh, yeah.
Especially when they are touting the out of box performance at the targeted price point has no rival, now especially with cards that unlock/clock to 6970 levels.


----------



## Jean-Luc

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *beers;11789698*
> But it IS the morning


Believe they start processing orders around 7am PST


----------



## FlawleZ

Meh, it doesn't have anything to do with Marketing. Its easy to forget that those of us here in the enthusiast segment are in the extreme minority when it comes to total global sales of products. This is simply the byproduct of very good yields on the 6900 series cards. I wouldn't be shocked if Cayman really does have 1920 shaders that are still locked out by the BIOS. Its possible an HD 6990 Cayman could have the full 1920 shaders and the dual variant be a 6990x2


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tsm106;11789726*
> Makes sense right? Most of the reviews show the 6970 to be hotter. It won't matter much under water.


Obviously. I was just noting it for others.

Anyway, sad panda, the card artifacts now at any clocks. I've gone as low as 750 core and 1250 memory, it artifacts less but they are there. Well I was planning on getting a full blown 6970 anyway.


----------



## FlawleZ

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Mygaffer;11789780*
> Obviously. I was just noting it for others.
> 
> Anyway, sad panda, the card artifacts now at any clocks. I've gone as low as 750 core and 1250 memory, it artifacts less but they are there. Well I was planning on getting a full blown 6970 anyway.


Good information. It appears that the shaders were indeed locked out for a reason.


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlawleZ;11789790*
> Good information. It appears that the shaders were indeed locked out for a reason.


My guess is that it is the same as the cpu's that can unlock. Some are locked because of a defect on the chip or a part of the chip that couldn't function at stock clocks. Some others are locked to meet demand for a certain product. If you are lucky you get one that was just locked to meet demand, if unluckly you get one that was locked b/c of defect and/or wouldn't function at stock clocks.

This will help let people know at least that not ALL 6950's will unlock with stable rendering.

An update, in games I am not getting artifacts so far, just Unigine.


----------



## gamingowiz

hmm very interesting... *clicks 'add to cart'*


----------



## Kitarist

So if the cards have 2 bioses then you can have a flashed 6970 on the first one and on the second one stock 6950


----------



## Mygaffer

I went on to play some games, so far there I haven't really seen much if any artifacting in Oblivion or Borderlands. Just the Unigine bench. I'll leave it flashed like this until I pick up a real 6970.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Artikbot*


AMD just scored a big FTW in their marketing strategies.

The geek part will now buy more HD6950s than they would just because they get a higher value item for a lower price, and the top end market will still buy the HD6970s because they're unlocked and they can avoid the hassle of unlocking them










I don't think it's FTW for AMD since they sell full Cayman chips at $70 less than usual. For gamers however it's good news.


----------



## sublimejhn

Genius ATI, pure genius. I have had no intention what so ever of upgrading my card because, quite frankly, there are no games out there right now forcing me to do so. I figured until BF3 comes out I will be using my old trusty GTX295.

But now the bargain hunter in me is telling me I HAVE to buy a couple of these now while they still unlock!! It's a brilliant way to move these cards in a short time. People are going to buy them just because they convince themselves they won't have the opportunity in the future.


----------



## ~Strawberry~

Will we be able to push voltage in MSI afterburner with these bios'? I am considering getting a 6950


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:



Originally Posted by *~Strawberry~*


Will we be able to push voltage in MSI afterburner with these bios'? I am considering getting a 6950 


Yea afterburner should be updated soon.


----------



## ~Strawberry~

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Mygaffer*


I went on to play some games, so far there I haven't really seen much if any artifacting in Oblivion or Borderlands. Just the Unigine bench. I'll leave it flashed like this until I pick up a real 6970.


Have you tried lowering memory clocks yet?


----------



## CramComplex

Wow...this is good news...I just bought my 6950 as the 6970 was out of stock at NCIX here in Canada during the boxing day sale...got it for only $250!!!


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Mygaffer*


I went on to play some games, so far there I haven't really seen much if any artifacting in Oblivion or Borderlands. Just the Unigine bench. I'll leave it flashed like this until I pick up a real 6970.


The 6970 memory chips are rated 6GHz and run 5.5, the 6950 are rated 5Ghz and with 6970 bios run at 5.5








You should try dropping them to stock 6950 speeds and see if it helps. If not you can try the same with the core too.


----------



## Wingzero

6970 6pin + 8pin

6950 6pin + 6pin

Hmmmmm ?


----------



## RagingCain

Although I think this is cool if it works for some, but I would expect to start seeing a ton of issues from users that do this and if physical damage is done (and you can't cover your tracks) RMAs will be denied lol.

I didn't think the performance leap from the 6950 to the 6970 would be worth the risk, when you can just OC the 6950 itself.


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Razi3l;11790449*
> The 6970 memory chips are rated 6GHz and run 5.5, the 6950 are rated 5Ghz and with 6970 bios run at 5.5
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You should try dropping them to stock 6950 speeds and see if it helps. If not you can try the same with the core too.


It is weird, even at really low clocks I still got some artifacts in Unigine, but I played around 3 hours of a few games, Borderlands, Fallout 3, and FEAR, and didn't have any artifacts and that is at the 6970's stock clocks.

Still, since it artifacts at all I am still going to get a regular 6970.


----------



## Not A Good Idea

even though its impossible (crosses fingers and waits for news that 6970 can be unlocked to 1920 shaders..)


----------



## 98uk

Sapphire 6950 ordered.


----------



## SupahSpankeh

Hmph. AtiFlash just hangs... I gave it 15 minutes but nothing happened. After a reset, it was still a 6950.

Can anyone help at all please? No error messages, just the screen locks up.


----------



## Coolking23

*[Vortez]ASUS EAH6970 2GB Review & HIS HD6950 2GB Review*

Two more reviews I found:

ASUS EAH6970 2GB Review with Voltage Tweaking 

HIS AMD Radeon HD 6950 2GB Review

Quote:



The card we have received from HIS is the less expensive of the two Cayman based graphics card, the HD6950. The HD6950 boasts 1408 stream processors, 128 less than its bigger brother, clock speeds of 800/5000MHz and 88 texture units, all within a 200W TDP. HIS's offering follows the reference AMD design but as history will tell us, the AMD reference designs are usually the most sought after options.



Quote:



The HD6970 card we have received for review today is courtesy of ASUS. The HD6970 represents the higher end variant of the Cayman core, poised to compete with Nvidia's GTX570 at a shade under Â£300. Its main appeal is its enthusiast level performance at a fairly affordable price point, no doubt the growing competition being the culprit. Compared to the HD6950 reviewed earlier, the HD6970 boasts 1536 stream processors and normally comes clocked at 880/5500MHz. The fully fledged Cayman GPU that is being utilised also features 96 texture units, all within a 250W TDP envelope. ASUS have gone one step ahead of their competition by applying a mild 10MHz overclock to their HD6970 core clock speed. As is typical of ASUS, Voltage Tweaking is also supported through their famed SmartDoctor application to provide additional overclocking headroom. Apart from that, the card has remained vastly unchanged from the reference design and thus sports the same cooler and components.












That's an interesting picture. Pretty much no difference between the two boards. I might get myself a HD6950 and flash it.


----------



## SupahSpankeh

Argh. Still no clues; just says to wait and the entire system locks up permanently. How long did it take for you guys? I'm at 20 minutes and still no joy.


----------



## FlawleZ

Quote:



Originally Posted by *alex98uk*


Sapphire 6950 ordered.


If I were to upgrade this too would be my choice. Here's to hoping there's a Toxic or Atomic released soon.


----------



## Suprcynic

Am I the only one that thinks radeon put this out there to boost 6950 sales? Plus they get out of warranties on bricked cards or fried cards with 6970 BIOS. It's a win/win for them.


----------



## FlawleZ

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Suprcynic;11791075*
> Am I the only one that thinks radeon put this out there to boost 6950 sales? Plus they get out of warranties on bricked cards or fried cards with 6970 BIOS. It's a win/win for them.


Yeah, you're probably the only one who thinks that.


----------



## andos

ASUS 6950 ordered! can't wait!!!!!!!!1111111111


----------



## FlawleZ

TechPowerUp did a review on flashing 6950's to 6970's yesterday. All passed with 100% success on the flash.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159


----------



## Kitarist

Yes but what about stability?


----------



## Kitarist

Well guys i'll wait a while and see if flashing is really worth it


----------



## amstech

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Razi3l*


The 6970 memory chips are rated 6GHz and run 5.5, the 6950 are rated 5Ghz and with 6970 bios run at 5.5








You should try dropping them to stock 6950 speeds and see if it helps. If not you can try the same with the core too.


Post up your 3dmark11 P score when you get your 6950.


----------



## Jzkillzone23

Looks good for 6950 owners have fun as i did unlocking my gtx 465


----------



## Nautilus

Props AMD. These will sell like hotcakes i'm telling you.


----------



## alchemik

So the 6950 and the 6970 are actually the same card just that the 6950 has some stuff disabled? And once you flash the bios it's basically the exact same as the 6970?


----------



## MR KROGOTH

Quote:



Originally Posted by *alchemik*


So the 6950 and the 6970 are actually the same card just that the 6950 has some stuff disabled? And once you flash the bios it's basically the exact same as the 6970?


Yes.


----------



## Kasp1js

Quote:



Originally Posted by *alchemik*


So the 6950 and the 6970 are actually the same card just that the 6950 has some stuff disabled? And once you flash the bios it's basically the exact same as the 6970?


No, the 6970's have better memory chips.


----------



## alchemik

I was just about to go and get a GTX 570 tomorrow and now I'm not sure, getting a 6970 for ~$60 less. How would flashing the bios affect the warranty?


----------



## ~Strawberry~

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kasp1js*


No, the 6970's have better memory chips.


This is more like it.

I'm not sure whether to go 6970 or 6950.

Probably order a 6950 tomorrow once my 480 is sold.


----------



## alchemik

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kasp1js*


No, the 6970's have better memory chips.


How much difference do the memory chips make?


----------



## youra6

Quote:



Originally Posted by *alchemik*


How much difference do the memory chips make?


As far as benchmarking goes, there is hardly a difference.


----------



## nagle3092

Quote:



Originally Posted by *alchemik*









I was just about to go and get a GTX 570 tomorrow and now I'm not sure, getting a 6970 for ~$60 less. How would flashing the bios affect the warranty?


I would just get the 570, thats what I'm going for once my 6870s sell. Either that or a 580.


----------



## yoshi245

Quote:



Originally Posted by *alchemik*









I was just about to go and get a GTX 570 tomorrow and now I'm not sure, getting a 6970 for ~$60 less. How would flashing the bios affect the warranty?


Shouldn't make a difference since there's dual bios on it. If the 6970 bios bricks your card somehow, then loadup the factory protected locked 6950 bios, and restore the 6970 bios back to 6950 bios. You should be OK with it. As long as there's no real physical damage to the card you can probably get away with an RMA of the card. Warranty itself, you can probably leave little traces due to changing the bios around from something else to back to normal rather effortlessly.


----------



## alchemik

Quote:



Originally Posted by *yoshi245*


Shouldn't make a difference since there's dual bios on it. If the 6970 bios bricks your card somehow, then loadup the factory protected locked 6950 bios, and restore the 6970 bios back to 6950 bios. You should be OK with it. As long as there's no real physical damage to the card you can probably get away with an RMA of the card.


That does make sense, now I'm not sure what to get again. I had just picked the 570 because for me it would be $35 cheaper for basically the same performance but now the 6950 will be cheaper for almost same performance. It's not like Nvidia will drop prices cause of this...


----------



## nagle3092

Quote:



Originally Posted by *alchemik*


That does make sense, now I'm not sure what to get again. I had just picked the 570 because for me it would be $35 cheaper for basically the same performance but now the 6950 will be cheaper for almost same performance. It's not like Nvidia will drop prices cause of this...


Look at it this way, dont get something and expect it to do something like this because if it doesnt you'll be pissed. Now if you got the 570 or the 6970 you know what to expect. The extra money will be worth the piece of mind.


----------



## yoshi245

Quote:



Originally Posted by *nagle3092*


Look at it this way, dont get something and expect it to do something like this because if it doesnt you'll be pissed. Now if you got the 570 or the 6970 you know what to expect. The extra money will be worth the piece of mind.


I have to agree, if you already have a 6950, this would be great especially if it all worked out. But if you're heavily convinced to get a 6950 because of this, then probably not the right way to look at it if your modded 6950 doesn't work. I'm just happy I had my 6950 since it first came out and something like this came along.


----------



## 98uk

So, what's the difference between using the 6970 BIOS and just clocking the 6950 to 6970 levels?


----------



## Silver_WRX02

From now on, I wouldn't buy a new Video card on the day of release. Gotta wait to see if it's unlockable or not. lol Feel bad for the 6970 owners.


----------



## alchemik

You are right, going for the 570, but this is great news for 6950 owners. If I had a little more money I'd love to play with these cards and see what they could do.


----------



## Strat79

Quote:



Originally Posted by *alex98uk*


So, what's the difference between using the 6970 BIOS and just clocking the 6950 to 6970 levels?


Extra Shaders. 1408 to 1536.


----------



## 98uk

Quote:



Originally Posted by *amstech*


Plus, from what I read people are experiencing lower performance after the unlock.


Link?

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Strat79*


Extra Shaders.


Ah, didn't realise there was unlocking of more hardware.


----------



## SupahSpankeh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *amstech*


Plus, from what I read people are experiencing lower performance after the unlock.

I figured it was too good to be true.


Source/link?

My performance is up by about 8% on average, no artifacts so far (but added 20% power in CCC)...


----------



## ~Strawberry~

Quote:



Originally Posted by *amstech*


AMD drivers alone steered me clear of thier services for years.
Plus, from what I read people are experiencing lower performance after the unlock.

I figured it was too good to be true.


How can they possibly have lower performance from higher clocks and more shaders?


----------



## beers

Quote:



Originally Posted by *~Strawberry~*


How can they possible have lower performance from higher clocks and more shaders?


This.
It's kind of funny since that first statement clearly defines your bias.


----------



## amstech

Lol just telling what I am reading I think its badass they can unlock!
I'll still smoke'm one on one









This is great news for AMD, but they need to focus on thier driver suite's stability more then anything.
Its going to be years before I give them a go again based on my personal experience, I hope some of thier new driver releases fix many of the bugs/glitches/freezes etc.

Its nice to play Crysis with no artifacts in DX10, and Mass Effect 2 without random crashing.
Ohh and the 4 other games I had issues with.








I will say though, when it worked, it went quite fast.

Unfortunately, stability is much more important to me then any price to performance ratio.


----------



## WorldExclusive

Quote:



Originally Posted by *amstech*


Lol just telling what I am reading I think its badass they can unlock!
I'll still smoke'm one on one









This is great news for AMD, but they need to focus on thier driver suite's stability more then anything.
Its going to be years before I give them a go again based on my personal experience, I hope some of thier new driver releases fix many of the bugs/glitches/freezes etc.

Its nice to play Crysis with no artifacts in DX10, and Mass Effect 2 without random crashing.
Ohh and the 4 other games I had issues with.








I will say though, when it worked, it went quite fast.

Unfortunately, stability is much more important to me then any price to performance ratio.


I agree. That's why I went with Nvidia also. AMD had awesome cards but it doesn't matter when games I like to play are CTD, flickering and need constant driver fixes. It great that AMD has all of these features but it's not enough for me to switch back.


----------



## yayitsdan

Quote:



Originally Posted by *amstech*


Lol just telling what I am reading I think its badass they can unlock!
I'll still smoke'm one on one









This is great news for AMD, but they need to focus on thier driver suite's stability more then anything.
Its going to be years before I give them a go again based on my personal experience, I hope some of thier new driver releases fix many of the bugs/glitches/freezes etc.

Its nice to play Crysis with no artifacts in DX10, and Mass Effect 2 without random crashing.
Ohh and the 4 other games I had issues with.








I will say though, when it worked, it went quite fast.

Unfortunately, stability is much more important to me then any price to performance ratio.



Sucks that you had problems. I and everyone else I know hasn't had any problems like this.


----------



## beers

Quote:



Originally Posted by *amstech*


I hope some of thier new driver releases fix many of the bugs/glitches/freezes etc..


I smell PEBKAC


----------



## SupahSpankeh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *amstech*


Lol just telling what I am reading I think its badass they can unlock!
I'll still smoke'm one on one









This is great news for AMD, but they need to focus on thier driver suite's stability more then anything.
Its going to be years before I give them a go again based on my personal experience, I hope some of thier new driver releases fix many of the bugs/glitches/freezes etc.

Its nice to play Crysis with no artifacts in DX10, and Mass Effect 2 without random crashing.
Ohh and the 4 other games I had issues with.








I will say though, when it worked, it went quite fast.

Unfortunately, stability is much more important to me then any price to performance ratio.


Well, if you're just sharing what you're reading, how about sharing the goddamn source of what you're reading (re: unlocked cards having lower performance) or helping yourself to a big ol' mug of ****?

I'm happy you're happy with your purchase, and the money you've spent... but I've always been price







erformance orientated and that's good enough for me. And good enough for most of the people in this thread.

I'd rather get something midrange and clock the snot out of it than just write a big fat check to autowin the game.

Also, re: driver issues... PEBKAC in the majority of cases.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SupahSpankeh*


Well, if you're just sharing what you're reading, how about sharing the goddamn source of what you're reading (re: unlocked cards having lower performance) or helping yourself to a big ol' mug of ****?

I'm happy you're happy with your purchase, and the money you've spent... but I've always been price







erformance orientated and that's good enough for me. And good enough for most of the people in this thread.

I'd rather get something midrange and clock the snot out of it than just write a big fat check to autowin the game.

Also, re: driver issues... PEBKAC in the majority of cases.


I have had serious stability issues with Cat 10. 10, 11 and 12 on my HD 5770. My HD 5850 had issues with Cat 10.3 and 10.4. Point is my HD 5770 even fails when I don't play any games since this rig only downloads and folds 24/7.

This is not PEBKAC, I've managed to pull through without too much issues on even my old X800 AGP and X1650 PRO PCI-e. I didn't have any problems on my HD 4890 at all. I haven't owned any HD6k cards so I can't judge about any of those, but the last few AMD drivers have been fail for me.


----------



## RagingCain

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I have had serious stability issues with Cat 10. 10, 11 and 12 on my HD 5770. My HD 5850 had issues with Cat 10.3 and 10.4. Point is my HD 5770 even fails when I don't play any games since this rig only downloads and folds 24/7.

This is not PEBKAC, I've managed to pull through without too much issues on even my old X800 AGP and X1650 PRO PCI-e. I didn't have any problems on my HD 4890 at all. I haven't owned any HD6k cards so I can't judge about any of those, but the last few AMD drivers have been fail for me.


Don't feel bad, I know ATI have/had issues with their drivers pretty something fierce for a lot of users, myself included. I was so burned by their product (my first ever ATi purchase) I will never purchase another one when offered a choice.

Quote:



Sucks that you had problems. I and everyone else I know hasn't had any problems like this.



Quote:



I smell PEBKAC



Quote:



Also, re: driver issues... PEBKAC in the majority of cases.


I swear this is as bad as people not believing in the Holocaust simply because they didn't go through it.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *~Strawberry~*


How can they possibly have lower performance from higher clocks and more shaders?


Unstable clock, incorrect voltage, incorrect memory settings, not enough power supply, etc etc. Some shaders were disabled for physical defective reasons/yields issues, some were disabled to have more physical 6950s.

Some users are experiencing artifacts after trying this out. Refer to the initial news thread for the source.


----------



## amstech

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I have had serious stability issues with Cat 10. 10, 11 and 12 on my HD 5770. My HD 5850 had issues with Cat 10.3 and 10.4. Point is my HD 5770 even fails when I don't play any games since this rig only downloads and folds 24/7.

This is not PEBKAC, I've managed to pull through without too much issues on even my old X800 AGP and X1650 PRO PCI-e. I didn't have any problems on my HD 4890 at all. I haven't owned any HD6k cards so I can't judge about any of those, but the last few AMD drivers have been fail for me.


Yup.
I bought a pair of 5770's at release and had them up until 2 weeks ago when I bought this 570.
5870 performance or better when things worked out. It was quite impressive for two 128 bit GPU's.

9.12's, 10.3's, 10.5's, 10.8's, then thier latest I tried right before my GF-110 came in.
Some driver sets worked better with various games, some driver sets lost performance...

I won't say I was or am dissapointed in my 5770's, its not their fault the software can't iron out the wrinkles.


----------



## EastCoast

If you are not having issues doing this mod then prove it! Post your OC results using 3DMark 11 results including a screenshot of GPUz's Graphic Card and Sensor Tabs.


----------



## BlueTac

AWESOME!

getting one the second i get paid


----------



## matrices

Quote:



I swear this is as bad as people not believing in the Holocaust simply because they didn't go through it.


Really dude? That's the dumbest thing I've read here, ever.


----------



## Nautilus

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *SupahSpankeh;11791042*
> Argh. Still no clues; just says to wait and the entire system locks up permanently. How long did it take for you guys? I'm at 20 minutes and still no joy.


Try Win Flash.


----------



## beers

BIOS flash should only take a minute or so tops..


----------



## RagingCain

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *matrices;11793622*
> Really dude? That's the dumbest thing I've read here, ever.


I think it highlights the ignorance very well.


----------



## ian209

This just in... IT WORKED!








THANKS OP! If I could click the rep button a million times, I would


----------



## tsm106

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ian209;11793827*
> This just in... IT WORKED!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> THANKS OP! If I could click the rep button a million times, I would


Grats. Are you testing for stability/heat/etc now?


----------



## Bleached

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11793070*
> I have had serious stability issues with Cat 10. 10, 11 and 12 on my HD 5770. My HD 5850 had issues with Cat 10.3 and 10.4. Point is my HD 5770 even fails when I don't play any games since this rig only downloads and folds 24/7.
> 
> This is not PEBKAC, I've managed to pull through without too much issues on even my old X800 AGP and X1650 PRO PCI-e. I didn't have any problems on my HD 4890 at all. I haven't owned any HD6k cards so I can't judge about any of those, but the last few AMD drivers have been fail for me.


I notice you have an XFX HD5770. XFX went cheap on their AMD HD4000 and HD5000 series cards and almost all of them have problems. It is the reason why AMD wanted to drop them.

I haven't had problems with mine. Only the blue screen that was a early driver problem.


----------



## ian209

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tsm106;11793873*
> Grats. Are you testing for stability/heat/etc now?


So far so good. Gonna bench it after a few more minutes.


----------



## EastCoast

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EastCoast;11793406*
> If you are not having issues doing this mod then prove it! Post your OC results using 3DMark 11 results including a screenshot of GPUz's Graphic Card and Sensor Tabs.


^^ Pics or it didn't happen (after 180 posts)








And no stock clock performance pics.


----------



## nagle3092

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ian209;11793999*
> So far so good. Gonna bench it after a few more minutes.


Can it pass 15 min of OCCT fullscreen, shader complexity 8, error checking on?


----------



## smash_mouth01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Bleached;11793883*
> I notice you have an XFX HD5770. XFX went cheap on their AMD HD4000 and HD5000 series cards and almost all of them have problems. It is the reason why AMD wanted to drop them.
> 
> I haven't had problems with mine. Only the blue screen that was a early driver problem.


Me either, I was using a pair of Sapphire 5770 and a lot of the time they improved with drivers and sometimes not.
The kinder of the later drivers that worked well for me where the 10.12 with the new interface. They could reach 1000 MHz with possible room for more overclocking.

I now have a pair of 6870's (both of which are Sapphire once again and they run like champs at stock. I cannot wait to have a stuff about with the Trix software since it has voltage control and it lets my cards go to 1400 MHz max, as to whether they can get there is another question.

As said by others XFX did cheap out on the 4000 and 5000 series so lets see if they do it again to the 6800 and the 6900.


----------



## Sainesk

any more news on whether the cards can get damaged by doing this? i'd feel pretty bad getting a $300 card and bricking it/getting degrading performance after having it unlocked for a while...


----------



## ian209

Just stability tested for 20minutes using MSI Kombuster. All seems fine.


----------



## nagle3092

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ian209;11794424*
> Just stability tested for 20minutes using MSI Kombuster. All seems fine.


Kombuster sucks, use OCCT.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

I am getting one. If it unlock 2nd one next day.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Bleached;11793883*
> I notice you have an XFX HD5770. XFX went cheap on their AMD HD4000 and HD5000 series cards and almost all of them have problems. It is the reason why AMD wanted to drop them.
> 
> I haven't had problems with mine. Only the blue screen that was a early driver problem.


It's an ATI V1 reference one. My HD 5850 was also reference, but with an Asus sticker on it.

I only buy reference cards. My only non-reference card was a GTX 285.


----------



## Riou

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nagle3092;11794464*
> Kombuster sucks, use OCCT.


I thought Kombustor = Furmark.


----------



## Frosty88

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Riou;11794982*
> I thought Kombustor = Furmark.


Yes, Kombustor and Furmark are almost identical but OCCT usually finds errors that are undetectable in both, Kombustor and Furmark.


----------



## amstech

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *smash_mouth01;11794163*
> As said by others XFX did cheap out on the 4000 and 5000 series so lets see if they do it again to the 6800 and the 6900.


Not everything XFX made was fibbish.
I had two of thier original Juniper XT's and they where as good as any.

XFX's 6000 AMD's are getting great reviews everywhere on good build quality.
Not to mention they have a double lifetime warranty.

That is, if they are good for it! haha


----------



## Relevant Wing

Hmm possibly my next upgrade now


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *SupahSpankeh;11791042*
> Argh. Still no clues; just says to wait and the entire system locks up permanently. How long did it take for you guys? I'm at 20 minutes and still no joy.


Your BIOS may be write protected. The driver can cause hanging as well.

What I had to do to get it to work was probably more than you will, but I removed the driver, rebooted, then ran the winflash tool in command line interface with the commands and arguments they lay out in the guide. Only then could I get it to write the BIOS _and_ not crash.

Its not that hard really, especially if you used DOS when you were younger.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EastCoast;11793406*
> If you are not having issues doing this mod then prove it! Post your OC results using 3DMark 11 results including a screenshot of GPUz's Graphic Card and Sensor Tabs.


I posted my Unigine results both locked and unlocked. I am not going to flash it again just to take gpu-z screens, but I don't understand why you would doubt the word of soooo many people.

Do you think its a conspiracy?


----------



## Riou

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Frosty88;11795003*
> Yes, Kombustor and Furmark are almost identical but OCCT usually finds errors that are undetectable in both, Kombustor and Furmark.


I see. That explains why people's game crash even though they were Furmark _stable_.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Frosty88;11795003*
> Yes, Kombustor and Furmark are almost identical but OCCT usually finds errors that are undetectable in both, Kombustor and Furmark.


I personally dont care about either. Just play games you play and see what happens. Most games will detect problems in first 5 mins. COD4 MW is a good game because it will hang if the card is not 100% stable. Also [email protected] is good too.


----------



## L36

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11795138*
> I personally dont care about either. Just play games you play and see what happens. Most games will detect problems in first 5 mins. COD4 MW is a good game because it will hang if the card is not 100% stable. Also [email protected] is good too.


GTA 4 is also an amazing indicator of GPU stability. I can run crysis no problem at 940/1520, but with GTA, the driver would crash. 920/1500 is stable for GTA.
Furmark would work fine at 960/1550, but crysis would crash. Furmark is a poor indicator of stability, also applies to kombustor.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11795138*
> I personally dont care about either. Just play games you play and see what happens. Most games will detect problems in first 5 mins. COD4 MW is a good game because it will hang if the card is not 100% stable. Also [email protected] is good too.


This, though [email protected] is far more stressfull both temp wise as stability. I use [email protected] clocks, this way I'm sure it's stable.


----------



## smash_mouth01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *amstech;11795021*
> Not everything XFX made was fibbish.
> I had two of thier original Juniper XT's and they where as good as any.
> 
> XFX's 6000 AMD's are getting great reviews everywhere on good build quality.
> Not to mention they have a double lifetime warranty.
> 
> That is, if they are good for it! haha


Point taken.
So
XFX vanilla =








XFX other than vanilla =









That is also if they honor their double lifetime warranty.

I had read a review somewhere about the Sapphire 6870's saying that they are the better ones out of the bunch for overclocking, that and the fact that they are still yet to screw me over. cont vv

cont (Off Topic): Unlike Sony and (P)iece of (S)*&% (3) which I had my second one die on me in 19 months on Christmas day.
(which I was wanting to watch my newly acquired "The Big 4" DVD Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax (awesome).

First was the 80GB fat (best in my opinion for Bluray)
Then the second the 120GB slim, I thought that they had fixed all the bugs,
unless both of them where either made on Monday or Friday.


----------



## Frosty88

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11795138*
> I personally dont care about either. Just play games you play and see what happens. Most games will detect problems in first 5 mins. COD4 MW is a good game because it will hang if the card is not 100% stable. Also [email protected] is good too.


I don't rely on Kombustor, Furmark, or OCCT either. I was just answering a question asked by another user.

Personally, I only run Kombustor _while_ changing clocks just to check voltages before I run a game or something more stressful for the GPU. I'll usually run Vantage and see if I can complete a full run. Any overclock instabilities I've ever had have shown up in Vantage before anything else.


----------



## EastCoast

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Mygaffer;11795072*
> Your BIOS may be write protected. The driver can cause hanging as well.
> 
> What I had to do to get it to work was probably more than you will, but I removed the driver, rebooted, then ran the winflash tool in command line interface with the commands and arguments they lay out in the guide. Only then could I get it to write the BIOS _and_ not crash.
> 
> Its not that hard really, especially if you used DOS when you were younger.
> 
> I posted my Unigine results both locked and unlocked. I am not going to flash it again just to take gpu-z screens, but I don't understand why you would doubt the word of soooo many people.
> 
> Do you think its a conspiracy?


LOL.
1. Your post doesn't show GPUz
2. Your post doesn't show if the card is at stock or OC
3. I asked to only show OC results using a 6950 that was modded. Showing both 3d11 and GPUz Graphic Card and Sensor tabs.

So where in that do you find a conspiracy theory? Or is it that you are making one up...


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EastCoast;11795410*
> LOL.
> 1. Your post doesn't show GPUz
> 2. Your post doesn't show if the card is at stock or OC
> 3. I asked to only show OC results using a 6950 that was modded. Showing both 3d11 and GPUz Graphic Card and Sensor tabs.
> 
> So where in that do you find a conspiracy theory? Or is it that you are making one up...


I know there is no gpu-z, I just said in my last post that I am not going to re-flash my card just to show you the original. I can post a gpu-z _after_ the unlock when I get home if you are really that interested .

It looks like the post a I responded to was about something else, not what I thought it was. My 6950 was at stock, I guess you were asking for people to post an OC'd one?


----------



## Chuckclc

wasnt gonna read through all these post to see if it was brought up, but how bout some proof of this before I pull the trigger. The first post shows nothing as far as a 6950 being unlocked to a 6970.


----------



## Suprcynic

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlawleZ;11791102*
> Yeah, you're probably the only one who thinks that.


Yeah because nobody at radeon heard of 465's being flashed. LOL I guess they figured nobody would figure it out. They knew about it and today I'd bet more 6950's flew off the shelves than were sold since the release.


----------



## Rocabiliz

Sorry to interrupt the off topic discussion (







) but can someone clarify something for me?
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/12/16/ati-radeon-hd-6950-review/10

Do thoses values of power correspond to the total power that the computer is drawing or just the gpu?
I'm really considering getting the 6950, but I want to make sure I have enough juice for it


----------



## pursuinginsanity

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Rocabiliz;11796170*
> Sorry to interrupt the off topic discussion (
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ) but can someone clarify something for me?
> http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/12/16/ati-radeon-hd-6950-review/10
> 
> Do thoses values of power correspond to the total power that the computer is drawing or just the gpu?
> I'm really considering getting the 6950, but I want to make sure I have enough juice for it


Total power consumption. At the wall.

(psst, it says so at the bottom of the charts. lol.)


----------



## 98uk

So, i've really not seen much proof of this happening. I believe they flash OK, but are there any good before/after threads?


----------



## EastCoast

Nope, I've asked for OC results and got nothing. Who cares about stock clocks. Lets see if you can still OC the card after doing the mod and post up some results. That's the true test saying this works or not. Who wants to mod their card just to be stuck at stock clocks. Does that make sense???


----------



## 98uk

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EastCoast;11797128*
> Nope, I've asked for OC results and got nothing. Who cares about stock clocks. Lets see if you can still OC the card after doing the mod and post up some results. That's the true test saying this works or not. Who wants to mod their card just to be stuck at stock clocks. Does that make sense???


Meh, i'd be happy with a stock 6970.


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Chuckclc;11795694*
> wasnt gonna read through all these post to see if it was brought up, but how bout some proof of this before I pull the trigger. The first post shows nothing as far as a 6950 being unlocked to a 6970.


I did it, it unlocked fine, may not be totally stable. In Unigine I get some artifacts, in games so far none.

Give it a shot, worse case scenario you can recover your bios!


----------



## pursuinginsanity

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Suprcynic;11795940*
> Yeah because nobody at radeon heard of 465's being flashed. LOL I guess they figured nobody would figure it out. They knew about it and today I'd bet more 6950's flew off the shelves than were sold since the release.


"Radeon" isn't a company.

The only thing wrong with your premise is now AMD is selling full Caymans for 65-70 dollars less than the "real price." (I'm not the first to point this out)

So, while it looks good on a review site, it's mostly just a gimmick to attract attention and may hurt as much as it helps.

Cannibalizing sales of your own high end GPUs isnt a good idea. It's why the 460 was cut down and underclocked. Otherwise, even the 470 would have looked pretty pointless.


----------



## jprovido

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *pursuinginsanity;11797899*
> "Radeon" isn't a company.
> 
> The only thing wrong with your premise is now AMD is selling full Caymans for 65-70 dollars less than the "real price." (I'm not the first to point this out)
> 
> So, while it looks good on a review site, it's mostly just a gimmick to attract attention and may hurt as much as it helps.
> 
> Cannibalizing sales of your own high end GPUs isnt a good idea. It's why the 460 was cut down and underclocked. Otherwise, even the 470 would have looked pretty pointless.


both cards cost the same in terms of production cost so increase in sales even if the 6970 is not selling good because of this is still WIN for amd


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Just got a HD 6950. Man the fan is loud. I have not heard a fan speed this fast. It goes like 5600 RPM. 60% ATI is like 85% that of GTX 580.


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11799010*
> Just got a HD 6950. Man the fan is loud. I have not heard a fan speed this fast. It goes like 5600 RPM. 60% ATI is like 85% that of GTX 580.


Really? I thought it was pretty quiet. What temps are you getting?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *pursuinginsanity;11797899*
> "Radeon" isn't a company.
> 
> The only thing wrong with your premise is now AMD is selling full Caymans for 65-70 dollars less than the "real price." (I'm not the first to point this out)
> 
> So, while it looks good on a review site, it's mostly just a gimmick to attract attention and may hurt as much as it helps.
> 
> Cannibalizing sales of your own high end GPUs isnt a good idea. It's why the 460 was cut down and underclocked. Otherwise, even the 470 would have looked pretty pointless.


Except that with the uncertainty of the unlock process (they are not all stable when unlocked) the people willing to pay the premium will mostly still get the 6970 and of course 90% of the time you would expect the 6970 to have higher OC potential than the unlocked 6950.


----------



## MrPontus

a friend has two 6950, he tried unlocking them to 6970 one work perfectly fine, the other one gets artecacts in Windows.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Mygaffer;11799289*
> Really? I thought it was pretty quiet. What temps are you getting?
> 
> Except that with the uncertainty of the unlock process (they are not all stable when unlocked) the people willing to pay the premium will mostly still get the 6970 and of course 90% of the time you would expect the 6970 to have higher OC potential than the unlocked 6950.


Basically in MSI AB i set fan profile @ 1% per 1C. I run Heaven for about 30 mins. This card hit 56C @ 56% fan speed. GTX 580 @ stock did 65C @ 65% but its was quieter because fan was actually sniping slower @ 65% then this @ 56%.


----------



## Riou

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11799409*
> Basically in MSI AB i set fan profile @ 1% per 1C. I run Heaven for about 30 mins. This card hit 56C @ 56% fan speed. GTX 580 @ stock did 65C @ 65% but its was quieter because fan was actually sniping slower @ 65% then this @ 56%.


The scaling between fans is not going to be the same. I don't understand what you are getting at.


----------



## beers

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrPontus;11799325*
> the other one gets artecacts in Windows.


artecacts?
Are you drunk?


----------



## AK-47

nice too bad i'd rather rather have 570


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Riou;11799496*
> The scaling between fans is not going to be the same. I don't understand what you are getting at.


I know that. I said GTX580s fan hit about 4.4k speeds where the 6950 hit 6k so at same percentage they and not the same speed.


----------



## Strat79

Quote:



Originally Posted by *EastCoast*


Nope, I've asked for OC results and got nothing. Who cares about stock clocks. Lets see if you can still OC the card after doing the mod and post up some results. That's the true test saying this works or not. Who wants to mod their card just to be stuck at stock clocks. Does that make sense???


Well, an unlocked, 1536 SP 6950 at the 6970's stock clocks would be an 80mhz OC already on the core plus an extra 100+ SP's. So even at "stock" clocks it would out perform a normal 6950 that is heavily OC'ed to well past any OC that could be had on air or possibly even water. This is assuming zero overclocking room after unlocking.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Strat79;11800099*
> Well, an unlocked, 1536 SP 6950 at the 6970's stock clocks would be an 80mhz OC already on the core plus an extra 100+ SP's. So even at "stock" clocks it would out perform a normal 6950 that is heavily OC'ed to well past any OC that could be had on air or possibly even water. This is assuming zero overclocking room after unlocking.


I think @ 950Mhz HD 6950 should easily be faster then stock HD 6970. I hope after voltage control you can get like 1050Mhz+. One can only dream.


----------



## Strat79

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


I think @ 950Mhz HD 6950 should easily be faster then stock HD 6970. I hope after voltage control you can get like 1050Mhz+. One can only dream.


Oh? I honestly thought it would take much more than that to overcome a 100+ SP deficit. I would like to see some OC results after unlocking just to see if it can at least reach breaking even with a max OC'ed non-unlocked 6950.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Strat79*


Oh? I honestly thought it would take much more than that to overcome a 100+ SP deficit. I would like to see some OC results after unlocking just to see if it can at least reach breaking even with a max OC'ed non-unlocked 6950.


To begin with the extra SP (128) dont make much difference. There is the 80Mhz in the core + 125Mhz in memory that give HD 6970 the extra fps. Just tested HD 6950 in Crysis and GTX 580 @ stock is 40% faster. Keep in mind that HD 6950 drivers are CD drivers and for GTX 580 is using the best drivers many have claimed. The interesting part about these 2 card in Crysis that you Will get some game experience. GTX 580 got 58fps average and 32fps min. HD 6950 go 42fps average and 31fps min.


----------



## mohmet

I think the way AMD use this feature to cover it`s big fall of HD6900 overall performance is really working and we all forget where the new cards really get, and concentrate on the capability of the HD6950 card to be switched to 6970 card which is not bad at all.
i have no idea what they planning to, but now there are 3 cards CLOSE IN performance GTX570 , HD6970 AND SWITCHABLE HD6950
HD6950 become one of the greatest deals ever


----------



## tsm106

I bet in time a vendor is going to release a special 6950 with faster memory...


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *tsm106*


I bet in time a vendor is going to release a special 6950 with faster memory...


Memory doesnt make much difference more like 1-2fps. Also HD 69XX are no fail. As both a GTX 580 and HD 6950 owner i think they are fantastic for the money.


----------



## ian209

This just in, I scored 200 more points in 3dmark11 with the unlock.
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/297437?pcmVa...pcm05Results=0

I had around P5400 before, now I get about P5612.

Awesome sauce!









BTW, card is completely stable. Ran OCCT for the 5 hours I was at work and it passed, no problembo.


----------



## tsm106

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11800373*
> Memory doesnt make much difference more like 1-2fps. Also HD 69XX are no fail. As both a GTX 580 and HD 6950 owner i think they are fantastic for the money.


And you've missed the point.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tsm106;11800431*
> And you've missed the point.


From that i have seen with HD 5850 only reference model could get 1.25Ghz. Non reference model went cheap in mem to keep it to 1Ghz.


----------



## tsm106

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


From that i have seen with HD 5850 only reference model could get 1.25Ghz. Non reference model went cheap in mem to keep it to 1Ghz.


Again, you've missed the point. Which is that 6970/6950 are physically the same card minus the obvious differences, ie. the bios lock, 8pin, memory chips.

I can easily see a board maker selling a 6950 with higher grade mem chips and in the end users hands it means a greater chance of successful unlock.


----------



## nagle3092

Quote:



Originally Posted by *tsm106*


Again, you've missed the point. Which is that 6970/6950 are physically the same card minus the obvious differences, ie. the bios lock, 8pin, memory chips.

I can easily see a board maker selling a 6950 with higher grade mem chips and in the end users hands it means a greater chance of successful unlock.


Most cards have a "physically the same" counter part, not every one is a different architecture. All this is is the GTX 465 all over again, give it a little time and I'm willing to bet those SP's will no longer be accessible. No company is gonna shoot their top single gpu card in the back like that.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *nagle3092*


Most cards have a "physically the same" counter part, not every one is a different architecture. All this is is the GTX 465 all over again, give it a little time and I'm willing to bet those SP's will no longer be accessible. No company is gonna shoot their top single gpu card in the back like that.


But its only 70$ difference. Its not like GTX 570 and 580 150$ difference. For 70$ you get 100% HD 6970.


----------



## beers

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


Just tested HD 6950 in Crysis and GTX 580 @ stock is 40% faster.


Why do people still care about Crysis...








That game had been out a while when my 3870 launched..


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *beers*


Why do people still care about Crysis...








That game had been out a while when my 3870 launched..


Just for reference and it still cant be massed. What games would you use these high end GPUs other then Crysis, Metro? They can cam everything else.


----------



## jspeedracer

Quote:



Originally Posted by *beers*


Why do people still care about Crysis...








That game had been out a while when my 3870 launched..



Well it's a very good reference point because so many cards have been benched on it. The fact is has been out that long and can still stress new gen cards says a lot for it. Eh, but I am tired of hearing 'but can it run..' Ugh!









EDIT: ^^ got beat to it lol


----------



## nagle3092

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


But its only 70$ difference. Its not like GTX 570 and 580 150$ difference. For 70$ you get 100% HD 6970.


Correct me if I'm wrong but isnt the 580 roughly 20% faster than the 570, and the 6970 roughly 10% faster than the 6950? If that is so then the prices are right in line on where they are supposed to be.


----------



## WorldExclusive

Any stats?


----------



## beers

Quote:



Originally Posted by *jspeedracer*


Well it's a very good reference point because so many cards have been benched on it. The fact is has been out that long and can still stress new gen cards says a lot for it. Eh, but I am tired of hearing 'but can it run..' Ugh!









EDIT: ^^ got beat to it lol


1) nobody plays it
2) It's horribly unoptimized

In all honesty, if your game does not improve in 3 generations of hardware technology, you're doing it wrong.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *nagle3092*


Correct me if I'm wrong but isnt the 580 roughly 20% faster than the 570, and the 6970 roughly 10% faster than the 6950? If that is so then the prices are right in line on where they are supposed to be.


Nope ~15% for both parts.


----------



## nagle3092

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


Nope ~15% for both parts.


Well thats funny because Guru3D says 10% 6950-6970 and 20% 570-580, just like I had said.

BC2 6950 50fps, 6970 56fps, 570 56fps, 580 67fps

I'm sure you know where to find the reviews thats just one game, and most of them show roughly the same gap.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Internets*


Damn... I just purchased my GTX 570 as well.


No worries, it's only $40 cheaper but lacks CUDA/usable Stereoscopic Vision/proper OpenCL/proper Tessellation/PhysX.

Oh, and did I mention how even @ 785/1013 the 570 smokes a 6970 @ 941/1520? They can easily do 950 on air too which completely separates the two. Even a 470 beats it... Plus a 460 on par with a 6950 non-modded?? http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi..._review/14.htm:








^ That 580 in BC2 is at a measly 827/1055 btw.

Since they didn't test the only properly OC'd 500 in BC2, here's a comparison with Crysis Warhead:








Asus GTX580 @ 962/1140:








The difference between not OCing properly and OCing correctly is pretty big. So, seeing as the 570 overclocks the same as the 580s, the results are quite close.

Reference vs Reference benchmarks are useless. These show the true potential of each brand.


----------



## Redwoodz

Yeah like NVIDIA overclocks way higher than AMD's? How do you figure?


----------



## hellokittyonline2

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa*


No worries, it's only $40 cheaper but lacks CUDA/usable Stereoscopic Vision/proper OpenCL/proper Tessellation/PhysX.

Oh, and did I mention how even @ 785/1013 the 570 smokes a 6970 @ 941/1520? They can easily do 950 on air too which completely separates the two. Even a 470 beats it... Plus a medium OC'd 460 on par with a 6950 non-modded... http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi..._review/14.htm:








^ That 580 in BC2 is at a measly 827/1055 btw.

Since they didn't test the only properly OC'd 500 in BC2, here's a comparison with Crysis Warhead:








Asus GTX580 @ 962/1140:








The difference between not OCing properly and OCing correctly is pretty big. So, seeing as the 570 overclocks the same as the 580s, the results are quite close.

Reference vs Reference benchmarks are useless. These show the true potential of each brand.



well @ boxing day in Canada is 60 cheaper







, which means free RAM!

HIS 6950 for $250!!! free unlock if only i knew, funny thing is during boxing day there were still 2 left at end of the day, tell you how popular it is XD compare the the sold out PNY 570.

Anyone have the statics on temperature after flash into 6970 is it the same as original 6970?

Also there were reports of artifacting after they flash only happened to 2 or 3 of the cards, but it's easily reverseable


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Redwoodz*


Yeah like NVIDIA overclocks way higher than AMD's? How do you figure?


What are you even saying?


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:



Originally Posted by *hellokittyonline2*


well @ boxing day in Canada is 60 cheaper







, which means free RAM!

HIS 6950 for $250!!! free unlock if only i knew, funny thing is during boxing day there were still 2 left at end of the day, tell you how popular it is XD compare the the sold out PNY 570.

Anyone have the statics on temperature after flash into 6970 is it the same as original 6970?

Also there were reports of artifacting after they flash only happened to 2 or 3 of the cards, but it's easily reverseable


I think you're looking for this:








http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...ng/vidcard/159

They said every card they tested worked fine.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Wow, look at that power consumption









From 169W to 252W and 86*C to 92*C by a mere tweak.


----------



## Nautilus

It also consumes less power than 6970 after unlocking. Who buys 6970 now?


----------



## Colt

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa*


No worries, it's only $40 cheaper but lacks CUDA/usable Stereoscopic Vision/proper OpenCL/proper Tessellation/PhysX.


Oh dear not the tesselation again








The 5xxx and 6xxx series have tesselators, but the drivers are not enabling them because AMD thinks that there not enough games using tesselation.
Thats why nVidia and ATI(AMD) got different temps.

When the Tesselation will conquer the market, ATI will release new drivers that enabling the tesselators and all of the ATI cards will have high temps like nVidia.

About 3D Vision... Ati got too if you dodnt know, it just not advertised enough.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Nautilus*


It also consumes less power than 6970 after unlocking. Who buys 6970 now?


That's because the power limiter throttles the card when it nears the 225W spec. According to TPU the card stutters in games/ has worse perfromance if it's not set to +20%.

Quote:



Once we up the power limit in Catalyst Control Center by +20%, we see that the modded HD 6950 draws 252 W, which exceeds its specification (225 W) by 27 W. This move also improves rendering performance by a good deal, so I would recommend it to all users who perform this mod and have a half-decent power supply. Going 12% beyond the specified power limit will not have any ill effects on your hardware and is well covered by manufacturing tolerances and overspeccing, but it reduces the possibility of stuttering or other performance slowdowns caused by AMD PowerTune.


----------



## Colt

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


That's because the power limiter throttles the card when it nears the 225W spec. According to TPU the card stutters in games if it's not set to +20%.


Right.


----------



## Nautilus

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


That's because the power limiter throttles the card when it nears the 225W spec. According to TPU the card stutters in games/ has worse perfromance if it's not set to +20%.


Sorry i'm kinda ignorant about this power limiter thing. Is there an option in the CCC to give the card %20 more power or something? Or is it about that switch near the cf bridge? I still dunno what that switch is for..


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Nautilus*


Sorry i'm kinda ignorant about this power limiter thing. Is there an option in the CCC to give the card %20 more power or something? Or is it about that switch near the cf bridge? I still dunno what that switch is for..


It allows the card to run 20% above its rated power specs.

The switch near the CF bridge is a BIOS switch. Especially in cases like this it's very usefull since you always have a backup BIOS. The risk of flashing your BIOS is now strongly reduced.


----------



## ian209

Quote: 
   Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa*   No worries, it's only $40 cheaper but lacks CUDA/usable Stereoscopic Vision/proper OpenCL/proper Tessellation/PhysX.

Oh, and did I mention how even @ 785/1013 the 570 smokes a 6970 @ 941/1520? They can easily do 950 on air too which completely separates the two. Even a 470 beats it... Plus a 460 on par with a 6950 non-modded??

Reference vs Reference benchmarks are useless. These show the true potential of each brand.  
Wow, that's ignorance to the MAXXXX. If ignorance had an example in the dictionary, your name would be all over it.

First off, 
the 6950 isn't just $40 cheaper. Here in Canada, it is $120 cheaper than the 570.

Second of all,
The benchmarks you linked are just horribly done. The didn't even use Cat 10.12. Here's a properly done benchmark with the Catalyst 10.12 Beta RC2
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...50-review.html

It shows the 6950 trading blows with the 570. And when the settings and resolution is cranked, the 6950 actually surpasses the 570 in most cases.

Thirdly,
Reference vs Reference benchmarks are actually more useful. You want to know why? Most consumers don't even overclock their CPUs, let alone their GPUs.

Fourth,
ATI does have something called HD3D, which does stereoscopic 3D    
 You Tube  



 
 . They do have OpenCL support http://gpgpu.org/2010/08/22/ati-stream-sdk-v2-2#hide and Physics support (HavoK) as well has Physx support with modification. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvi...-ati,5764.html

Finally,

you have probably been living under a rock for the past few months, because ATI's 69XX cards HAVE proper tessellation. http://fudzilla.com/reviews/item/211...tested?start=7
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-22.html

So please, before you start making bold statements, have some proper sources to back it up.


----------



## Nautilus

So when you unlock a 6950 to 6970, the missing texture units and other stuff also becomes available or the gain is only 128 cores + higher clock speeds?

What i mean is would an unlocked 6950 be identical to 6970 in terms of specs?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ian209*


Wow, that's ignorance to the MAXXXX. If ignorance had an example in the dictionary, your name would be all over it.

First off, 
the 6950 isn't just $40 cheaper. Here in Canada, it is $120 cheaper than the 570.

Second of all,
The benchmarks you linked are just horribly done. The didn't even use Cat 10.12. Here's a properly done benchmark with the Catalyst 10.12 Beta RC2
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...50-review.html

It shows the 6950 trading blows with the 570. And when the settings and resolution is cranked, the 6950 actually surpasses the 570 in most cases.

Thirdly,
Reference vs Reference benchmarks are actually more useful. You want to know why? Most consumers don't even overclock their CPUs, let alone their GPUs.

Fourth,
ATI does have something called HD3D, which does stereoscopic 3D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkj8n...eature=related. They do have OpenCL support http://gpgpu.org/2010/08/22/ati-stream-sdk-v2-2#hide and Physics support (HavoK) as well has Physx support with modification. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvi...-ati,5764.html

Finally,

you have probably been living under a rock for the past few months, because ATI's 69XX cards HAVE proper tessellation. http://fudzilla.com/reviews/item/211...tested?start=7
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-22.html

So please, before you start making bold statements, have some proper sources to back it up.


A few notes on my part.

Regarding point 2:

In the link you posted I see a GTX 570 on average being 2-5% faster than the HD 6970 at 1200p, and most of the time trading blows or being 5% slower at 1600p. Except for AvP and LP2, in AvP the HD 6970 pwns the GTX 580 and in LP2 the GTX 470 pwns the HD 6970.

Regarding point 3:

Considering we're posting in a thread about unlocking extra shaders and modding a BIOS, how exactly are you trying to tell us how useless comparing two OC'ed cards are







? The fact that nearly all the members posting in this thread (including you) run their GFX cards at non-stock speeds kind of contradicts your statement doesn't it?

Regarding point 4:

AMD indeed have their own 3D open standard environment, but it's not usable right out of the box. You'll need TriDef or some other third party software (DDD or iZ3D) to fully support it. Also there's a lack of good driver support for OpenCL on ATI/AMD's part, hence he said proper.

AMD does not support "PhysX" and HavoK is being owned by Intel now. The HD 6900 have hardware acceleration, but do not support PhysX specifically.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Nautilus*


So when you unlock a 6950 to 6970, the missing texture units and other stuff also becomes available or the gain is only 128 cores + higher clock speeds?

What i mean is would an unlocked 6950 be identical to 6970 in terms of specs?


That's a good question. I think you also unlock the extra TMUs since the SPs on its own probably won't make that much of a difference.


----------



## xpfighter

Wow It really did work, I have a HD6970 now







Thanks


----------



## 98uk

Quote:



Originally Posted by *xpfighter*


Wow It really did work, I have a HD6970 now







Thanks


Stability OK? I'm hearing mixed reports, some unlocking and stable, some that unlock but need the memory downclocked. However, what is apparent is that all cards unlock fine. There are a few issues with BIOS's not writing, but I put that down to PEBKAC.


----------



## SupahSpankeh

Quote:



Originally Posted by *alex98uk*


Stability OK? I'm hearing mixed reports, some unlocking and stable, some that unlock but need the memory downclocked. However, what is apparent is that all cards unlock fine. There are a few issues with BIOS's not writing, but I put that down to PEBKAC.


The bios issue - not PEBKAC as far as I was concerned.

Basically the default bios linked in the first article just wouldn't write _at_all_. Using the other bios (in the bundled package) and the unlock then write process from a DOS prompt it worked fine.

Weird, but I didn't change anything apart from the bios I was using when it finally worked.

Anyway, it's stable... Only got it at 800/1375 though with +20% power.

Certainly _very_ happy with my purchase. Cheap, quiet and powerful.


----------



## OwnedINC

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


I'd buy one, but a GTX 570 costs about the same as a 6950 here.

So.

Nope. 28nm plz.


Uhhh what? They're both 40nm...


----------



## 98uk

You say +20% power, is that set through CCC? Does it give an actual amount in volts?


----------



## finalturismo

I support
performance

I support
low priceing

Amd > Nvidia

From the benchies i saw
for stock to stock performance

Flashed 6950 is 
97% performance of a 6970

This is a no brainer, i dont think it would be smart to buy a gtx 570

the extra frame buffer is better in ultra high resolutions

Also amd just striped up a HUGE war with nvdia,

I mean look at all the pages on this topic


----------



## ~Strawberry~

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *finalturismo;11803480*
> 
> This is a no brainer, i dont think it would be smart to buy a gtx 570
> 
> the extra frame buffer is better in ultra high resolutions
> 
> Also amd just striped up a HUGE war with nvdia,
> 
> I mean look at all the pages on this topic


Hmm I still think the 570 is a better buy than the 6970.

It overclocks a lot further, more stable, generally wins in games and has more features.

If you even use the frame buffer and you have a 2560x1600 then go amd.


----------



## pursuinginsanity

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jprovido;11798207*
> both cards cost the same in terms of production cost so increase in sales even if the 6970 is not selling good because of this is still WIN for amd


Selling a product for less than you anticipated is considered "losing money" in the business world.

When actual profits fail to meet predicted expectations, the stock price falters.


----------



## Nautilus

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11803225*
> That's a good question. I think you also unlock the extra TMUs since the SPs on its own probably won't make that much of a difference.


I'm waiting on TheGPUReview.com's data to make any conclusions about this. They still haven't added 6950 or 6970 to their list.


----------



## [ALB]toxic|heaven

Is that for sure?!
it's been a while since I wanted to get rid of my 460


----------



## finalturismo

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *~Strawberry~;11803804*
> Hmm I still think the 570 is a better buy than the 6970.
> 
> It overclocks a lot further, more stable, generally wins in games and has more features.
> 
> If you even use the frame buffer and you have a 2560x1600 then go amd.


5760x1080 eyefinity or surround resolution is where these cards are going to absolutely dominate.


----------



## nagle3092

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *finalturismo;11804068*
> 5760x1080 eyefinity or surround resolution is where these cards are going to absolutely dominate.


Which isnt good for AMD since less than 1% of the market actually run resolutions that high.


----------



## finalturismo

like me? o....


----------



## parityboy

Quote:


> XFX currently has two models of the Radeon HD 6870 available. The first model is just a reference Radeon HD 6870 with XFX logos on the PCI cover and heatsink shroud. The second product is from the XFX's Black Edition line. Its frequencies have been boosted to 940MHz on the GPU and 4.6GHz on the memory. This is the video card we are evaluating today. These clock speed increases are a fair boost, and we are thrilled to see the memory frequencies boosted. Unfortunately, it has not been modified in any other way that we can tell. We would have liked to have seen a unique cooling solution considering the price premium this video card demands.


Source


----------



## SupahSpankeh

I thought the 6950 (even before unlock) had a respectable price to performance ratio. That's why the card was the right choice for me.

However, since the unlock... woo. I'm sat here with a £320ish card for £210.


----------



## SupahSpankeh

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *alex98uk;11803433*
> You say +20% power, is that set through CCC? Does it give an actual amount in volts?


No.

Which is where I'm a bit uhappy. Not fun changing stuff and not knowing the exact amount it's changing/doing.

anyway, got it up to 880/1375 and that's where I'm leaving it. Card is solid as a rock...


----------



## grunion

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *finalturismo;11804068*
> 5760x1080 eyefinity or surround resolution is where these cards are going to absolutely dominate.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nagle3092;11804120*
> Which isnt good for AMD since less than 1% of the market actually run resolutions that high.


It's not just that, paired up at 1200p these cards really close the gap on the GF110, sometimes surpassing the GF110.


----------



## Kitarist

So can anyone confirm that cards are 100% stable after they are unlocked?


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *alex98uk;11803433*
> You say +20% power, is that set through CCC? Does it give an actual amount in volts?


I dont think it does. Probably activates a power phase or something that allows the card to use more power.


----------



## Nautilus

I think i'll get 6950 instead second 6870.


----------



## tsm106

Sad apples, my Amazon Prime membership expired will have to wait till thurs to get my 6950 combo.


----------



## nagle3092

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *grunion;11805045*
> It's not just that, paired up at 1200p these cards really close the gap on the GF110, sometimes surpassing the GF110.




















Yes they do but only really the 6970 does, one thing that I have been think about though is if the 69XX cards overclock like the 68XX series does, there isnt going to be much more room for those cards to get pushed. While the GF110 seems to be a pretty capable overclocker. We already know a 570 can get pushed past stock 580 performance, but can a 6970?


----------



## EastCoast

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nagle3092;11805315*
> snip


I never trust their reviews. They are the only website that I know of that hardly never (if ever) has an AMD video card beating the competition. That website is notorious for having AMD card having "issues" when AA is applied when no other websites (in general) ever saw that as a concern. I would never trust them, never. Another problem with those graphs is that the reviewer should have done a comparison between this gen and last gen cards. Something you won't find there.


----------



## nagle3092

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EastCoast;11805351*
> I never trust their reviews. They are the only website that I know of that hardly never (if ever) has an AMD video card beating the competition. That website is notorious for having AMD card having "issues" when AA is applied when no other websites (in general) ever saw that as a concern. I would never trust them, never. Another problem with those graphs is that the reviewer should have done a comparison between this gen and last gen cards. Something you won't find there.


It was a simple chart to put up, I usually go with Guru3D. But HWC were the only ones that I seen use 10.12RC2 for their benchmarks.


----------



## Antsu

Could I do 1.0Ghz / 1.4Ghz with a slight voltage increase? if so I'm getting 2 of these beasts for an extra 130€ instead of one GTX 580


----------



## 8ight

Probably won't last... Like the GTX 465 -> GTX 470 trick.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Antsu;11805406*
> Could I do 1.0Ghz / 1.4Ghz with a slight voltage increase? if so I'm getting 2 of these beasts for an extra 130€ instead of one GTX 580


I think they are capable of doing so. Memory not really all the important but core speed should help.


----------



## SupahSpankeh

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kitarist;11805154*
> So can anyone confirm that cards are 100% stable after they are unlocked?


I have several times.

880/1375.


----------



## EastCoast

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nagle3092;11805393*
> It was a simple chart to put up, I usually go with Guru3D. But HWC were the only ones that I seen use 10.12RC2 for their benchmarks.


That's 8.79.6.2 which is from cat 10.11. Cat 10.12 uses 8.80X.XXX from what I know.


----------



## Antsu

Which one would win in gaming? A pair of unlocked HD 6950 OC or a GTX 580 OC (And I am going to OC these myself not any OC editions so be aware of the fact that the 6950 can't be pushed that far after unlocking.) And the use for these cards is going to be gaming.


----------



## nagle3092

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EastCoast;11805456*
> That's 8.79.6.2 which is from cat 10.11. Cat 10.12 uses 8.80X.XXX from what I know.


I'm pretty sure though that 8.79.6.2 was the most recent update for the 69XX series though.

Either way I'm on the fence with getting a 6970 or a 580 I just dont know. One could say to wait for better drivers for 69XX and performance will improve but we all know what kind of game that ends up being. Hopefully new management over the driver development team will help.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Antsu;11805492*
> Which one would win in gaming? A pair of unlocked HD 6950 OC or a GTX 580 OC (And I am going to OC these myself not any OC editions so be aware of the fact that the 6950 can't be pushed that far after unlocking.) And the use for these cards is going to be gaming.


I would get just 1 powerful card, at this point I'm pretty unsatisfied with my 6870s. For the first month or so I thought they were great, that was until I did some tests on each card individually. Thats when I noticed the micro stutter, its not "bad" per say but its enough that I catch myself focusing on it more than actually enjoying any games now. Thats why I'm just going for 1 powerful card.


----------



## Mygaffer

Is the article down?

Also, not every card is 100% stable after unlock. I haven't had issues in games yet, but I get a few artifacts in Unigine after the unlock.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ian209;11803012*
> Wow, that's ignorance to the MAXXXX. If ignorance had an example in the dictionary, your name would be all over it.
> 
> First off,
> the 6950 isn't just $40 cheaper. Here in Canada, it is $120 cheaper than the 570.
> 
> Second of all,
> The benchmarks you linked are just horribly done. The didn't even use Cat 10.12. Here's a properly done benchmark with the Catalyst 10.12 Beta RC2
> http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/38899-amd-radeon-hd-6970-hd-6950-review.html
> 
> It shows the 6950 trading blows with the 570. And when the settings and resolution is cranked, the 6950 actually surpasses the 570 in most cases.
> 
> Thirdly,
> Reference vs Reference benchmarks are actually more useful. You want to know why? Most consumers don't even overclock their CPUs, let alone their GPUs.
> 
> Fourth,
> ATI does have something called HD3D, which does stereoscopic 3D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkj8nBeaZzg&feature=related. They do have OpenCL support http://gpgpu.org/2010/08/22/ati-stream-sdk-v2-2#hide and Physics support (HavoK) as well has Physx support with modification. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-physx-ati,5764.html
> 
> Finally,
> 
> you have probably been living under a rock for the past few months, because ATI's 69XX cards HAVE proper tessellation. http://fudzilla.com/reviews/item/21186-xfx-radeon-hd-6970-and-hd-6950-tested/21186-xfx-radeon-hd-6970-and-hd-6950-tested?start=7
> http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/38899-amd-radeon-hd-6970-hd-6950-review-22.html
> 
> So please, before you start making bold statements, have some proper sources to back it up.


I'm glad that you understand what the word ignorance means, but it appears you are pointing in the wrong direction.

It might be even cheaper in China too, but from the typical listing here, 6950 $300 vs 570 $340 is what I was referring too. If you can get it $120 cheaper than $340, then get it. That's a definitely a good deal. Just remember, both cards will have good deals every once in awhile. A $300 570 deal has already happened.

The benchmarks were done perfectly fine. At the time of the review they used the best drivers available.

Actually, no, *reference comparisons are absolutely useless*. Especially on OCN of all places. What are you even thinking? Even this thread is talking about unlocking a 6950 to a 6970. That's would be even far less "normal" according to your "logic". Sorry, but you're talking to the wrong crowd by saying "most" people don't OC.

We all know ATI has HD3D. Maybe if your reading comprehension was a little better you would of understood that "usable" part of that sentence. Having only 2 products on the market that support it isn't realistically usable. Nvidia already has hundreds of products that support 3D Vision. Maybe 2-3 years down the road ATI might have more widespread support for it, but good luck trying to find a decent monitor and games today that can actually utilize it. Let's just hope that monitors and TVs support BOTH ATI and Nvidia 3D, otherwise you're locked into only being able to use one brand which is bad for consumers.

Again, you failed to understand "proper" OpenCL. Everyone knows that ATI's implementation of OpenCL is lacking and has only just finally been available. No one's disputing whether ATI actually has some portion of OpenCL or not.

And of course, software physics like Havok in BC2 may be decent(or crappy depending on who you talk to), using the CPU for pre-programmed destruction animations is hardly comparable to PhysX. But, seeing as PhysX is only available on one brand, it's just as hard to justify spending time developing for it in games since half your customer base won't be able to even see it.

And let's not forget, CUDA is far better than OpenCL at the moment. Folding on ATI just isn't any where near as useful.

And please don't tell me you actually think ATI's Tessellation performance is any where near as decent as Nvidia's too. Although, Tessellation has yet to make as big of a difference in games as PhysX, which isn't saying much either.
The point was, that he spent $40 more, got a card that has more features outside of only gaming and even when it came to using it for games, it still performed better.


----------



## 98uk

In the UK, a 6950 can be had for £220 whilst a GTX570 costs ~£280-£300. So, big difference!


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *alex98uk;11807605*
> In the UK, a 6950 can be had for £220 whilst a GTX570 costs ~£280-£300. So, big difference!


That's definitely something to think about when deciding which to buy. £60 is enough to care. Just hope that your unlock mod works without any artifacting. I wonder if it has anything to do with power draw limitations. I thought PCI-E 2.0 can support more than 75W making up for the loss of the 8 pin. Although I'm not sure if it's shared between the entire PCI-E slots or not.

edit: typo on currency


----------



## 98uk

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11807719*
> That's definitely something to think about when deciding which to buy. $60 is enough to care. Just hope that your unlock mod works without any artifacting. I wonder if it has anything to do with power draw limitations. I thought PCI-E 2.0 can support more than 75W making up for the loss of the 8 pin. Although I'm not sure if it's shared between the entire PCI-E slots or not.


£60 = $93. So there is a $93 difference between the 6950 and GTX570 in the UK!


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11807719*
> That's definitely something to think about when deciding which to buy. $60 is enough to care. Just hope that your unlock mod works without any artifacting. I wonder if it has anything to do with power draw limitations. I thought PCI-E 2.0 can support more than 75W making up for the loss of the 8 pin. Although I'm not sure if it's shared between the entire PCI-E slots or not.


Two six pin power connectors can pull more than their rated voltage.
In order for AMD to pass specification they HAD to include 8x6.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *solidsteel144;11807758*
> Two six pin power connectors can pull more than their *rated voltage*.
> In order for AMD to pass specification they HAD to include 8x6.


I sure hope not. I doubt the VRMs and capacitors on your GFX card like that









I think you meant more current which results into more power.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *solidsteel144;11807758*
> Two six pin power connectors can pull more than their rated voltage.
> In order for AMD to pass specification they HAD to include 8x6.


Well 6 pins are only 75W each*2 + 75W from the PCI-E slot = 225W.
But I thought PCI-E 2.0 can supply more than 75W now.


----------



## stargate125645

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11807845*
> Well 6 pins are only 75W each*2 + 75W from the PCI-E slot = 225W.
> But I thought PCI-E 2.0 can supply more than 75W now.


No. It's still at 75W. I don't know why people suggest otherwise since the motherboard would have to be supplied any extra power given to the PCI-E slots. Motherboards don't have any new power connections.

There are some things to consider here, people. I imagine some (if not all) were mentioned before, but I'll list them again because I don't feel like reading 30 pages...
- AMD may have "binned" the 6950 card because it wasn't stable enough at 6970 speeds for AMD's tastes. That may not always be the case, but it is often how manufacturers avoid having unused, defective products. AMD does the same thing with their CPUs. You may still be able to get 6970 speeds, but I doubt you'll be able to overclock to the level that the 6970s will.
- The 6970 may come with an altogether better cooling setup. This has obvious benefits that shouldn't need to be mentioned.
- If your flashed 6950 croaks, you had better hope the manufacturer is not able to read your 6950's BIOS and determine that you altered it or your warranty may go the way of the dodo.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *stargate125645;11807881*
> No. It's still at 75W. I don't know why people suggest otherwise since the motherboard would have to be supplied any extra power given to the PCI-E slots. Motherboards don't have any new power connections.


Where else is that additional 27W coming from?
Oh, and I know some motherboards do have an extra Molex port for additional power. I'm not sure whether the mobo TechpowerUP used had one or not though.


----------



## stargate125645

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11807890*
> Where else is that additional 27W coming from?


Something rated for 75W doesn't necessarily always supply 75W.
Quote:


> Oh, and I know some motherboards do have an extra Molex port for additional power. I'm not sure whether the mobo TechpowerUP used had one or not though.


That goes to the CPU...


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *stargate125645;11807939*
> Something rated for 75W doesn't necessarily always supply 75W.


Wouldn't that be the same for the motherboard?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *stargate125645;11807939*
> That goes to the CPU...


That's not the one I'm talking about... That's been standard for years.


----------



## stargate125645

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11808008*
> Wouldn't that be the same for the motherboard?


The question is whether the PCI-E slot provides more power than it did before. The answer is "no." It is still rated at 75W. The specifications have not changed. It operates no differently than before.
Quote:


> That's not the one I'm talking about... That's been standard for years.


I know exactly what you're talking about, and that's what it's for. CPU overclocking stability. I know you don't mean the EPS12V/ATX12V plugs.


----------



## Unlucky_7

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *stargate125645;11808052*
> The question is whether the PCI-E slot provides more power than it did before. The answer is "no." It is still rated at 75W. The specifications have not changed. It operates no differently than before.
> 
> I know exactly what you're talking about, and that's what it's for. CPU overclocking stability. I know you don't mean the EPS12V/ATX12V plugs.


I think he means the ones on boards such as the R3E (http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1403/3/ - see about halfway down)


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *stargate125645;11808052*
> The question is whether the PCI-E slot provides more power than it did before. The answer is "no." It is still rated at 75W. The specifications have not changed. It operates no differently than before.
> 
> I know exactly what you're talking about, and that's what it's for. CPU overclocking stability. I know you don't mean the EPS12V/ATX12V plugs.


Due to your wording, I wonder why it can't be applied to both since they're both at "rated" specifications. Would we even be able to tell where it's coming from? I think I saw some device that measured the 6/8pin connectors but not the PCI-E slot in the news a month or so ago.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *stargate125645;11808052*
> Something rated for 75W doesn't necessarily always supply 75W.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11807890*
> Where else is that additional 27W coming from?
> Oh, and I know some motherboards do have an extra Molex port for additional power. I'm not sure whether the mobo TechpowerUP used had one or not though.


All of the power sources (PCI-e slot, 6/8 pin PEG) can dissipate more power than the amount of power its rated for. You could see the PCI-e specs as some kind of safety measure. Exceeding this limit within a certain range is not necessarily harmfull for the hardware, but it does put more strain on the system.


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11807827*
> I sure hope not. I doubt the VRMs and capacitors on your GFX card like that
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think you meant more current which results into more power.


Woops, that's corrects.
My dad is the electrician, not me.


----------



## BradleyW

Even if the 6950 unlocks to a 6970, the 6970 will still win it on a test of high tesselation.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *solidsteel144;11808181*
> Woops, that's corrects.
> My dad is the electrician, not me.


Doesn't really matter. Voltage is all that matters for us overclockers right







?


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11808114*
> All of the power sources (PCI-e slot, 6/8 pin PEG) can dissipate more power than the amount of power its rated for. You could see the PCI-e specs as some kind of safety measure. Exceeding this limit within a certain range is not necessarily harmfull for the hardware, but it does put more strain on the system.


Right. I'm just wondering if the artifacting has anything do do with missing the extra 25W that the 6970 produces even though they're both getting the same FPS and producing similar heat temps.
I mean, it's already 27W over rated wattage. Another 25W may not be achievable with dual 6pins. Who knows if it might shorten the lifespan of the card as well? Are we sure the VRMs are exactly the same as the 6970?


----------



## hellokittyonline2

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11807579*
> I'm glad that you understand what the word ignorance means, but it appears you are pointing in the wrong direction.
> 
> It might be even cheaper in China too, but from the typical listing here, 6950 $300 vs 570 $340 is what I was referring too. If you can get it $120 cheaper than $340, then get it. That's a definitely a good deal. Just remember, both cards will have good deals every once in awhile. A $300 570 deal has already happened.
> 
> The benchmarks were done perfectly fine. At the time of the review they used the best drivers available.
> 
> Actually, no, *reference comparisons are absolutely useless*. Especially on OCN of all places. What are you even thinking? Even this thread is talking about unlocking a 6950 to a 6970. That's would be even far less "normal" according to your "logic". Sorry, but you're talking to the wrong crowd by saying "most" people don't OC.
> 
> We all know ATI has HD3D. Maybe if your reading comprehension was a little better you would of understood that "usable" part of that sentence. Having only 2 products on the market that support it isn't realistically usable. Nvidia already has hundreds of products that support 3D Vision. Maybe 2-3 years down the road ATI might have more widespread support for it, but good luck trying to find a decent monitor and games today that can actually utilize it. Let's just hope that monitors and TVs support BOTH ATI and Nvidia 3D, otherwise you're locked into only being able to use one brand which is bad for consumers.
> 
> Again, you failed to understand "proper" OpenCL. Everyone knows that ATI's implementation of OpenCL is lacking and has only just finally been available. No one's disputing whether ATI actually has some portion of OpenCL or not.
> 
> And of course, software physics like Havok in BC2 may be decent(or crappy depending on who you talk to), using the CPU for pre-programmed destruction animations is hardly comparable to PhysX. But, seeing as PhysX is only available on one brand, it's just as hard to justify spending time developing for it in games since half your customer base won't be able to even see it.
> 
> And let's not forget, CUDA is far better than OpenCL at the moment. Folding on ATI just isn't any where near as useful.
> 
> And please don't tell me you actually think ATI's Tessellation performance is any where near as decent as Nvidia's too. Although, Tessellation has yet to make as big of a difference in games as PhysX, which isn't saying much either.
> The point was, that he spent $40 more, got a card that has more features outside of only gaming and even when it came to using it for games, it still performed better.


Boxing day deals in canada HIS 6950 250 very limited stock, like 20-25 max for all of CANADA not just 1 location.

GTX 570 is $300 @boxing day with 4 games ( i picked up)

kind of regret not getting the 6950 though i would of saved 60 bucks overall, (tax, MIR other junks combine)

AMD cards can't fold








only bad thing.

Can 6950 still OC like 6970? Techpowerup says they have identical temperature @ OC, which is kind of puzzling, because shouldn't 6970 have better cooling?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11808296*
> Right. I'm just wondering if the artifacting has anything do do with missing the extra 25W that the 6970 produces even though they're both getting the same FPS and producing similar heat temps.


25W over the rated spec is not enough to make it artifact. If it was a problem, the card would probably throttle or downclock itself. Try running your GPU with one 6 pin connector disconnected. It will boot but only at 2D clocks. Artifacting is usually a sign of failing transistors or rather data corruption. It could be the transistors in the memory ICs that fail or on the GPU die itself.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11808390*
> 25W over the rated spec is not enough to make it artifact. If it was a problem, the card would probably throttle or downclock itself. Try running your GPU with one 6 pin connector disconnected. It will boot but only at 2D clocks. Artifacting is usually a sign of failing transistors or rather data corruption. It could be the transistors in the memory ICs that fail or on the GPU die itself.


Well, it's 27W over rated but still missing another 25W that the 6970 uses with similar clocks. It might need a little more wattage to be stable. As I'm sure most people have noticed, sometimes bumping the voltage up even .5V(leading to more wattage) can make a big difference in stability when OCing at similar clocks.


----------



## XiZeL

powercolor 6850 ordered and will be delivered to me tomorrow for the handsome sum of 279€, and to think 3 days ago i was ready to drop 360€ on a 6970 and what was holding me back was the price of the GTX570 at365€


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *XiZeL;11808618*
> powercolor 6850 ordered and will be delivered to me tomorrow for the handsome sum of 279€, and to think 3 days ago i was ready to drop 360€ on a 6970 and what was holding me back was the price of the GTX570 at365€


Damn, Nvidia European prices are ******ed. More expensive than a 6970??


----------



## trivium nate

sweet


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11808453*
> Well, it's 27W over rated but still missing another 25W that the 6970 uses with similar clocks. It might need a little more wattage to be stable. As I'm sure most people have noticed, sometimes bumping the voltage up even .5V can make a big difference in stability when OCing.


Getting a bit technical.

The voltage you're talking about is the Vcc which is the voltage on the input terminals of the transistors. Increasing the voltage on these units may increase stability at higher clocks since the Vcc has to be within 10% of the value of the threshold voltage (upper and lower threshold) of the transistor in order to give consitent outputs (Boolean). Increasing the clock speed alters this threshold value, the transistor simply requires a higher voltage level. If the transistor is corrupted/damaged increasing the Vcc won't help. This is basically what we call overvolting.

When we're talking about exceeding the PCI-e spec however we mean something different. A heavily OC'ed and overvolted GTX 470 also draws more power than the rated PCI-e spec yet it can be called 'stable' at 900MHz and 1.1V or so.

Vcc and the PCI-e spec are two different things. I really don't think the 27W over the PCI-e spec is going to be a problem on the short term.


----------



## XiZeL

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11808634*
> Damn, Nvidia European prices are ******ed. More expensive than a 6970??


at least here in Portugal the 570 goes for a little more than the 6970...
actually before the 6970 was launched i found some 570 for 340€, but they were out of stock, once stock replenished the price was bumped to 380€.

I still think that on the long run the 6970 is the best card against the 570 because of larger vram and dont forget the AMD drivers are still young and that the Whole AMD driver team has been restructured.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11808703*
> Getting a bit technical.
> 
> The voltage you're talking about is the Vcc which is the voltage on the input terminals of the transistors. Increasing the voltage on these units may increase stability at higher clocks since the Vcc has to be within 10% of the value of the threshold voltage (upper and lower threshold) of the transistor in order to give consitent outputs (Boolean). Increasing the clock speed alters this threshold value, the transistor simply requires a higher voltage level. If the transistor is corrupted/damaged increasing the Vcc won't help. This is basically what we call overvolting.
> 
> When we're talking about exceeding the PCI-e spec however we mean something different. A heavily OC'ed and overvolted GTX 470 also draws more power than the rated PCI-e spec yet it can be called 'stable' at 900MHz and 1.1V or so.
> 
> Vcc and the PCI-e spec are two different things. I really don't think the 27W over the PCI-e spec is going to be a problem on the short term.


Ok. I was more concerned about the card exceeding expected wattage than the motherboard though. But, even if that wasn't a valid concern, I was wondering if the reason they're artifacting is because they're missing an additional 25W on top of that 27W which the 6970 has no problem drawing.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *XiZeL;11808705*
> at least here in Portugal the 570 goes for a little more than the 6970...
> actually before the 6970 was launched i found some 570 for 340€, but they were out of stock, once stock replenished the price was bumped to 380€.
> 
> I still think that on the long run the 6970 is the best card against the 570 because of larger vram and dont forget the AMD drivers are still young and that the Whole AMD driver team has been restructured.


Ah. I don't know about putting faith into driver developers though. Both ATI and Nvidia have had bad drivers the past year. Nvidia still hasn't fixed low GPU usage and ATI had Xfire scaling issues for such a long time that even complaints on OCing forums like these weren't enough to draw their attention and fix it. It took a high profile review site to contact them and make them aware of the issue.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11808753*
> Ok. I was more concerned about the card exceeding expected wattage than the motherboard though. But, even if that wasn't a valid concern, I was wondering if the reason they're artifacting is because they're missing an additional 25W on top of that 27W which the 6970 has no problem drawing.
> 
> Ah. I don't know about putting faith into driver developers though. Both ATI and Nvidia have had bad drivers the past year. Nvidia still hasn't fixed low GPU usage and ATI had Xfire scaling issues for such a long time that even complaints on OCing forums like these weren't enough to draw their attention and fix it. It took a high profile review site to contact them and make them aware of the issue.


OKay, though you must note that this card isn't pulling 25W over it's spec continiously. Those are peak values


----------



## Velcrowchickensoup

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11800373*
> Memory doesnt make much difference more like 1-2fps. Also HD 69XX are no fail. As both a GTX 580 and HD 6950 owner i think they are fantastic for the money.


I wish i could rep you 1000 times.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11790166*
> I don't think it's FTW for AMD since they sell full Cayman chips at $70 less than usual. For gamers however it's good news.


Well, it means they definitely get the sale rather than it going to a GTX 460 or something if some people buy a HD6950 because it might unlock.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Wingzero;11790538*
> 6970 6pin + 8pin
> 
> 6950 6pin + 6pin
> 
> Hmmmmm ?


8pin only adds two ground leads for extra stability, 6pin should be fine with over 150w but due to some PSU makers using thin cables and a bad design, the spec makes sure there's a huge safety margin.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Mygaffer;11790626*
> It is weird, even at really low clocks I still got some artifacts in Unigine, but I played around 3 hours of a few games, Borderlands, Fallout 3, and FEAR, and didn't have any artifacts and that is at the 6970's stock clocks.
> 
> Still, since it artifacts at all I am still going to get a regular 6970.


I'd hazard a guess it's got something to do with the tessellation engine part of it due to it only artifacting in Uniengine, try on a DX11 game and it'll do the same thing I'd guess.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *alchemik;11792179*
> So the 6950 and the 6970 are actually the same card just that the 6950 has some stuff disabled? And once you flash the bios it's basically the exact same as the 6970?


Apart from memory chips being changed, yeah.

Just like the GTX 465, 470 and 480, but nVidia laser-cut their dies to prevent this, although they didn't with the 465 as it was a stopgap for the GTX 460.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yoshi245;11792421*
> I have to agree, if you already have a 6950, this would be great especially if it all worked out. But if you're heavily convinced to get a 6950 because of this, then probably not the right way to look at it if your modded 6950 doesn't work. I'm just happy I had my 6950 since it first came out and something like this came along.


I think it's the same as the Phenom II unlocks, sure, get it if you want to and if it doesn't unlock the difference isn't _that_ big anyway.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *~Strawberry~;11792630*
> How can they possibly have lower performance from higher clocks and more shaders?


The same way that CPUs can perform slower when they're unstable.

Granted, the difference is tiny and I really doubt there are people with performance lost that can be attributed to the unlock. (Eg. They might have a crappy PSU)
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *WorldExclusive;11792894*
> I agree. That's why I went with Nvidia also. AMD had awesome cards but it doesn't matter when games I like to play are CTD, flickering and need constant driver fixes. It great that AMD has all of these features but it's not enough for me to switch back.


AMD drivers have this feature called "IdiotProof™" where if you don't have the required intelligence to check your RAM and CPU overclocks for stability, they start to screw up.










Although, there are the occasional issues...Just like with nVidia.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11793070*
> I have had serious stability issues with Cat 10. 10, 11 and 12 on my HD 5770. My HD 5850 had issues with Cat 10.3 and 10.4. Point is my HD 5770 even fails when I don't play any games since this rig only downloads and folds 24/7.
> 
> This is not PEBKAC, I've managed to pull through without too much issues on even my old X800 AGP and X1650 PRO PCI-e. I didn't have any problems on my HD 4890 at all. I haven't owned any HD6k cards so I can't judge about any of those, but the last few AMD drivers have been fail for me.


Dual Screen + CFX, one of the deadliest configurations for bugs.

I had issues, but guess what fixed them? Checking my OC for stability, turns out my RAM was unstable.







Same thing didn't fix the issue I get where a video freezes up when I skip it with the tracking bar on WMP, MPC, VLC, etc.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *RagingCain;11793238*
> I swear this is as bad as people not believing in the Holocaust simply because they didn't go through it.


Because the Hlolcaust can happen in your country depending on the individuals stupidity or not.

_Riiiiiiiiiiiiight._
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;11794922*
> It's an ATI V1 reference one. My HD 5850 was also reference, but with an Asus sticker on it.
> 
> I only buy reference cards. My only non-reference card was a GTX 285.


Reference or not, XFX HD4890s had problems, they used a really cheap fan, etc, the GPU makers make their own PCBs and can cheap out on component brands, etc on there even if the actual PCB is reference.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11795138*
> I personally dont care about either. Just play games you play and see what happens. Most games will detect problems in first 5 mins. COD4 MW is a good game because it will hang if the card is not 100% stable. Also [email protected] is good too.


This, if an OC isn't OCCT stable but it runs all my games + [email protected] stable, then I'm not going to lower it.

The same as a CPU or RAM OC, if Memtest and/or OCCT/P95/Whatever say its unstable, I'll just take note of it and if I get any random issues, it's the first thing to be lowered. (Also how I fixed the only problem I ever had with ATI drivers on my CFX setup, Grey Screens on TF2, turns out my RAM wasn't stable at 4-4-4-10-1T with 2v, but 2.1v it was fine)
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *pursuinginsanity;11797899*
> "Radeon" isn't a company.
> 
> The only thing wrong with your premise is now AMD is selling full Caymans for 65-70 dollars less than the "real price." (I'm not the first to point this out)
> 
> So, while it looks good on a review site, it's mostly just a gimmick to attract attention and may hurt as much as it helps.
> 
> Cannibalizing sales of your own high end GPUs isnt a good idea. It's why the 460 was cut down and underclocked. Otherwise, even the 470 would have looked pretty pointless.


Except there may be people who think "Well, I could go CFX HD6950...If they unlock, I'll get better performance than this GTX 580 I was going to get..."

You're completely forgetting it may increase sales due to convincing people not to buy nVidia.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11800373*
> Memory doesnt make much difference more like 1-2fps. Also HD 69XX are no fail. As both a GTX 580 and HD 6950 owner i think they are fantastic for the money.


He means so we can eliminate the memory from the equation of possible instabilities with an unlock.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11800519*
> From that i have seen with HD 5850 only reference model could get 1.25Ghz. Non reference model went cheap in mem to keep it to 1Ghz.


Except the really high-end ones, eg. the MSI hawk models.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11801773*
> No worries, it's only $40 cheaper but lacks CUDA/usable Stereoscopic Vision/proper OpenCL/proper Tessellation/PhysX.


>Implying people use 3D, OpenCL, ridiculously heavy amounts of tessellation (Otherwise AMDs is just as fast) or PhysX at this point in time.

Man, you nVidia fanboys are hilarious.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *stargate125645;11807881*
> No. It's still at 75W. I don't know why people suggest otherwise since the motherboard would have to be supplied any extra power given to the PCI-E slots. Motherboards don't have any new power connections.


It couldn't be that the PCIe 2.0 spec added in support for 150w, could it?
The reason ATI and nVidia don't use it is they want backwards compatibility to PCIe 1.1, link me to a document saying PCIe 2.0 slots only support 75w, because this is the first I've ever heard of that.

And it's a lot like how the rated power for any connector in a computer has been usually under-rated simply for safety reasons, how many crappy PSU companies would put a bunch of 150w connectors on one 25a rail and then kill many peoples computers because once you have more than 2 150w connectors being used up, that rail will be overloaded.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *stargate125645;11807939*
> That goes to the CPU...


Erm, no, it generally goes to the PCIe slots...The entire reason its there is to give extra power to the PCIe slots, usually for CFX/SLI setups, otherwise the 24pin can melt.

Unless the rated 336w of a 8pin EPS connector suddenly isn't enough for every CPU.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11808296*
> Right. I'm just wondering if the artifacting has anything do do with missing the extra 25W that the 6970 produces even though they're both getting the same FPS and producing similar heat temps.
> I mean, it's already 27W over rated wattage. Another 25W may not be achievable with dual 6pins. Who knows if it might shorten the lifespan of the card as well? Are we sure the VRMs are exactly the same as the 6970?


75w could be done by 2 connectors alone (Hence why the Molex > PCIe converters have 2 voltage in wires with the 3rd missing usually), dividing that by 2 gives us 37.5w per pin assuming its at 75w, a single 6pin could handle that extra 25w easily, the spec really under-rates what the cables can do for a few reasons, one of which is to prevent nVidia and ATI going wild with a 500w card or something.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Got mine unlocked and its stable with Power Control @ 0%. Tried to Overclock it and got 1.45Ghz memory which makes me think is it really rated for 5Gb/s? The HD 5850/70 was also rated for 5Gb/s but could only OC max to 5.2Gb/s. As for core got it to 940Mhz stable with 1.17v which is stock voltage for HD 6970. At this rate the card will need about 1.25v to hit 1GHz. The way i test stability is Crysis loops, Heaven, COD4 MW. I did play Metro and no problems what so ever. Did Crysis benchmark and with 20% Power Control i got more fps which tells me it needs a bit more power for stability. The card after OC and unlock is score in 55fps, GTX 580 @ stock scores 58.5fps. 200$ for 3fps, but you can OC GTX580 to get 66fps @ 900Mhz. Keep in mind I am using CD drivers Cat 10.11 and for GTX 580 and i using some very good drivers 265.90 i think which i got ~ 5-10% increase for latest ones in nvidia site.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Brutuz*


75w could be done by 2 connectors alone (Hence why the *Molex > PCIe converters have 2 voltage in wires with the 3rd missing usually*), dividing that by 2 gives us 37.5w per pin assuming its at 75w, a single 6pin could handle that extra 25w easily, the spec really under-rates what the cables can do for a few reasons, one of which is to prevent nVidia and ATI going wild with a 500w card or something.


Can you try writing that bolded part again?

If one 6 pin can provide an extra 27W easily, why it it missing the extra 25W that the 6970 pulls? It seems like it can't pull any more watts with dual 6pins.


----------



## Strat79

I've been fighting off the urge to buy a new GPU. This is making it very hard to not pull the trigger. The fear that they will stop this from being possible through laser cutting soon isn't helping any either. I wanted to wait till they did a price drop, but afraid they will change unlocking before that happens. You all think they will put a stop to it, or do you think this was intentional and will stay for good?


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Strat79*


I've been fighting off the urge to buy a new GPU. This is making it very hard to not pull the trigger. The fear that they will stop this from being possible through laser cutting soon isn't helping any either. I wanted to wait till they did a price drop, but afraid they will change unlocking before that happens. You all think they will put a stop to it, or do you think this was intentional and will stay for good?


It will stop soon, it always does .
Think of it as a 6970-ish for 300 dollars.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa*


Can you try writing that bolded part again?

If one 6 pin can provide an extra 27W easily, why it it missing the extra 25W that the 6970 pulls? It seems like it can't pull any more watts with dual 6pins.


You know those 2 Molex to a PCIe 6 pin adapters? They generally only have 2 +12v pins, the third is missing in those.

I was saying that the connectors (and lack of an 8pin) have nothing to do with the instability some get.


----------



## Frosty88

I'm thinking the stability issues are completely related to the capability of the memory on the 6950. The 6970 memory chips are rated for higher speed _AND_ tighter timings, AFAIK. Flashing the 6950 with a 6970 BIOS applies those memory timings and clocks, timings that those chips probably cannot handle. This would be why decreasing memory clocks would do next to nothing for those users who are experiencing artifacting post-flash.

There's a user on TPU who has been modifying the 6950 BIOS to unlock the extra shaders and set the clocks to 6970 levels. He/she claims that this cures the artifacting issues. Most likely because the timings stay intact but the frequencies are increased.


----------



## solidsteel144

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Frosty88*


I'm thinking the stability issues are completely related to the capability of the memory on the 6950. The 6970 memory chips are rated for higher speed AND tighter timings, AFAIK. Flashing the 6950 with a 6970 BIOS applies those memory timings and clocks, timings that those chips probably cannot handle. This would be why decreasing memory clocks would do next to nothing for those users who are experiencing artifacting post-flash.

There's a user on TPU who has been modifying the 6950 BIOS to unlock the extra shaders and set the clocks to 6970 levels. He/she claims that this cures the artifacting issues. Most likely because the timings stay intact but the frequencies are increased.


I thought the memory created problems... 
Memory timings can be changed via the BIOS?

Could you provide the link to the user doing this?


----------



## Frosty88

Quote:



Originally Posted by *solidsteel144*


I thought the memory created problems... 
Memory timings can be changed via the BIOS?


Well I assumed the stock 6970 BIOS has the memory timings set somewhere....

The timings probably aren't the same for the 6950, given the different the fact that they are different chips. So even if the timings can't be modified through the BIOS but are contained somewhere within it, wouldn't it be safe to say that modifying a 6950 BIOS to unlock the shaders would provide more stability for the memory?

EDIT: It's ongoing throughout the TPU thread about the 6950 unlocking. User's name is "rui0317". Thread can be found here: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showth...137136&page=12


----------



## tsm106

Anyone try using RBE to mod yet?


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Frosty88*


I'm thinking the stability issues are completely related to the capability of the memory on the 6950. The 6970 memory chips are rated for higher speed _AND_ tighter timings, AFAIK. Flashing the 6950 with a 6970 BIOS applies those memory timings and clocks, timings that those chips probably cannot handle. This would be why decreasing memory clocks would do next to nothing for those users who are experiencing artifacting post-flash.

There's a user on TPU who has been modifying the 6950 BIOS to unlock the extra shaders and set the clocks to 6970 levels. He/she claims that this cures the artifacting issues. Most likely because the timings stay intact but the frequencies are increased.


My HD 6850 hits 1450Mhz just fine. Maybe can even hit 1500Mhz but thats all what MSI AB allows. Also from what i am seeing all are just HD 6970 but some of them did not make it or were poor overclockers so they made them HD 6950s.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;11812933*
> My HD 6850 hits 1450Mhz just fine. Maybe can even hit 1500Mhz but thats all what MSI AB allows. Also from what i am seeing all are just HD 6970 but some of them did not make it or were poor overclockers so they made them HD 6950s.


Yours will have the 5Gbit/s chips like the other HD6950s, but they may be just better chips, just like how some Q6600s could do nearly 4Ghz no problem yet some also struggle above 3Ghz.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11810229*
> Reference or not, XFX HD4890s had problems, they used a really cheap fan, etc, the GPU makers make their own PCBs and can cheap out on component brands, etc on there even if the actual PCB is reference.


I meant reference boards, not reference coolers. Usually if you buy the cards right after launch, you get reference boards (or you'll have to search the web for them). My GTX 285 also had a reference cooler but you could tell they cheaped out on the PCB (less VRMs, lesser quality capacitors and the metal bracket around the heatspreader missed).

I know for sure my 4890, 5850 and 5770 were reference. I'm not sure about the X800 and X1650 PRO since I was 12-14 when I got them. I didn't check/knew what was reference or not.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11812580*
> You know those 2 Molex to a PCIe 6 pin adapters? They generally only have 2 +12v pins, the third is missing in those.
> 
> I was saying that the connectors (and lack of an 8pin) have nothing to do with the instability some get.


Maybe. I just found it strange that it uses 25W less than a 6970 with the same clocks.


----------



## Nautilus

Memory timings in 6970 BIOS can be edited (loosened) via HEX Editor and then flashed to 6950. It should run trouble free then, i guess.

I don't know for sure, i'm just throwing ideas. Someone knows where to look in BIOS? How the timing information stored in bios file?


----------



## stargate125645

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11812580*
> You know those 2 Molex to a PCIe 6 pin adapters? They generally only have 2 +12v pins, the third is missing in those.
> 
> I was saying that the connectors (and lack of an 8pin) have nothing to do with the instability some get.


Just a little addition to what you said: It should be noted that the 8-pin connector gets its wattage increase from two extra _ground_ lines. There is not a 4th 12V pin.


----------



## Backwoods166

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11814654*
> Yours will have the 5Gbit/s chips like the other HD6950s, but they may be just better chips, just like how some Q6600s could do nearly 4Ghz no problem yet some also struggle above 3Ghz.


...If I only had better cooling









The 6950 is looking very nice with or without this mod working. It may be time for an upgrade!


----------



## Darco19

Hmmm, here's a lil question - If I don't OC anything and just keep the 6970's clock speeds after flashing it, will that really make sure I won't encounter stability problems? Saving like 70 bucks over here is golden!


----------



## BigFan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *beers;11801042*
> 1) nobody plays it
> 2) It's horribly unoptimized
> 
> In all honesty, if your game does not improve in 3 generations of hardware technology, you're doing it wrong.


Doubt it has to do with unoptimization, games just has a lot going on at once








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Darco19;11819066*
> Hmmm, here's a lil question - If I don't OC anything and just keep the 6970's clock speeds after flashing it, will that really make sure I won't encounter stability problems? Saving like 70 bucks over here is golden!


I think it really depends because some are getting artifacts after the flashing. Most seem to think it has to do with memory timings and how they are different for the 6970. You could try flashing and if it doesn't work well(artifacts), roll back to the previous bios


----------



## DayzaStarr

Well I was planning on upgrading and was wondering which card to get, planning on something from AMD. I believe this may have helped make up my mind..2 6950's I think it shall be


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *stargate125645;11816638*
> Just a little addition to what you said: It should be noted that the 8-pin connector gets its wattage increase from two extra _ground_ lines. There is not a 4th 12V pin.


This, it only adds more stability.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Darco19;11819066*
> Hmmm, here's a lil question - If I don't OC anything and just keep the 6970's clock speeds after flashing it, will that really make sure I won't encounter stability problems? Saving like 70 bucks over here is golden!


Some chips won't handle it, some cards won't due to the RAM.
Wait for the loosened RAM timings bios, try the original and if that doesn't work try the loosened timings one.


----------



## gooddog

This is good news.
Maybe the 6970 can be firmware upgraded to a 6990


----------



## beers

Looks like my Gigabyte unlocked without a problem, straight to 880/1375 and 1536 shaders.
Ran a quick benchmark of F1 2010 and didn't have any artifacts.








67 FPS AVG 47 minimum @ 1920x1080 2xAA all settings on the highest (high/ultra).


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *gooddog;11821722*
> This is good news.
> Maybe the 6970 can be firmware upgraded to a 6990


A firmware upgrade isn't going to magically make hardware appear.
The 6990 is going to be dual-GPU.


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:



Originally Posted by *beers*


Looks like my Gigabyte unlocked without a problem, straight to 880/1375 and 1536 shaders.
Ran a quick benchmark of F1 2010 and didn't have any artifacts.








67 FPS AVG 47 minimum @ 1920x1080 2xAA all settings on the highest (high/ultra).


Try running something really taxing, after my unlock I had a few artifacts in Unigine but almost none in games. It took several hours of gaming to even see an artifact in a game, and they were very minor ones. As opposed to the ones I saw in Unigine 2.1, which were very noticeable, at any clock speed.


----------



## tsm106

If you're having problems like artifacting, re-flash with the modified 6950 bios that will just unlock the gpu and not touch the memory timings. A few ppl have resolved their artifacting issues this way. Refer to the TPU thread.


----------



## jnguyn

ahhhhhhhhhh i have to do this


----------



## SgtMunky

This is good. I just ordered one


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *gooddog*


This is good news.
Maybe the 6970 can be firmware upgraded to a 6990










Maybe its cause I'm drunk but, a BIOS flash adding another GPU and more RAM?

_Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight._


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Is the memory on the 6970 running at a higher voltage to accommodate the tighter timings? I'm really confused on why the 6950 @ similar clocks/shaders is using 25W less.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PoopaScoopa;11846477*
> Is the memory on the 6970 running at a higher voltage to accommodate the tighter timings? I'm really confused on why the 6950 @ similar clocks/shaders is using 25W less.


The memory on the 6970 is rated to run at 6GHz but the core has a higher voltage, although the new bios should set 1.17v core voltage for the flashed 6950 too.


----------



## rtop2

6950 will be at my doorstep in like 4 days, so pumped.


----------



## CovertCover

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Brutuz;11842109*
> Maybe its cause I'm drunk but, a BIOS flash adding another GPU and more RAM?
> 
> _Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight._


Either that or your not drunk enough


----------



## Rustynails

question does it work just for the 6950 2.1 card or will it also work for

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127555&cm_re=radeon_hd_6950-_-14-127-555-_-Product this one?


----------



## aldfig0

http://www.techpowerup.com/137448/AMD-Revising-Radeon-HD-6900-Series-PCB.html
Quote:


> The redesigned PCB with its new TI-made driver-MOSFETs (DrMOS) could also present an opportunity for AMD to patch the Radeon HD 6950, making stream processor unlocking using BIOS flash impossible, notes the source.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Merged.


----------



## PoopaScoopa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Razi3l;11846664*
> The memory on the 6970 is rated to run at 6GHz but the core has a higher voltage, although the new bios should set 1.17v core voltage for the flashed 6950 too.


I assumed that the vcore was identical once unlocked:








This shows the 6950 unlocked to a 6970 using 25W less but similar fps/temps. I don't get why it's using less watts.

edit: I guess if the vcore had identical voltage so would the memory if it's using the 6970 bios. So, I have no idea why there's a difference in watts if they're identical cards but one was artificially limited in shaders and the 6970 had faster RAM.


----------



## aldfig0

Why isn't this one merged then?
http://www.overclock.net/hardware-news/898672-tpu-amd-radeon-hd-6950-can.html


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *aldfig0;11848708*
> Why isn't this one merged then?
> http://www.overclock.net/hardware-news/898672-tpu-amd-radeon-hd-6950-can.html


It is now.


----------



## Razi3l

I bet they'll lock out the unclocking on the new PCB, but who knows, maybe they'll be generous


----------



## rocstar96

Quote:



AMD is planning a revised Radeon HD 6900 series reference-design PCB. It is reported that the delays which short-supply of TI-made driver-MOSFETs caused have been tided over with, giving AMD the opportunity to redesign the PCB to make use of the more cost-effective yet high-performance VRM circuitry.


Source


----------



## [xPt]FLuX

yayzors? Price Drop? What about the guys who got one already







?


----------



## Rpg2

Improving the PCB design? I guess this means that.... AMD won't be










Cutting corners anymore.


----------



## Kitarist

They are doing this so peeps wont be able to unlock 5950 anymore


----------



## IcedEarth

Quote:



Originally Posted by *[xPt]FLuX*


yayzors? Price Drop? What about the guys who got one already







?


Tough nuts, it happens.

Cars have revisions and in life updates all of the time, and you can't just go in and replace your 05' model with an 06' model just because it has better sound proofing.

Buying technology that is at the forefront is risky. Sometimes you come out singing (8800GTX held its value incredibly well) and sometimes your luck runs out, like in this case.

I hardly doubt the improvement will be leaps and bounds, and people paid for their 69XX series cards knowing their respective performance. If they were happy with the investment for the performance back then, they should be just as content now considering performance hasn't decreased.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kitarist*


They are doing this so peeps wont be able to unlock 5950 anymore










That was my initial thought. We will see.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

So basically people who have 6950s and 6970s right now will have problems finding full cover waterblocks?


----------



## SmokinWaffle

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Rpg2*


Improving the PCB design? I guess this means that.... AMD won't be










Cutting corners anymore.


*YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH.
*


----------



## Iching

No more unlocking. Hurry up and get those HD6950.


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SmokinWaffle*


*YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH.
*










Oh you guys.


----------



## Blameless

Get the current 6950s while you can. I don't expect the new ones to unlock to 6970s.

Also, PCB revisions are rarely good for the end-user. The only reason to revise them is manufacturing costs.


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Blameless*


Get the current 6950s while you can. I don't expect the new ones to unlock to 6970s.

Also, PCB revisions are rarely good for the end-user. The only reason to revise them is manufacturing costs.


They'll probably nudge those power connectors off by a few mm, that's the most I'd see with this revision.

That, and use a proper laser to cut those free shaders.


----------



## rtop2

Thanks the lord I ordered one like 3 days ago


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Post 1761... this was already posted. Merged anyway.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SmokinWaffle*


*YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH.
*











Quote:



Originally Posted by *Blameless*


Get the current 6950s while you can. I don't expect the new ones to unlock to 6970s.

Also, PCB revisions are rarely good for the end-user. The only reason to revise them is manufacturing costs.


People are speculating that this could be a trick by AMD to get rid of the old 6950s. The way they provided the end users with dual BIOSes and how simple it is.

Also, it could be that the TI VRMs allow better overclocking. They might run hotter though.


----------



## Rustynails

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Rustynails;11847816*
> question does it work just for the 6950 2.1 card or will it also work for
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127555&cm_re=radeon_hd_6950-_-14-127-555-_-Product this one?


some one?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Rustynails;11853946*
> some one?


It will probably work for that one too. It's never certain if one will unlock without issues.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kand;11852730*
> They'll probably nudge those power connectors off by a few mm, that's the most I'd see with this revision.
> 
> That, and use a proper laser to cut those free shaders.


Did you even read the article? :u
It says they will use different different VRM circuitry. They'll also laser cut shaders too most likely


----------



## Kand

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Razi3l;11855991*
> Did you even read the article? :u
> It says they will use different different VRM circuitry. They'll also laser cut shaders too most likely


I did, but this whole VRM issue seems to be covering for something else. It's just a little bit too convenient.









Even if AMD replaces the VRM parts, we should'nt see a cut corner next revision, then I'd be correct on my hunch.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


I did, but this whole VRM issue seems to be covering for something else. It's just a little bit too convenient.









Even if AMD replaces the VRM parts, we should'nt see a cut corner next revision, then I'd be correct on my hunch.


I think the corner they're cutting is the unlocking one








I mean all those chips which can be unlocked and are working fine can just be sold as 6970s for more but who knows, i'm sure TPU will do an article on one of those cards too.


----------



## Brutuz

I'm pretty sure the PCB has nothing to do whether the GPU unlocks or not...If they wanted to change that, they'd just have to start laser-cutting the GPUs from factory...


----------



## cliveneo

anyone find a way to adjust the voltage of the 68xx/69xx series???


----------



## aznofazns

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cliveneo;11895384*
> anyone find a way to adjust the voltage of the 68xx/69xx series???


You should be able to use Sapphire Trixx on your 6970. Just go to Sapphire's website, register your card, and download the Trixx software.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/ssc/TriXX/


----------



## cliveneo

trixx does work to get past the ccc barrier, however it does not allow for voltage adjustment


----------



## Mr.Pie

Quote:



ASUS displayed a huge new graphics card based on the AMD Radeon HD 6970 GPU. The EAH6970 DirectCu is perhaps the largest among the company's graphics cards that use a "direct-copper" GPU cooler in which heat pipes make direct contact with the GPU die. Such is the size of the cooler, that the card requires three expansion slots in your system. To make optimal use of the expansion brackets, ASUS wired out all TMDS links from the GPU, yielding a display connectivity consisting of two DVI and four full-sized DisplayPort 1.2 connectors.





















source


----------



## GTR Mclaren

LOOOOOONG cat


----------



## xxbassplayerxx

That's big.

I think I'd still prefer a 570 though.


----------



## Lampen

Needs a backplate.


----------



## kora04

Cooler looks rather....off, doesn't quite click with me.


----------



## Poisoner

Two crossfire connectors and a three slot card. Better bust out my UD9 and call Mountain Mods.


----------



## Gabe63

That is a fat card.


----------



## BeDuckie

Nice card..but no backplate?! Even AMD managed to throw one on their _reference_ design..


----------



## _GTech

I guess size does really matter.









Somebody had to say it..


----------



## Diabolical999

huge cooler taking up 3 slots, and it's just a regular old HD 6970 at the end of the day. The cooler is nice, the chip is the same. Yeah.


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Diabolical999*


huge cooler taking up 3 slots, and it's just a regular old HD 6970 at the end of the day. The cooler is nice, the chip is the same. Yeah.


Welcome to nearly every single non-reference card. I see 2 x 8-pin, so I guess it's _possible_ they're using some kind of binning process.


----------



## Kirby1

I have seen smaller laptop motherboards.


----------



## Raiden911

ooo...that's nice.


----------



## spanielcheckers

Sexy card is sexy. Long as it can fit in a full tower, I'm happy.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Gabe63*


That is a phat card.


Fix'd


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

I'm NOT letting this go off topic that quickly. That was just... ugh.


----------



## staryoshi

The GPU IHS surface is so tiny on these cards (relative to Fermi models)... Massive aluminum fin arrays and large quantities of copper heat pipes can only remove heat so quickly... I'd rather see more efficient designs come into play for these cards than just throwing the kitchen sink at it.

Slap this cooler on Fermi and we'll talk, Asus









I do like the connectivity options and additional vent on the bracket, though.


----------



## xxbassplayerxx

I definitely want this cooler on a 570!


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Stock HD 6970 is very good if you dont mind the fan @ 100%. I hit 55C in furmark with fan @ 100% but its the loudest card i have ever used. Something like 6k RPM.


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


Stock HD 6970 is very good if you dont mind the fan @ 100%. I hit 55C in furmark with fan @ 100% but its the loudest card i have ever used. Something like 6k RPM.


I do mind







Non-reference/aftermarket cooling or the highway, baby!

Also, one feature I particularly love about the DirectCU models is the support bracket


----------



## Chrono Detector

Very nice looking card but it takes up 3 slots, ASUS most likely heavily overclocked this card.


----------



## windfire

This pic should be included in the OP.
Is this the first of a new age where top end cards use 3-slot?


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *windfire;11933766*
> This pic should be included in the OP.
> Is this the first of a new age where top end cards use 3-slot?




Is that 3 slot design really necessary there...

E: seems like it since I see 4 DPs...


----------



## xxbassplayerxx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *windfire;11933766*
> This pic should be included in the OP.
> Is this the first of a new age where top end cards use 3-slot?


There have been a few before this, but this seems to be the first to man up and use a 3-slot bracket as well.


----------



## windfire

Cards get thicker and longer.....and is there a good reason why not many get taller?


----------



## HowHardCanItBe

Damn that card's obese.


----------



## blackbalt89

That thing is ridonculous. Not to mention not a single HDMI output?








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *windfire;11933841*
> Cards get thicker and longer.....and is there a good reason why not many get taller?


My guess would be to comply with case widths.


----------



## Mr.Pie

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *blackbalt89;11933907*
> That thing is ridonculous. Not to mention not a single HDMI output?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My guess would be to comply with case widths.


there is
i think its either 1 or 2

its cause your mixing it with the Display ports
if you look carefully there is a HDMI port if i'm not mistaken









edit my bad
there isn't any HDMI ports


----------



## blackbalt89

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Mr.Pie;11933928*
> there is
> i think its either 1 or 2
> 
> its cause your mixing it with the Display ports
> if you look carefully there is a HDMI port if i'm not mistaken
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> edit my bad
> there isn't any HDMI ports


Don't worry I was doubting my self there too. I was like 4 DP and 2 DVI but not a single HDMI?


----------



## Mr.Pie

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *blackbalt89;11934024*
> Don't worry I was doubting my self there too. I was like 4 DP and 2 DVI but not a single HDMI?


imma confused myself....DP still isn't a standard that much right now IMO....unless you run eyeinfinity

I would prefer 2x hdmi and 2x dp ports on there instead


----------



## blackbalt89

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Mr.Pie;11934041*
> imma confused myself....DP still isn't a standard that much right now IMO....unless you run eyeinfinity
> 
> I would prefer 2x hdmi and 2x dp ports on there instead


I guess it's a good thing I switched to the dark side. HDMI FTW.


----------



## Poisoner

Girth and not length???


----------



## byrkoet

Quote:



ASUS displayed a huge new graphics card based on the AMD Radeon HD 6970 GPU. The EAH6970 DirectCu is perhaps the largest among the company's graphics cards that use a "direct-copper" GPU cooler in which heat pipes make direct contact with the GPU die. Such is the size of the cooler, that the card requires three expansion slots in your system. To make optimal use of the expansion brackets, ASUS wired out all TMDS links from the GPU, yielding a display connectivity consisting of two DVI and four full-sized DisplayPort 1.2 connectors.











http://techpowerup.com/137935/ASUS-S...hics-Card.html

Hoped to see some benchmarks, too bad.


----------



## SmokinWaffle

Hey there, good lookin'.


----------



## eno439

so sexy... but no hdmi ports


----------



## Riou

Whoa!


----------



## SmokinWaffle

So many outputs,









Looks like a great Eyefinity card.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Merged. This is still up for a reason.


----------



## byrkoet

Wished Nvidia had the technology.


----------



## grunion

[H] CFX/SLI review

Almost no reason to get a 70 over a 50.


----------



## L D4WG

That is massive, I don't really like the look of the cooler :s.
Also 4 DP? and NO HDMI? LOL no thanks, Im sick of dodgy DVI to HDMI connectors


----------



## Spct

Thats not a video card, it's a video baby momma board


----------



## sayuki288

That's one long huge videocard - that's what she says


----------



## pjBSOD

Wow, I can't believe we're already that close to the 7xxx series.


----------



## 3dfxvoodoo

got enough back plats there asus


----------



## decimator

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Poisoner;11934317*
> Girth and not length???


Chode.

Anyway, yeah wow, huge cooler is huge...


----------



## Trigunflame

Don't see the practicality in a 3-slot card. But, then again, I've seen dumber things too.


----------



## edalbkrad

lol that will warp the motherboard
Buy and Sell Condo for sale SM Condo
Eton Ayala Land soundsystem for rent


----------



## soilentblue

dah i thought there was going to be 6990 news


----------



## windfire

HIS releases 1GB HD6950

link:http://www.techpowerup.com/138449/HIS-Intros-Radeon-HD-6950-1-GB-Fan-Edition-Graphics-Card.html

Edit #1
Google translated link: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.mydrivers.com%2F1%2F184%2F184482.htm&act=url
(many more pics)


----------



## MoBeeJ

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=138674

Quote:



The new Radeon HD 6970 was able to shed $100 (or close to 26.5%) of its price by halving its memory amount. The original 2 GB version sells for an average $379. The 1 GB cards use eight 1 Gbit memory chips over a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. Memory clock speeds and bandwidth remain unchanged. Apart from memory amount, partners will most likely use cost-effective board and cooler designs. Apart from the HD 6970, AMD will also introduce "Turbo" variants of the Radeon HD 6870, which will feature very high GPU core clock speeds.


Talk about cheap gpu and overpriced memory!?!?!
A 1g 6970 is 100$ cheaper so that makes the 1g 6950...??


----------



## Mr.Pie

Quote:



Originally Posted by *MoBeeJ*


http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=138674

Talk about cheap gpu and overpriced memory!?!?!
A 1g 6970 is 100$ cheaper so that makes the 1g 6950...??


GDDR5 memory is expensive methinks


----------



## Darkapoc

SWEEEEEEEEEET







Might actually look into the 6970 when I upgrade than.


----------



## Razi3l

These will also most likely be non-reference models so keep in mind the PCB will be of somewhat cheaper components, and that expensive vapour chamboer cooler won't be here either


----------



## Oupavoc

That's pretty good pricing, ram is killing gpu prices


----------



## ZealotKi11er

If HD 6970 will be that much what will happened to GTX560?


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


If HD 6970 will be that much what will happened to GTX560?


It's gonna be a fail.


----------



## dizzyscure1

I wounder what kinda performance hit it will have on gaming at a resolution of 1080+? I really think its going to take a hit on the perofmance side of things when going for a heavy deamand game engine, maybe 5-15% is my PERDICTION.







but that fee of $280 does look rather nice. Hope its a winner in price/performance


----------



## HealthyBigMac

I wonder if AMD is shooting themselves in the foot with this one.
Because of this massive price drop (even though they didn't mention a 6950 price, lets say $250), then what will happen to the price of, say, a $240 6870?

Don't get me wrong, this is awesome news, but I don't see much profit going AMD's way. Also, this move is going to strangle their very own mid-range cards.

Or am I missing something?


----------



## RussianJ

If running crossfire, the VRAM is measured from the card the line out is plugged into correct? So a 1gb and 2gb card together would still net 2gb usable?


----------



## WorldExclusive

The GTX 500 series still has more raw GPU power then the AMD 6000 series. 
Without the extra ram, the cards will perform even lower at high resolutions.


----------



## adjas

didn't think the 6950 or 6970 had vapour cooling, only the gtx 570 and 580


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:



Originally Posted by *HealthyBigMac*


I wonder if AMD is shooting themselves in the foot with this one.
Because of this massive price drop (even though they didn't mention a 6950 price, lets say $250), then what will happen to the price of, say, a $240 6870?

Don't get me wrong, this is awesome news, but I don't see much profit going AMD's way. Also, this move is going to strangle their very own mid-range cards.

Or am I missing something?


Yea i kind of question what will happen to pricing but i reckon they'll drop the 6870 to the 200 mark, $250 taken by the 6950 and probably $300 by the 6970

Quote:



Originally Posted by *WorldExclusive*


The GTX 500 series still has more raw GPU power then the AMD 6000 series. 
Without the extra ram, the cards will perform even lower at high resolutions.


Yea but most people game at 1080 or 1200 so it won't really matter much, and the 2GB vram was only there for those who needed eyefinity or gamed at really high res, and most people don't, and it's expensive for both parties









Quote:



Originally Posted by *adjas*


didn't think the 6950 or 6970 had vapour cooling, only the gtx 570 and 580


Yes they did, have you not read any reviews or anything?


----------



## PhRe4k

Is it really a big deal at resolutions of 1080p and below?

Quote:



Originally Posted by *dizzyscure1*


I wounder what kinda performance hit it will have on gaming at a resolution of 1080+? I really think its going to take a hit on the perofmance side of things when going for a heavy deamand game engine, maybe 5-15% is my *PERDICTION.*







but that fee of $280 does look rather nice. Hope its a winner in price/performance










lmao


----------



## beers

Quote:



Originally Posted by *RussianJ*


If running crossfire, the VRAM is measured from the card the line out is plugged into correct? So a 1gb and 2gb card together would still net 2gb usable?


You'll only effectively have 1 GB.


----------



## BKsMassive

Nvidia Price drops


----------



## DeadMau5

Quote:



Originally Posted by *RussianJ*


If running crossfire, the VRAM is measured from the card the line out is plugged into correct? So a 1gb and 2gb card together would still net 2gb usable?


it would work as 1Gb(what ever is used on the first cards memory is mirrored across to the other memory) but 5870 crossfire 1Gb and 2Gb took a big performance hit and performed worse than 1GB crossfire.

if they use old PCB with the dual bios then the 6950 version of this could be epic







same PCB with 8 128MB memory chips. doubt AMD will let that happen though lol


----------



## Poisoner

Quote:



Originally Posted by *RussianJ*


If running crossfire, the VRAM is measured from the card the line out is plugged into correct? So a 1gb and 2gb card together would still net 2gb usable?


wrong.


----------



## GTR Mclaren

Quote:



Originally Posted by *HealthyBigMac*


I wonder if AMD is shooting themselves in the foot with this one.
Because of this massive price drop (even though they didn't mention a 6950 price, lets say $250), then what will happen to the price of, say, a $240 6870?

Don't get me wrong, this is awesome news, but I don't see much profit going AMD's way. Also, this move is going to strangle their very own mid-range cards.

Or am I missing something?


6870 are overpriced

they need to be 199$ asap


----------



## MrAlex

Dayum. Imagine, 6870 $200 and 6850 $149!


----------



## brettjv

Quote:



Originally Posted by *RussianJ*


If running crossfire, the VRAM is measured from the card the line out is plugged into correct? So a 1gb and 2gb card together would still net 2gb usable?


Negative. Card w/lowest memory capacity 'wins' on any multi-gpu setup. It works kinda like RAID-1 in this regard. Same data must be mirrored across both GPU's memory. 2gb + 1gb card = 1gb effective memory capacity.


----------



## byrkoet

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Darkapoc*


SWEEEEEEEEEET







Might actually look into the 6970 when I upgrade than.


the AMD HD7000 series cards will be released any time this year, so you might consider waiting a bit longer before upgrading.


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *byrkoet*


the AMD HD7000 series cards will be released any time this year, so you might consider waiting a bit longer before upgrading.










supposively between the end of Q3 and sometime in Q4. more likely in Q4 around november.


----------



## RotaryKnight

if this is true then hmm....
supposedly out in mid february.
THe 7xxx series should be out later in the year...
Its so tempting to grab one if its true.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

6970/6950 2G fail picture is complete. Now the 6870 and 6850 are going to get fail too in order to sell their flagship GPU at a $280 price point. Great for us consumers pretty bad move on AMD's part though.

On the other hand nVidia will have to lower GTX 570 and GTX 560 prices to stay competitive. Great news







!


----------



## pyra

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


6970/6950 2G fail picture is complete. Now the 6870 and 6850 are going to get fail too in order to sell their flagship GPU at a $280 price point. Great for us consumers pretty bad move on AMD's part though.

On the other hand nVidia will have to lower GTX 570 and GTX 560 prices to stay competitive. Great news







!


What in the hell are you talking about?


----------



## test tube

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


6970/6950 2G fail picture is complete. Now the 6870 and 6850 are going to get fail too in order to sell their flagship GPU at a $280 price point. Great for us consumers pretty bad move on AMD's part though.

On the other hand nVidia will have to lower GTX 570 and GTX 560 prices to stay competitive. Great news







!


No, they're going right for nVidia with this move. nVidia's dies are larger than AMDs (and therefore cost more), so they can afford to slaughter them in prices like this. It will probably be even worse when we move to 28nm.


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


6970/6950 2G fail picture is complete. Now the 6870 and 6850 are going to get fail too in order to sell their flagship GPU at a $280 price point. Great for us consumers pretty bad move on AMD's part though.

On the other hand nVidia will have to lower GTX 570 and GTX 560 prices to stay competitive. Great news







!


You're a tool, plain and simple. Always swinging from the proverbial sack of nVidia.

69xx hasn't had a _single_ driver improvement thus far because it's only been out _for a month_. By your logic, the GTX480/470 were doomed from day one. *Sure didn't end up that way.*


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *pyra*


What in the hell are you talking about?


Would you buy a 2G 6970 knowing you can have the same performance for $280?

Quote:



Originally Posted by *test tube*


No, they're going right for nVidia with this move. nVidia's dies are larger than AMDs (and therefore cost more), so they can afford to slaughter them in prices like this. It will probably be even worse when we move to 28nm.


I know they are and they should. The thing is that they're cannibalising their own sales. Same thing happened with nVidia in the G92 era.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sub50hz*


You're a tool, plain and simple. Always swinging from the proverbial sack of nVidia.

69xx hasn't had a _single_ driver improvement thus far because it's only been out _for a month_. By your logic, the GTX480/470 were doomed from day one. *Sure didn't end up that way.*










Wow flame on! I'm not even talking about drivers? What is pro nVidia in my post. Care to highlight it. For some reason you put your teeth into me some time ago and can't seem to let go.


----------



## cubanresourceful

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


Wow flame on! I'm not even talking about drivers? What is pro nVidia in my post. Care to highlight it. For some reason you put your teeth into me some time ago and can't seem *to* let go.


Sorry, it was _really_ bothering me.









EDIT: Haha I was kidding, just sinkin' my teeth into you for no reason as well.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *cubanresourceful*


Sorry, it was _really_ bothering me.










No problems I know the feeling


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


For some reason you put your teeth into me some time ago and can't seem let go.


Because you carry your passive-agressive anti-ATI/AMD viewpoint wherever you go, and it's posts like that and agenda-pushers like yourself that are runing this forum. It's impossible to have a mature discussion in nearly any GPU thread anymore because of posts like yours.

I do realize the potential irony in pointing out the level of maturity in said threads compared to the pair of posts I have made in here, but if nobody else is going to say anything, it's just going to continue. There's no reason to constantly sully every GPU thread you walk into, but it seems like you get some kind of masochistic pleasure by doing so.


----------



## geoxile

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


Would you buy a 2G 6970 knowing you can have the same performance for $280?


For Eyefinity? Of course, since the 2GB version has shown to have an obvious edge over the GTX 570 and even 580 at very high resolutions, well even 2560x1600 IIRC

Otherwise likely not for the typical user.


----------



## cubanresourceful

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sub50hz*


Because you carry your passive-agressive anti-ATI/AMD viewpoint wherever you go, and it's posts like that and agenda-pushers like yourself that are runing this forum. It's impossible to have a mature discussion in nearly any GPU thread anymore because of posts like yours.

I do realize the potential irony in pointing out the level of maturity in said threads compared to the pair of posts I have made in here, but if nobody else is going to say anything, it's just going to continue. There's no reason to constantly sully every GPU thread you walk into, but it seems like you get some kind of masochistic pleasure by doing so.


Not saying whether or not you're right, but just feel as if I should point something out. If the person's objective is to _sully_ a thread, then by you commenting on it, don't you satisfy their disgustingly guilty pleasure by doing so? I mean, if one ignores the sully-ers, then wouldn't they get bored and revert back to porn or something?


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Dude I have no problems getting cards from any brand. I own and have owned several cards from different manufacturers. I'm entitled to my own opinion, it would certainly be a nice forum if anyone had the same opinion as you do, right? Does my opinion bother/hurt you that much? I have my reasons for everything I state, not all of them are correct but neither are yours.

And the level of this conversation dropped way down since your first reaction on my post. Name calling come on. Don't get too personal it's just the internet


----------



## staryoshi

If you're going to buy a gaming graphics card and intend to play at mainstream resolution (1920x1200 and below), there is no compelling reason to spend another $100+ bumping VRAM.

1GB HD6970/50s will be a boon for consumers and keep nVidia's GTX500 series pricing competitive. Consumer win!


----------



## GTR Mclaren

great, this will drop prices

just about time, march will be the month for my next GPU


----------



## The_Punisher

Now they need to release a 1G 6950 that unlocks to a 6970


----------



## Enfluenza

NICE!
i hope these perform a little better than HD68xx series!

will performance look like this:
6850
6950 1GB
6870
6970 1GB
6950 2GB
6970 2GB

or like this?
6850
6870
6950 1GB
6950 2GB
6970 1GB
6970 2GB?

waiting for teh benchies.
i think 3 69xx 1GB will be in my rig soon









so who wants my GTX275s? lol


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Enfluenza;12056308*
> NICE!
> i hope these perform a little better than HD68xx series!
> 
> or like this?
> 6850
> 6870
> 6950 1GB
> 6950 2GB
> 6970 1GB
> 6970 2GB?
> 
> waiting for teh benchies.
> i think 3 69xx 1GB will be in my rig soon
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> so who wants my GTX275s? lol


The additional VRAM is only useful in multi-card high resolution/multi-monitor setups.
For most users it will be 6950 1GB => 6950 2GB => 6970 1GB => 6970 2GB assuming they all run at the same clocks.

The 6800 series is slower than the 6900 series, so your second list is accurate.


----------



## Blindsay

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;12055903*
> Would you buy a 2G 6970 knowing you can have the same performance for $280?


Ill be getting 2 of the 2GB 6950's still (gonna flash to 6970)

Pretty sure they dont offer the same peformance at 5760x1080.

Sure while a lot of people dont game at that res the 2GB cards still have their place, and i bet 2560x1600 with AA will be faster on a 2GB card even


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;12056061*
> it would certainly be a nice forum if anyone had the same opinion as you do, right? Does my opinion bother/hurt you that much? I have my reasons for everything I state, not all of them are correct but neither are yours.


None of your opinions "hurt" me, but they certainly detract from an otherwise professional atmosphere. It's not just you, make no mistake. Straw that broke the camel's back, yadda yadda.
Quote:


> And the level of this conversation dropped way down since your first reaction on my post. Name calling come on. Don't get too personal it's just the internet


It's not personal -- it's a detriment to the entire site. Pro-xxx is so tirelessly annoying, and so many people have such a penchant for continuously re-posting the same garbage. It's real terrible.


----------



## coreyL

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Darkapoc;12053281*
> SWEEEEEEEEEET
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Might actually look into the 6970 when I upgrade than.


holy crap, now i have a REASON to upgrade my 4890. bout EFFing time..


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;12056703*
> None of your opinions "hurt" me, but they certainly detract from an otherwise professional atmosphere. It's not just you, make no mistake. Straw that broke the camel's back, yadda yadda.
> 
> It's not personal -- it's a detriment to the entire site. Pro-xxx is so tirelessly annoying, and so many people have such a penchant for continuously re-posting the same garbage. It's real terrible.


How would you classify yourself? I find it funny that you're talking about me (and others apparently) being pro nVidia, but people being pro AMD doesn't destract you? Is that because of your full AMD rig? What are you trying to accomplish by calling me names? I could say the same about you, and we would end up the same way we started except for the time we unnecessarilly lost. How can you bring professionalism to a place if you aren't professional yourself? The best defense is a good offense I guess.......

PS

If I really bother you and detract you from an otherwise professional atmosphere, you could always put me and all other people that do not meet your criterium into your ignore list you know.


----------



## coreyL

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;12056868*
> How would you classify yourself? I find it funny that you're talking about me (and others apparently) being pro nVidia, but people being pro AMD doesn't destract you? Is that because of your full AMD rig? What are you trying to accomplish by calling me names? I could say the same about you, and we would end up the same way we started except for the time we unnecessarilly lost. How can you bring professionalism to a place if you aren't professional yourself? The best defense is a good offense I guess.......
> 
> PS
> 
> If I really bother you and detract you from an otherwise professional atmosphere, you could always put me and all other people that do not meet your criterium into your ignore list you know.


Fanboyism is completely ******ed, on so many levels.

the 8800gtx was the fastest gpu of its time and raped ati for a long long time.

amd's early dual core cpu's raped intel's early dual core cpu's. then intel made the core 2 series and have been pummeling amd since.

Even though the Henessey Venom 1000 twin turbo Viper is my favorite car hands down, and I hate ford with a passion, I still realize that the 2011 mustang v6 is easily the best bang for the buck you can get for performance car wise.

Ford, this time, made a BETTER CAR. I would actually buy a 2011 mustang if i had the money, and I HATE FORD.

I went from a GTX 275 which fried on me to a 4890. Why? Because it was faster? No. Because I play steam games a lot more than i play Crysis. I never, EVER favor one company over another until the company proves to me through anecdotal experience that they are a terrible company. Ford has redeemed themselves in my eyes with the 2011 stang.

Even though I hate ASUS with a passion, because of my anecdotal experience, I'll still admit that the asus xonar is one of the best sound cards in the world; the asus rampage are some of the best mobo's around. I wouldn't buy asus myself based on my anecdotal experiences with them.

Labels do nothing but limit things. This includes brand names, even with brands like Bose. they may make decend headphones which cost an arm and a leg for the quality of headphones 1/4 the cost, but maybe some day they will start making good quality items which are worth their cost.


----------



## SpeedNuggeT

i brought my 6870 1gb for 320AUD







that's about 280USD, close to this price.

Ah well, GPU prices change all teh time!


----------



## sub50hz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;12056868*
> but people being pro AMD doesn't destract you? Is that because of your full AMD rig?


I am not biased, let me make that clear. Judging me based on my current rig is not only unfair, but it shows that you're unable to paint any other picture based on prior comments I have made (which, for the record, you can see for yourself if you have a good deal of time to spare). I am 100% unbiased when it comes to purchasing or recommending hardware, and I in no way support one company over another based on their available product (however, things like service, quality of materials and customer service DO matter to me). I am tired of seeing people mindlessly slander and berate others or incite flamewars because of their apparent "allegiance" towards xxxx brand/OEM.
Quote:


> The best defense is a good offense I guess.......


Pot, meet kettle.
Quote:


> If I really bother you and detract you from an otherwise professional atmosphere, you could always put me and all other people that do not meet your criterium into your ignore list you know.


My criterium? Is it hard to see your keyboard from up on that pedestal? I just wish people would stop openly being such brand-loyal jackholes.


----------



## darksideleader

and the creator of fan based silicon wars lies happily in his grave.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;12057144*
> Pot, meet kettle.


In that case take your own advice. Otherwise, put me on your ignore list. Or do both


----------



## Chewy

dam it the only reason i bought a gtx 570 was because it offered more performance for nearly the same price as a 6970 2gb, I play at 1920x1200 so the 6970 1gb would have been PERFECT and have saved me a few ££

Perfect timing ati as usual!


----------



## Enfluenza

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *staryoshi;12056402*
> The additional VRAM is only useful in multi-card high resolution/multi-monitor setups.
> For most users it will be 6950 1GB => 6950 2GB => 6970 1GB => 6970 2GB assuming they all run at the same clocks.
> 
> The 6800 series is slower than the 6900 series, so your second list is accurate.


great!
looks like 3 6950 1GBs will be in my rig soon








who wants my SLi'd 275s? anyone?


----------



## Chewy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sub50hz;12057144*
> I am not biased, let me make that clear. Judging me based on my current rig is not only unfair, but it shows that you're unable to paint any other picture based on prior comments I have made (which, for the record, you can see for yourself if you have a good deal of time to spare). I am 100% unbiased when it comes to purchasing or recommending hardware, and I in no way support one company over another based on their available product (however, things like service, quality of materials and customer service DO matter to me). I am tired of seeing people mindlessly slander and berate others or incite flamewars because of their apparent "allegiance" towards xxxx brand/OEM.
> 
> Pot, meet kettle.
> 
> My criterium? Is it hard to see your keyboard from up on that pedestal? I just wish people would stop openly being such brand-loyal jackholes.


Not going to happen im affraid, you have more chance of winning the lottery


----------



## Xeoc

How much is the 1gb hd6950 going to be? Maybe they will price it at the hd6870 mark to best the gtx560 while costing less.


----------



## Phallic Tractor

I recall the 1gb 5870 and 5970 ran into a vram bottleneck on Metro 2033. Minimum frame rates were also effected on several games compared to the 2gb versions. It might be a problem.


----------



## AzO

Shouldn't this be a rumor?

Since the source is another forum and not a official source?


----------



## th3l4st0ne

Dammit, stop making nice things so I can actually upgrade without putting everything on hold!!!
But a 6970 for 280$? Do want!
*1 week before launch date* ATI anounce 7870 at 250$ beating the 6970 by 13%

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU


----------



## hollowtek

Damn, this certainly does qualify for one of those times where God blesses a piece of cow turd. Holy Sh......


----------



## Pedros

uuuuu ... i was waiting for the gtx 560 and news about the 595 ( or whatever ) ... i may end up with a 6970 or 2 ... since i only use 1920x1200









pretty awesomeness ...


----------



## redhat_ownage

i hope they will use the same pcb for 1gb and 2gb version, people like me can just go and buy the gddr5 chips and install them by hand, and flash the bios.


----------



## bainne

***? How does the 6970 1GB story make any sense the 6900 series review section









Anyways, just heard on HWC that the 6970 1GB rumour is false. It's a 6950 1GB.
The price of $279 is right though
Quote:


> Update [01/18/2010] As a result of some miscommunication, the original report by online sources claiming that AMD would be launching a 6970 1GB at $279 appear to be false. In our contact with AMD, the company confirmed the product it actually intends to release, will be a Radeon HD 6950 1GB, priced at $279.


http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/news/video/amd-radeon-6970-rumoured-shedding-pounds/


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


> What do you get if you take a Radeon HD 6950 and ship it from the factory with extra shaders and increased clock speeds? It's either an HD 6970, or PowerColor's new HD 6950 PCS++.
> 
> In 'safe' mode, the card will run at the normal frequencies of 800MHz for the core and 1,250MHz for the 2GB frame buffer. Throw the BIOS switch, however, and the Cayman GPUs full complement of 1,536 shaders are unlocked and turned up to a speed of 880MHz, perfectly matching the specs of the HD 6970.


Source

Sounds pretty awesome. Hope it doesn't cost too much over 6950.


----------



## mrcrusty

Do want.... depending on price.


----------



## Ethan10584

very nice


----------



## SilverPotato

Oh wow, Powercolor <3

Their stuff is always so well priced for the power, the only downside is the coolers are usually garbage, nothing aftermarket can't fix.

I'll be buying 2 ^___^


----------



## mrcrusty

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *SilverPotato;12088382*
> Oh wow, Powercolor <3
> 
> Their stuff is always so well priced for the power, the only downside is the coolers are usually garbage, nothing aftermarket can't fix.
> 
> I'll be buying 2 ^___^


Actually, the PCS coolers tend to be great, but they have a habit of using an inferior PCB which leads to things like higher than expected power consumption, or no voltage tweaking.


----------



## -iceblade^

can't most 6950's do this? or did they pack it with the full amount of shaders?


----------



## SilverPotato

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *mrcrusty;12088421*
> Actually, the PCS coolers tend to be great, but they have a habit of using an inferior PCB which leads to things like higher than expected power consumption, or no voltage tweaking.


Fair enough, I've had a few bad experiences with coolers being about 20-30C off of the advertised temps. But I can see how bad PCB would factor into that. I'm probably just a really unlucky person









Even with the mishaps I've had with Powercolor I still get their stuff because it's way to fast for what you pay.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

I don't quite get the picture. Does this come pre-flashed for more money than a regular 6950?


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;12088510*
> I don't quite get the picture. Does this come pre-flashed for more money than a regular 6950?


It comes as a 6950, but when you flick the switch it turns into a 6970. Not bad, If it's priced well (between the 2) it can be pretty awesome.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Razi3l;12088530*
> It comes as a 6950, but when you flick the switch it turns into a 6970. Not bad, If it's priced well (between the 2) it can be pretty awesome.


Okay, so it's just like a regular 6950 but Powercolor does all the work and guarantees/covers the unlock of all shaders. Neat if the premium isn't too high/not present.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01;12088548*
> Okay, so it's just like a regular 6950 but Powercolor does all the work and guarantees/covers the unlock of all shaders. Neat if the premium isn't too high/not present.


Yea that's pretty awesome, and add to that quieter and better cooling. I guess if the price is about £250 here (6950 £225 6970 £270) it can be a great deal.


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *SilverPotato;12088382*
> Oh wow, Powercolor <3
> 
> Their stuff is always so well priced for the power, the only downside is the coolers are usually garbage, nothing aftermarket can't fix.
> 
> I'll be buying 2 ^___^


The PCS+ cooling systems are always great. They have a habit of cheaping out on power circuitry to compensate for it though. They put out neat products at least.

The PCS+ HD5870 I used to have was fantastic. It was one of the quietest, coolest air-cooled cards I've ever used. Unfortunately, they use god-awful red PCBs


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *staryoshi;12089403*
> The PCS+ cooling systems are always great. They have a habit of cheaping out on power circuitry to compensate for it though. They put out neat products at least.
> 
> The PCS+ HD5870 I used to have was fantastic. It was one of the quietest, coolest air-cooled cards I've ever used. Unfortunately, they use god-awful red PCBs


Hey!, aint nuthin' wrong with red PCBs. Better than the really ugly green ones. bleh :|


----------



## staryoshi

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Razi3l;12089470*
> Hey!, aint nuthin' wrong with red PCBs. Better than the really ugly green ones. bleh :|


They really stand out in a case... and not in a good way. Even when I had a black and red color scheme with red lighting everywhere, I found it obtrusive. I'd rather have a green, white, or polka-dot PCB


----------



## assaulth3ro911

This is good for overheating and cooling purposes for long term use, this seems like a good buy, considering those look like case fans, that seems to be a ton of win due to the fact that may cool the card very well.


----------



## jellis142

I wonder what will happen if the extra shaders don't unlock







That would be a bummer. Good idea though, 6950's aren't guaranteed to accept the bios flash, so it's like OC'ing at the flip of a switch. Nice idea, would like to see it on more then PowerColor though...


----------



## MoBeeJ

Its a "nice" card. The only reason i get this card is if i want a new gpu. I buy this card and ill see if i need to pair it with a 6950 or 6970







. More choices = fun.


----------



## Helios1234

I don't get it... why don't they just sell it as a HD6970 then... If it's cheaper than a normal HD6970, then it's worth it but I doubt it will be. The price margin between the HD6970 and HD6950 is already small.


----------



## Coolio831

Looks like they took some 6950's and put a unlocked bios on that switch thing?


----------



## RotaryKnight

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Helios1234*


I don't get it... why don't they just sell it as a HD6970 then... If it's cheaper than a normal HD6970, then it's worth it but I doubt it will be. The price margin between the HD6970 and HD6950 is already small.


the price margin is pretty huge, about $80 average...
The only reason to get one of these cards is because of the cooler.
If performance wise its as fast as the 6970 and cost within $10-15 of the 6970 then its pretty much only worth it if you like the cooler. Seeing as it probably cools better then the stock cooler, its a good deal.


----------



## soilentblue

http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-R...d-179869.shtml

Quote:



During a local press event that took place in Taiwan, AMD showed the world one of its most anticipated graphics solution, the Radeon HD 6990, the card following to use dual Cayman cores placed on the same PCB, just like the previous generation HD 5970.


----------



## EfemaN

SICK. I want benchies... *tear*


----------



## Crazy9000

Wow that is a box lol... They couldn't round the edges even a little?

Screw that though, I want to see how it performs, and MSRP.


----------



## Diabolical999

Yay, my next card.


----------



## soilentblue

at least it's rear exhaust designed for those with towers. it sure as hell doesn't look mid-tower friendly though lol


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Crazy9000*


Wow that is a box lol... They couldn't round the edges even a little?

Screw that though, I want to see how it performs, and MSRP.


Probably a prototype/ES but yes price will be a deciding factor on this, and performance







Wonder if it will really use 2 cayman cores or will they try and keep it <300W and end up using 2 6870 GPUs


----------



## RussianJ

Long as my forearm....


----------



## Melcar

I bet you can kill someone with that thing.


----------



## Artikbot

I bet they will be two slightly underclocked and depurated (rev2 of cayman chips maybe?) Cayman cores.

Doubt they'll be two 6870s, since the card's named 6990, not 6890.


----------



## Eduardv

OMG it's Hugeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee it loooks like a Brick!


----------



## Razi3l

Review here.

Pretty good card, actully. The first i've seen to hit over 1Ghz.


----------



## Detroitsoldier

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Artikbot*


I bet they will be two slightly underclocked and depurated (rev2 of cayman chips maybe?) Cayman cores.

Doubt they'll be two 6870s, since the card's named 6990, not 6890.


+1.

The 5970 used two stripped down 5870 cores, rather than using two full 5770 cores. Same applies here.


----------



## Johnny Guitar

another joke brought to us by AMD


----------



## Razi3l

I forgot about this thread, cheers CC


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Added review link to first post.


----------



## Artikbot

I'm starting to think that my HD5870 was bought at the wrong time.

I start to feel like I need 2 gigs of VRAM.


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp*


Added review link to first post.


doesn't look like it


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:



Originally Posted by *soilentblue*


doesn't look like it


second link under TechPowerup, if you're referring to the 6950 TFII review


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Razi3l*


second link under TechPowerup, if you're referring to the 6950 TFII review


nah, i'm referring to the 6990 news that I posted.

edit: didn't even see that you posted something Razi3l.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:



Originally Posted by *soilentblue*


nah, i'm referring to the 6990 news that I posted.

edit: didn't even see that you posted something Razi3l.










he was talking about the review link (i think). The 6990 article is here.


----------



## soilentblue

http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-R...d-179869.shtml

i meant that article. i don't understand why chunky moved it in the first place. how are people suppose to see the latest news when it's buried pages back. :smh:


----------



## windfire

Quote:


> In a meeting held in Taiwan, AMD's Matt Skynner, vice president of business and graphics unexpectedly comes up with a new graphics card: a new generation of card coded Antilles, Radeon HD 6990.


Link:http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.mydrivers.com%2F1%2F185%2F185058.htm&act=url


----------



## Evtron

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *windfire;12098487*
> Link:http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.mydrivers.com%2F1%2F185%2F185058.htm&act=url


Hope to see this sometime in Feb, already have a 6970 waiting to pair it with a 6990 for some trifire wrath!


----------



## grunion

3870X2 ~500$
4870X2 ~500$

5970 ~700$

6990 ~700$?

See what happens when there is no competition in a specific performance bracket.
I for one will never pay $700 for a gfx card, ~500$ is my limit.


----------



## Blindsay

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *grunion;12116503*
> 3870X2 ~500$
> 4870X2 ~500$
> 
> 5970 ~700$
> 
> 6990 ~700$?
> 
> See what happens when there is no competition in a specific performance bracket.
> I for one will never pay $700 for a gfx card, ~500$ is my limit.


considering 2 6950's would run $600 i cant believe they would make the 6990 cost more


----------



## Evtron

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *grunion;12116503*
> 3870X2 ~500$
> 4870X2 ~500$
> 
> 5970 ~700$
> 
> 6990 ~700$?
> 
> See what happens when there is no competition in a specific performance bracket.
> I for one will never pay $700 for a gfx card, ~500$ is my limit.


It will probably be more although I think that the 5970 was cheaper than $700 at release, but granted still cheaper than 2x6970. Even if it is underclocked you can still overclock it like I did my 5970.

Also I would be willing topay the premium for it to only take up 2 slots, especially with trifire.


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *grunion;12116503*
> 3870X2 ~500$
> 4870X2 ~500$
> 
> 5970 ~700$
> 
> 6990 ~700$?
> 
> See what happens when there is no competition in a specific performance bracket.
> I for one will never pay $700 for a gfx card, ~500$ is my limit.


499 euros is what it will come in at(According to overclockers.uk store owner) but if it has 4gb then i suspect it will be more


----------



## theproodnoob

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *grunion;12116503*
> 3870X2 ~500$
> 4870X2 ~500$
> 
> 5970 ~700$
> 
> 6990 ~700$?
> 
> See what happens when there is no competition in a specific performance bracket.
> I for one will never pay $700 for a gfx card, ~500$ is my limit.


I think $500 is still way to much money for a eefing gfx card I do 200-250ish maybe every 2 or 3 years my old gfx card is still kicking.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *grunion;12116503*
> 3870X2 ~500$
> 4870X2 ~500$
> 
> 5970 ~700$
> 
> 6990 ~700$?
> 
> See what happens when there is no competition in a specific performance bracket.
> I for one will never pay $700 for a gfx card, ~500$ is my limit.


HD 5970 was @ $599. What can you do when GTX 580 cost 500$ and then release something with the power of 2 x HD 6950 which kills it for 500$?


----------



## Drexra

Please excuse the horrid noobiness I am going to bring, and please correct me if I am totally wrong.

Isn't this sort of like the Asus Ares, which if Im not mistaken is about $1100? If so, why would it be anything less than that?


----------



## theproodnoob

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Drexra;12117556*
> Please excuse the horrid noobiness I am going to bring, and please correct me if I am totally wrong.
> 
> Isn't this sort of like the Asus Ares, which if Im not mistaken is about $1100? If so, why would it be anything less than that?


Are you going to pay that much?

Thats why


----------



## Drexra

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *theproodnoob;12117648*
> Are you going to pay that much?
> 
> Thats why


I personally wouldn't, but that was the price point on the ares, and still is. Just an observation I'm making


----------



## theproodnoob

Oh I get where your coming from, people just need to stop giving companies so much money for a new card because they want to run that poorly coded game on max that is the rave even tho is not that good just to test there new rig out. I bet mosy here can build a decent gaming pc out of spare parts that they got laying around.


----------



## zorrobyte

I just want a 6990 for my SG07 ITX build and P67 ITX please. I doubt even bulldozer @ 125/140W will work properly in ITX format just as the current gen.


----------



## Gabe63

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Drexra*


Please excuse the horrid noobiness I am going to bring, and please correct me if I am totally wrong.

Isn't this sort of like the Asus Ares, which if Im not mistaken is about $1100? If so, why would it be anything less than that?


The ASUS Ares is a special built card from ASUS. The 6990 is a newer factory 5970 card from AMD.

Ares came out too late and cost too much.

6990 will probably be $6-650


----------



## Drexra

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Gabe63*


The ASUS Ares is a special built card from ASUS. The 6990 is a newer factory 5970 card from AMD.

Ares came out too late and cost too much.

6990 will probably be $6-650


That makes sense! Thanks for the explanation! I was pretty confused!


----------



## DrFPS

Quote:



Originally Posted by *grunion*


3870X2 ~500$
4870X2 ~500$

5970 ~700$

6990 ~700$?

See what happens when there is no competition in a specific performance bracket.
I for one will never pay $700 for a gfx card, ~500$ is my limit.


I bought one once. I'll never do that again.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Blindsay*


considering 2 6950's would run $600 i cant believe they would make the 6990 cost more


Yes they will.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Evtron*


It will probably be more although I think that the 5970 was cheaper than $700 at release, but granted still cheaper than 2x6970. Even if it is underclocked you can still overclock it like I did my 5970.

Also I would be willing topay the premium for it to only take up 2 slots, especially with trifire.



Excuse me. If you would have taken just one second to look you would find the 5970 STILL cost $699.







Sorry your wrong.
I'm with Grunion, it will be $700 +. Historically AMD does not lower prices. They never have, they never will. I think this proof enough. 2gb hemlock nothing special except that its almost 3 years old. 
They are still charging $919 for the 5970 black. Well thats 50% off?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-335-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150500


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *DrFPS*


I bought one once. I'll never do that again.

Yes they will.

Excuse me. *If you would have taken just one second to look you would find the 5970 STILL cost $699*.







Sorry your wrong.
I'm with Grunion, it will be $700 +. *Historically AMD does not lower prices.* They never have, they never will. I think this proof enough. 2gb hemlock nothing special except that its almost 3 years old. 
They are still charging $919 for the 5970 black. Well thats 50% off?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-335-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150500


what are you even talking about? amd use to be more expensive than nvidia. also the 5970 was going for $499 or $479(amir) for a while there and then rocketed back up in price. anyone currently in the know, isn't saying anything due to nda so noone has any knowledge of what the prices will be. gibo from overclockers.uk said 499 euros to expect it in. he's the only one that may have some legitness to his claim. everyone thinks it will be massively expensive but we need to wait and see. noone even knows what the specs are on the card. just that it is two 8pin connectors and caymen. if it's 4gb vram then it may be around 700 but we still have to wait and see. there's also suppose to be a few secret tricks with this card.


----------



## Xristo

Is this the new gfx card thread =D ill be trading in my 6950 for a 6990 when they come out ...4gb , dual 6970 gpu's .. hell yeah!


----------



## utterfabrication

There's a 1GB 6950 on the egg for $260. . .


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *utterfabrication;12128656*
> There's a 1GB 6950 on the egg for $260. . .


There are a few showing up in the EU too. There was an article on the 1GB one here


----------



## utterfabrication

Of course there was already an article... If I ever stumble upon something noteworthy I should assume everyone else already has. Self-esteem -10


----------



## RotaryKnight

Anybody know of any benches with the 6950 1gb models yet?
or know how much it impacts performance?

Edit : link to a 6950 1gb review
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...gb-review.html

looks like I am getting this card to replace my 4890


----------



## RotaryKnight

.dbl post


----------



## windfire

4 new pics of the 6990.

Note the 8+6 (vs 8+8 previously reported/seen) and also note the extra wide space allocated to that area. The article says it is enough for 8+8+6 (!).

Google translated link:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.4gamer.net%2Fgames%2F122%2FG012292%2F20110126021%2F&act=url


----------



## Core2uu

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *windfire;12146703*
> 4 new pics of the 6990.
> 
> Note the 8+6 (vs 8+8 previously reported/seen) and also note the extra wide space allocated to that area. The article says it is enough for 8+8+6 (!).
> 
> Google translated link:
> http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.4gamer.net%2Fgames%2F122%2FG012292%2F20110126021%2F&act=url


That is... big/giant/huge/massive/gigantic/gargantuan/humongous/(exhausted my synonym vocabulary for large).


----------



## soilentblue

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/26/amd-radeon-hd-6990-shows-up-in-its-metallic-flesh-looking-large/#









Quote:


> Yes, we're talking about AMD's Radeon HD 6990 -- a dual-GPU monstrosity that's set to serve as the company's 2011 flagship -- which has just been shown off at an Asia Pacific Fusion Tech Day gathering. Aside from the crazy imagery (one more after the break and a gallery at the source), we've found a promise that this polygon deliverator will be available in late Q1 2011.


is that 4 mini display ports and no regular display port?

also this is for the people that were wondering why it didn't have a fan on the previous released picts


----------



## MightyMission

that looks huge!
after hearing so much negativity about ati drivers though im reluctant to part with the folding..


----------



## allikat

I'm really hoping ATi can ship some good drivers with it at launch. This looks to be a great card.


----------



## Namwons

im thinking one center blower fan = /fail?


----------



## yoshi245

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Namwons;12149038*
> im thinking one center blower fan = /fail?


Have to agree. Needs 2 at least, I figure this cooler will be using vapor chamber cooling as usual though.


----------



## 1greeny1

is that cowboy bebop in your avatar?


----------



## Razi3l

Looks pretty awesome, imo.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *allikat;12148946*
> I'm really hoping ATi can ship some good drivers with it at launch. This looks to be a great card.


Nothing wrong with ATI drivers
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Namwons;12149038*
> im thinking one center blower fan = /fail?


Not too much of a problem. So long as you have decent airflow it's cool. It would be awesome if there was a card with 2 blower fans.. though im not sure how the airflow would work but still


----------



## Evtron

Available late Q1 huh? So, is that late March?

Was kind of hoping to get some Tri-Fire action going on before then.


----------



## MexGT

well its just the base model, I hope Asus or any other good big brand can make improovements in their 6990 model.









Late Q1 ... uhmmm... please Bulldozer dont take longer than that !!


----------



## scaz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Namwons;12149038*
> im thinking one center blower fan = /fail?


I agree.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Razi3l;12149070*
> It would be awesome if there was a card with 2 blower fans.. though im not sure how the airflow would work but still


I would rather see a blower type fan with longer fins. Right now the blower fan looks like the fins are only 2mm long. Why not make them bigger?


----------



## ntuason

I'm going with Nvidias dual card(s) this year, I can't take AMD/ATi drivers. Does anyone know the performances difference between the 6990 vs Nvidia dual GPU?


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *scaz;12149099*
> I would rather see a blower type fan with longer fins. Right now the blower fan looks like the fins are only 2mm long. Why not make them bigger?


Because they are gonna hit the shroud and stuff?







Otherwise the card would have to be really wide.. or tall..or whatever you call it.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DorkSterr;12149125*
> I'm going with Nvidias dual card(s) this year, I can't take AMD/ATi drivers. Does anyone know the performances difference between the 6990 vs Nvidia dual GPU?


They will probably have a dual 560 and no we dont. It's not even been announced yet. So far the dual GPU card we've seen was an EVGA-only and had 2 460 chips. As for drivers, don't use driver sweeper, and multi GPU cards/setups always have issues.


----------



## Artem

The original source of those pics states that its length is 297mm which is a bit smaller compared HD 5970 (304mm)


----------



## ntuason

Don't use driver sweeper? I was always told the opposite.


----------



## yang88she

my guess it will be $599 MSRP

and sound like a freaking jet engine @ load....having nightmares of my quad 4870x2 setup and 4890 Toxic tri-fire...

definitely not a gpu to have in the summertime =P


----------



## BizzareRide

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Razi3l;12149139*
> So far the dual GPU card we've seen was an EVGA-only and had 2 460 chips.


Not true. We've seen multiple dual-GPU Fermi's ranging from dual-GTX 460s to dual-GTX 580s.

Just go look at the Nvidia prototype thread.


----------



## Gnomepatrol

Why don't they go with a fan design like the gigabyte's soc cards. There is no way temps can be reasonable with a blower in the middle of the card like that.

AMD better stock coolers GOGOGO i mean come on this card is going to cost your first born child


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *1greeny1;12149066*
> is that cowboy bebop in your avatar?


but of course! been a fan for years








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yoshi245;12149064*
> Have to agree. Needs 2 at least, I figure this cooler will be using vapor chamber cooling as usual though.


i don't doubt it will have a vapor chamber cooling design. one thing that's different is the gpus are spaced further apart than on previous designs so there's a better chance of dual exhaust on this design. could really help.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Evtron;12149087*
> Available late Q1 huh? So, is that late March?
> 
> Was kind of hoping to get some Tri-Fire action going on before then.


it's anytime between end of february and the end of march. fud makes up alot of assumptions and accusations but one thing is correct, nothing is happening until after the chinese new year.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MexGT;12149094*
> well its just the base model, I hope Asus or any other good big brand can make improovements in their 6990 model.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Late Q1 ... uhmmm... please Bulldozer dont take longer than that !!


bulldozer isn't suppose to come out until Q2. was never slated for Q1. i want this card to come out in feb but i am expecting it to come out like a week before/of crysis 2


----------



## steven937595

i doubt that is the finished product in the image, they could change the cooler design down the line, same for the DP's


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *BizzareRide;12149250*
> Not true. We've seen multiple dual-GPU Fermi's ranging from dual-GTX 460s to dual-GTX 580s.
> 
> Just go look at the Nvidia prototype thread.


prototypes mean nothing. it's the final product that counts. any card can be made, but is the profitroduction going to be a win? thats why they are prototypes and not products. wishful thinking with the nvidia card is dual 580s. expect either 560s(most likely) or 570s. nvidia already said the card would be less than a 580 so 560s seems the likely bet.


----------



## Razi3l

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *BizzareRide;12149250*
> Not true. We've seen multiple dual-GPU Fermi's ranging from dual-GTX 460s to dual-GTX 580s.
> 
> Just go look at the Nvidia prototype thread.


They'll never make those. What i mean was those which are likely to be sold. Good luck seeing a dual 470 or 480 chip. Those were just prototypes to show off and get attention.


----------



## Ecks9T

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *steven937595;12149384*
> i doubt that is the finished product in the image, they could change the cooler design down the line, same for the DP's


thats true but then the cooler designs usually change upon each brand. hopefully that thing can make some eggs AND bacon.


----------



## yang88she

new pics from [H] and mydrivers


----------



## joemaniaci

Why would a central fan be a problem?

THe problem with the 5970 is that the gpu+VRM closest to the fan get nice cool air, but then it gets warmed up so the the second gpu+VRM is getting hot air? This guarantees that both GPUs and VRMs get equally cool air depending on placement.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

I think the fan in the middle should be in every card. Its better because its more air through the fins. With fan in the end one the left side gets cooled. Also i notice with my HD 6950 that the farther away for them fan the hotter the card gets. This way it will be able to cool both core equally.


----------



## X-Nine

If those mini-display ports will be on the final product, expect lots of adapters to be included.


----------



## Evtron

This really needs to have 4GB DDR5. If it's 2GB DDR5 it's going to be a problem.


----------



## stargate125645

It amuses me that all these people whine about ATI drivers while ATI has perfectly good ones available to use. No one is making consumers use the most recent driver version, so the whining is unfounded. If _none_ of the drivers work for the game you want to play, then you can whine.


----------



## yang88she

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Evtron;12149677*
> This really needs to have 4GB DDR5. If it's 2GB DDR5 it's going to be a problem.


x2


----------



## PlayedStation

According to Skynner it will have 4gb. Well thats going to be affordable then.


----------



## JY

I really hope they fix its looks a little because thats horrible, plus temps are going to be ultra high


----------



## JY

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PlayedStation;12149745*
> According to Skynner it will have 4gb. Well thats going to be affordable then.


I think its going to cost somewhere around 450 quid, its two 6970's so that would make sense.


----------



## lordikon

After seeing how ATi has handled crossfire and previous dual-GPU cards, I probably wouldn't touch this card with a 10 foot pole.

EDIT: @jy360, posts above mine: You can use the edit button to edit your posts rather than double-posting.


----------



## Obakemono

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *allikat;12148946*
> I'm really hoping ATi can ship some good drivers with it at launch. This looks to be a great card.


Would you people stop with the "ATI drivers suck" theme already???? Everyone expects perfect drivers out of the gate and then whine and cry about not having perfect results when the problems are not 100% the drivers fault. GET OVER IT!


----------



## Evtron

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *lordikon;12149911*
> After seeing how ATi has handled crossfire and previous dual-GPU cards, I probably wouldn't touch this card with a 10 foot pole.
> 
> EDIT: @jy360, posts above mine: You can use the edit button to edit your posts rather than double-posting.


Everybody has different issues regardless of their hardware. But, I have been running Tri-Fire for a year now and have never had any BSOD or driver issues at all.


----------



## 1greeny1

good man, Spike Spiegel ftw.

Tried finding a spike avatar that was animated but all too big, so settled for Faye instead.lol


----------



## BizzareRide

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *soilentblue;12149402*
> prototypes mean nothing. it's the final product that counts. any card can be made, but is the profitroduction going to be a win? thats why they are prototypes and not products. wishful thinking with the nvidia card is dual 580s. expect either 560s(most likely) or 570s. nvidia already said the card would be less than a 580 so 560s seems the likely bet.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Razi3l;12149470*
> They'll never make those. What i mean was those which are likely to be sold. Good luck seeing a dual 470 or 480 chip. Those were just prototypes to show off and get attention.


He/you said:
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Razi3l;12149139*
> So far the dual GPU card we've seen was an EVGA-only and had 2 460 chips.


I never said they would actually make those products. I was merely refuting what you said.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

6990 ready to warp your PCI-e slots and rape your ears. If it's anything like the 5970 it may be better to just get two 6950s anyways.


----------



## PhRe4k

I'm using the latest drivers (10.12) just fine, although I did have to reinstall windows to get them to work


----------



## tsm106

Quote:



Originally Posted by *PhRe4k*


I'm using the latest drivers (10.12) just fine, although I did have to reinstall windows to get them to work










That's nothing. To get mine to work I gotta say a small chant, hop on one leg, then press the power button to get crossfire to work!


----------



## strap624

My next GPU is probably going to be nvidia.


----------



## Artem

Multiple mini-DPs, fan located in the center, sounds familiar:


----------



## Exostenza

Probably going to be great hardware wise... too bad ATi can't make drivers to save their lives. I say if anyone is considering any new ATi cards an obligatory minimum 6 month period between release and purchase is needed if you want to get a working card.


----------



## yang88she

and the price was $1xxx, no thanks...even though I could use the extra HP, my wife would castrate me


----------



## tconroy135

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Razi3l*


Looks pretty awesome, imo.

Nothing wrong with ATI drivers

Not too much of a problem. So long as you have decent airflow it's cool. It would be awesome if there was a card with 2 blower fans.. though im not sure how the airflow would work but still











This card is CFX by default and ATI CFX drivers are crap, they can't even run in windowed mode.

The Fan is completely fail they are trying to cool 2 6970s with 1 fan cmon ATI!


----------



## burksdb

cant wait to see how they fair against the 580's and pricing. i'm ready to upgrade GPUs


----------



## SmokinWaffle

Doesn't look all that much bigger than a 5970, really.

Liking the amount MiniDP's, DVI seems to caveman after using MiniDP/DP for such a long time,


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *tconroy135*


This card is CFX by default and ATI CFX drivers are crap, they can't even run in windowed mode.

The Fan is completely fail they are trying to cool 2 6970s with 1 fan cmon ATI!


Again, it worked well for the 5970 Black Edition
http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...limited/16.htm
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...mps-noise.html
http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...e-x-review/16/

Stop discounting it so quickly.


----------



## tconroy135

Ill take this and away we go....


----------



## lordikon

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Evtron*


Everybody has different issues regardless of their hardware. But, I have been running Tri-Fire for a year now and have never had any BSOD or driver issues at all.


Almost all crossfire reviews for a few months were showing serious issues with the drivers. Sounds like it was cleared up about 6 months ago though.


----------



## boom50cal

Quote:



Originally Posted by *tconroy135*


Ill take this and away we go....

(picturesnip)


Is that the dual 460 card?

I expect this to release same week as Crysis 2 and a free Crysis 2 coupon is offered with it for the first month.

Really, if your going to spend $600+ on a GPU, why don't you just slap a waterblock on it and WC it?


----------



## tconroy135

Quote:



Originally Posted by *boom50cal*


Is that the dual 460 card?

I expect this to release same week as Crysis 2 and a free Crysis 2 coupon is offered with it for the first month.

Really, if your going to spend $600+ on a GPU, why don't you just slap a waterblock on it and WC it?


Nah thats a *Dual-580*


----------



## boom50cal

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tconroy135;12150783*
> Nah thats a *Dual-580*


Talk about cooking an egg, that's the card to do it on!


----------



## antuk15

You'll find that there's 2 heat sinks either side of that fan, the design makes sense. If you have a big fan at the back end of the card then the heat generated from heat sink number 1 will be blown through heat sink number 2 causing that core to run hotter.

With the fan in the middle both heat sinks get fresh air flow and not pre-heated air from each other.

Meens it's vents hot air from one core into the case though


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sLowEnd*


Again, it worked well for the 5970 Black Edition
http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...limited/16.htm
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...mps-noise.html
http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...e-x-review/16/

Stop discounting it so quickly.


Which is pretty loud and dissipates less power than reference and probabably a dual Cayman card.


----------



## badtrip

looks awesome, too bad it won't fit in my case


----------



## JorundJ

That quite long, long live removable HDD bays! I don't like the cooler tho, perhaps 2 Thermalright Shaman will fit on it?


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tconroy135;12150783*
> Nah thats a *Dual-580*


you sure about that? iirc evga only stated that it was a dual GF110 card. never said exactly which one they were putting in there. could have been dual 560s for all we know. nvidia ain't putting dual 580s on one card and then pricing it below a 580. lol


----------



## Wishmaker

I will pass on this one. Already have huge issues with AMD cards, don't need to spend hundreds of euros to have "newer" issues. I will let other people beta test


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *soilentblue;12151017*
> you sure about that? iirc evga only stated that it was a dual GF110 card. never said exactly which one they were putting in there. could have been dual 560s for all we know. nvidia ain't putting dual 580s on one card and then pricing it below a 580. lol


GTX 560 Ti isn't GF110......


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


Which is pretty loud and dissipates less power than reference and probabably a dual Cayman card.


It's as loud as the 5970 reference cooler.

Considering the temps for the 5970 BE, it looks like there is headroom for more heat anyway.


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sLowEnd*


It's as loud as the 5970 reference cooler.

Considering the temps for the 5970 BE, it looks like there is headroom for more heat anyway.


Which is also loud and dissipates more power. The heatsinks are totally different as well.


----------



## snelan

I wouldn't be surprised if the 7990 ends up being like 3 feet long at the rate these ATI *cough* AMD cards grow.


----------



## ki11m3h

looks pretty beast. it probably will hit the 85 degrees mark and higher. hopefully it'll be faster than the GTX 580 from the green team.


----------



## blackbalt89

I don't think that fan is going to do a good job. Even with a vapor chamber.

Am I the only one that thinks the components at the end of the card will not get very good airflow?


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


*Which is also loud *and dissipates more power. The heatsinks are totally different as well.


Well it's reference cooling.

Reference cooling is generally not expected to perform as quietly as aftermarket coolers such as the twin frozr or watercooling.

How do you know if the heatsinks are different? All you can see is the shroud.
I have good reason to believe the heatsinks are the same as the XFX 5970BE because... well, what else can you fit in there? A chunk of aluminum with no heatpipes? They wouldn't do that.


----------



## MexGT

are the length dimensions released yet? lol


----------



## TheBlademaster01

Quote:



Originally Posted by *sLowEnd*


Well it's reference cooling.

Reference cooling is generally not expected to perform as quietly as aftermarket coolers such as the twin frozr or watercooling.

How do you know if the heatsinks are different? All you can see is the shroud.
I have good reason to believe the heatsinks are the same as the XFX 5970BE because... well, what else can you fit in there? A chunk of aluminum with no heatpipes? They wouldn't do that.


I was actually talking about R5970 reference vs XFX 5970 BEL. XFX uses 2 separate heatsinks, reference uses a single Vapor chamber.


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


GTX 560 Ti isn't GF110......


bleh i meant the 570. it runs on less watts and less heat.


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *MexGT*


are the length dimensions released yet? lol


not yet. we won't be hearing anything "leaked" until feb.


----------



## 161029

That's enormous. Plus, what's up with the fan in the middle? Maybe it pushes hot air both directions because there are the vapor chamber heat sinks on both sides.


----------



## Qosmio

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Namwons*


im thinking one center blower fan = /fail?


Worked rather well with the Co-op model for the 295 GPU? How would this fail if it had the same general TDP of the 5970?


----------



## sLowEnd

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Qosmio*


Worked rather well with the Co-op model for the 295 GPU? How would this fail if it had the same general TDP of the 5970?


The Co-OP used an axial fan, not a blower.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TheBlademaster01*


I was actually talking about R5970 reference vs XFX 5970 BEL. XFX uses 2 separate heatsinks, reference uses a single Vapor chamber.


ok


----------



## AzO

Quote:



Originally Posted by *soilentblue*


is that 4 mini display ports and no regular display port?


That's because 4 standard display ports will not fit.









Don't worry, you'll get a few mini dp to regular dp cable in the box.


----------



## Evtron

Quote:



Originally Posted by *snelan*


I wouldn't be surprised if the 7990 ends up being like 3 feet long at the rate these ATI *cough* AMD cards grow.


It's actually slightly smaller than the 5970


----------



## Trogdor

Stupid display adapters!!!!


----------



## Atomfix

I wonder how this is going to fit in my CM Storm Scout case.... Might have to take out the HDD caddy out and mod my hardrive's into the 5.25 CD bay.


----------



## Megaman_90

It looks pretty sleek, lets just hope that cooler is adequate.

4 Displayports and one DVI is odd though. No HDMI love?

It will be funny in the future when GPU cards get smaller though, these babies will look like the 1MB RAM modules from the 80s.


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AzO*


That's because 4 standard display ports will not fit.









Don't worry, you'll get a few mini dp to regular dp cable in the box.


i never said anything about wanting 4 standard ports









i'm not worried and i'm sure there will be mini to reg dp converters. i'm just surprised there isn't one reg, two mini dp, and a dvi port. plus there's no hdmi port. i'm not complaining cause my monitor supports dp. just speaking out loud on whats new.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Megaman_90*


It looks pretty sleek, lets just hope that cooler is adequate.

4 Displayports and one DVI is odd though. No HDMI love?

It will be funny in the future when GPU cards get smaller though, these babies will look like the 1MB RAM modules from the 80s.


you think cards will start getting smaller? i think the gpu is the only thing that will get smaller. i see amd/nvidia cramming more stuff than ever on future 32nm cards.


----------



## AzO

Quote:



Originally Posted by *soilentblue*


i never said anything about wanting 4 standard ports









i'm not worried and i'm sure there will be mini to reg dp converters. i'm just surprised there isn't one reg, two mini dp, and a dvi port. plus there's no hdmi port. i'm not complaining cause my monitor supports dp. just speaking out loud on whats new.


The 5970 has no HDMI.

The GTX 580 has no HDMI.

Starting to see a trend here?


----------



## un-nefer

First news post here, sorry if I mess it up. I did a search and didn't see it









Full news article can be read over at HEXUS.

Quote:



Only a few days ago, AMD VP Matt Skynner flashed a shiny Radeon HD 6990 around at a Fusion launch event, and now it looks like he's back at it again.

This time, Japanese site 4gamer managed to get up close and personal with the card, grabbing a few proper photos and squeezing a couple of new details out of the reps on hand.


And a pic:


----------



## Lostintyme

That. Fan. Is. Going. To. Be. LOUD!


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AzO*


The 5970 has no HDMI.

The GTX 580 has no HDMI.

Starting to see a trend here?


i meant mini hdmi. geez i am seeing a trend of something alright.


----------



## blackbalt89

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Lostintyme;12155926*
> That. Fan. Is. Going. To. Be. LOUD!


Just like the fan on my 6870. One of the main reasons I got a GTX 570. 6870 @ 50% fans was louder than GTX 570 @ 70%.


----------



## Squirrel

Anyone else thinking there's something wrong with this Newegg ad? Link Lol.


----------



## xxbassplayerxx

Absolutely lol


----------



## flashbulb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *blackbalt89;12154739*
> And what will happen if Nvidia releases their dual gpu card?


remember how they thought nuclear explosions might light the atmosphere on fire?

yeah, that.


----------



## RotaryKnight

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *RotaryKnight;12133141*
> 
> Edit : link to a 6950 1gb review
> http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/40165-amd-radeon-hd-6950-1gb-review.html


more 6950 1gb reviews

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=1067

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4135/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-ti-upsetting-the-250-market


----------



## TriWheel

Looking at that 6990 picture, I wonder if it were possible if AMD could pay any less or show any less concern for the cooling performance they are about to foist on their next halo card.


----------



## Xristo

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TriWheel*


Looking at that 6990 picture, I wonder if it were possible if AMD could pay any less or show any less concern for the cooling performance they are about to foist on their next halo card.


agreed


----------



## Coolking23

Updated review of the HD6950 unlocked:

http://www.vortez.co.uk/articles_pag...review,24.html


----------



## Chewy

Quote:



Originally Posted by *blackbalt89*


And what will happen if Nvidia releases their dual gpu card?

Methinks the the GTX 595 will divide by zero. And it will actually be able to run [email protected]!











Quote:



Originally Posted by *flashbulb*


remember how they thought nuclear explosions might light the atmosphere on fire?

yeah, that.



LOL check out the new gtx 590 thread, looks like nvidia will release again before ati


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chewy*


LOL check out the new gtx 590 thread, looks like nvidia will release again before ati


how do you even know what cooling is being used when that gpu probably doesn't even have a specific type of cooler on it. amd may use dual vaper champers with dual cooling.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *TriWheel*


Looking at that 6990 picture, I wonder if it were possible if AMD could pay any less or show any less concern for the cooling performance they are about to foist on their next halo card.


stop trolling. both amd and nvidia are expected to appear in february. both have not said any dates yet. if there is a delay on either side then it will easily flow into march.


----------



## Enigma8750

*Antilles in full glory*

Quote:



Previously pixellized a couple of days ago in the hands of AMD's Matt Skynner, AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 6990 has now been spotted in full detail. Featuring two Cayman GPUs, the HD 6990 will be packing 3072 stream processors and 4GB of memory paired with a 2x256-bit memory interface.











http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/ite...ized-in-detail


----------



## pcnoob1

When is the official release date? Last I heard was February.


----------



## SohcSTI

monster! cant wait!


----------



## reflex99

sexy card

nice they moved the fan, now we don't need to hear whiny people complaining about how GPU 2 is hotter than GPU 1


----------



## Kand

Quote:



Originally Posted by *reflex99*


sexy card

nice they moved the fan, now we don't need to hear whiny people complaining about how GPU 2 is hotter than GPU 1


Isnt GPU 2 the one closer to the fan in a 5970? Now it'll probably be. "Wah wah. GPU 2's dumping warm air into my poorly ventilated case!"


----------



## Enigma8750

Quote:



Originally Posted by *pcnoob1*


When is the official release date? Last I heard was February.


1st Gen Bulldozer drops around Feb.15 -22.. The 6990 will probably follow it to give AMD a new edge on the competition.


----------



## reflex99

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Kand*


Isnt GPU 2 the one closer to the fan in a 5970? Now it'll probably be. "Wah wah. GPU 2's dumping warm air into my poorly ventilated case!"


not sure, i don't own one.

If i can borrow yours for eternity, i'll let you know which is which


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Namwons;12149038*
> im thinking one center blower fan = /fail?


Better than one on one side...It'd blow hot air into one heatsink whereas this blows cold air into both.

Hey, ATI, nVidia, give us TwinFrozr style coolers. _Please._
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *joemaniaci;12149587*
> Why would a central fan be a problem?
> 
> THe problem with the 5970 is that the gpu+VRM closest to the fan get nice cool air, but then it gets warmed up so the the second gpu+VRM is getting hot air? This guarantees that both GPUs and VRMs get equally cool air depending on placement.


The only problem I can see is each GPU would get less total airflow.


----------



## Razi3l

Sapphire HD 6870 Toxic review @ Hexus.net


----------



## overclock4ever

Source

Quote:



The HAWK series is one of my favorite, and that's mainly because it sits towards the top of the chart when it comes to what you can do with a card. At the bottom of the stack you've got your reference card. From there we introduce an overclock and over that you can start to look at custom cooling.


----------



## Nautilus

Have a CF with these and say goodbye to sub 40 CPU temps.


----------



## Name Change

Very nice..


----------



## ikem

huh? i got 4894 with my 6870 in 3dMark 11....


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Nautilus*


Have a CF with these and say goodbye to sub 40 CPU temps.


If you're meaning that it's not an external exhaust card, then you really should check out the fact that they don't add much heat into the case unless your airflow consists of an 80mm fan.


----------



## Razi3l

If anyone has not already read the review then check it out. The ASUS 6970 DirectCU is a beast. 1100Mhz @ 1.2v made me ;_;


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Bump. 6990 NDA has been lifted and reviews are starting to go up. Post and discuss in this thread, I'll begin updating OP with links; previous cards' review links are now under spoilers to put focus on the 6990.


----------



## Evtron

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Chunky_Chimp*


Bump. 6990 NDA has been lifted and reviews are starting to go up. Post and discuss in this thread, I'll begin updating OP with links; previous cards' review links are now under spoilers to put focus on the 6990.


Posting every single review of every single 6000 series card from ATi in one thread is a cluster.


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

That's why I made use of spoilers. I'd rather reuse this thread than make a new one.


----------



## soilentblue

700 for the card? i thought it would have been around $650.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Big fail. With almost all current MB 100$ support CF 2 x 6950 = less then 550$ and its as fast. Big Fail AMD you lost me as a costumer. Dont go off pricing based on Nvidia you got dam stupid business. I have not been this mad in my life for a card launch.


----------



## AsanteSoul

not impressed!! 2 6990's in crossfire couldnt beat 2 gtx 580's in sli...that surprises me for some reason ... its crazy how 1 gtx 580 stacks up to a 6990


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AsanteSoul*


not impressed!! 2 6990's in crossfire couldnt beat 2 gtx 580's in sli...that surprises me for some reason ... its crazy how 1 gtx 580 stacks up to a 6990


that's obviously a driver issue.


----------



## AsanteSoul

damn...well...it is a bit early to make certain conclusions


----------



## EfemaN

Unless some crazy driver optimizations come into play, there's a solid chance that the 6990 is going to be pointless. Overheating, and less performance than CF 6970s for a higher cost in many cases. What's going to happen to that little "fastest card in the world" sign when the 590 is released?

I hate sounding like a fanboi.


----------



## Marc-Olivier Beaudoin

Quote:



Originally Posted by *EfemaN*


Unless some crazy driver optimizations come into play, there's a solid chance that the 6990 is going to be pointless. Overheating, and less performance than CF 6970s for a higher cost in many cases. What's going to happen to that little "fastest card in the world" sign when the 590 is released?

I hate sounding like a fanboi.










you know the 590 will have the same heat and noise issue ? there's no way around it ...

For me it's a pointless card ( has every dual GPU ) as I have enough room for anything I want .

But for board with only 1 pci-e x16 slot this is the only way you can have crossfire/sli for some people and it's why some people buy them .


----------



## Open1Your1Eyes0

*Techpowerup's CrossfireX Review: Link*


----------



## Chunky_Chimp

Got it.


----------



## grunion

Quote:



Originally Posted by *EfemaN*


Unless some crazy driver optimizations come into play, there's a solid chance that the 6990 is going to be pointless. Overheating, and less performance than CF 6970s for a higher cost in many cases. What's going to happen to that little "fastest card in the world" sign when the 590 is released?

I hate sounding like a fanboi.











It'll be no more pointless than the 590.

Think about how hot, power hungry, loud, etc.. the 590 will be at the required speeds to best the 6990.

The Antilles is within 10% of 6970 CFX, question is will the 590 be within 10% of 580 SLI.
No, not if they have to lose 20% on clock speeds to keep the thermals in check.

It's all going to hinge on the final clocks of the 590, can they get the clocks high enough without going nuclear on the cores?


----------



## BravoV3

Quote:



Originally Posted by *AsanteSoul*


not impressed!! 2 6990's in crossfire couldnt beat 2 gtx 580's in sli...that surprises me for some reason ... its crazy how 1 gtx 580 stacks up to a 6990


Idk what review u were looking at but the hardware heaven review used 1 6990 and IMO it did quite well in the tests they ran.


----------



## Open1Your1Eyes0

For anything else we may miss: *XtremeSystem's HD6990 Review Roundup*


----------



## ZealotKi11er

The only good thing i can see from these DUAL GPU these days is Water-ONLY and they should really just SELL them with Water Block installed because i bet a person spending $700 in a GPU could spend $150 in a block.


----------



## Draygonn

WAAAY too much heat to get rid of comfortably. The 590 will be in the same boat, or worse. Water cooling time.

p.s. 2 hours till DA2 release


----------



## Evtron

so, when are they going on sale


----------



## JCPUser

Fermi draws quite a bit more than Cayman... Thus any heat/noise complaints are going to be worse on the 590. Plus, due to those heat issues, as grunion said, it remains to be seen how close the 590 will get to 580 SLI.


----------



## Annex

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Marc-Olivier Beaudoin*


you know the 590 will have the same heat and noise issue ? there's no way around it ...

For me it's a pointless card ( has every dual GPU ) has I have enough room for anything I want .

But for board with only 1 pci-e x16 slot this is the only way you can have crossfire/sli for some people and it's why some people buy them .


Supposedly running crossfire in x8 doesn't really show any performance decrease, and for the price of this card you could have a decent new motherboard and either crossfire 6950s, 6870s, or simply a 5970.. You'd get more than satisfactory performance with any of those setups.


----------



## Gabe63

I really thought this would be $599 max. Looking at reviews I think it sould be $599 max. I hoped it would stir things up, or lower prices.


----------



## saint19

Quote:



I can only see two reasons that anyone would buy a Radeon HD 6990, given the other options currently available.

First, because this is a dual-slot card, youâ€™re able to fit two of them in an ATX chassis and enjoy the potential of quad-CrossFire. The list of problems with this prospect is significant, though. Youâ€™re dumping half of the heat from each card back into your chassis. Thatâ€™s unsustainable to the point where boutique system builders are simply failing the config, choosing not to offer it at all. Enthusiasts with a lot of money are sure to scratch their heads, wondering why such a setup isn't available. The short answer is that it doesn't result in a good experience. And if a single card is capable of making the GTX 480 sound like a kitty cat's purr, a pair would have to be unbearable times two. Iâ€™d quantify my guess for you, but AMD smartly only shipped us a single board. Instead, I have to rely on the expert testimony of builders whoâ€™ve already tried quad-CrossFire and are reporting noise levels about six decibels higher than with one card installed.

Second, you really want access to five display outputs. In that case, please don't let me dissuade you. The Radeon HD 6990 certainly has a rich I/O suite that Nvidia can't come anywhere close to matching today. And the single-GPU Radeon HD 6900-series cards "only" give you the option to connect four screens simultaneously, for now.

Hours before launching the Radeon HD 6990, we're happy to report that AMD decided on a price: $699. That's $20 higher than a pair of Radeon HD 6970s, not counting $40 worth of rebates. AMD counts the three adapters bundled with the 6990 as a $60 value, but we maintain that the two single-GPU boards in CrossFire are a superior choice.


*Full review*

Now we need the GTX 590 to see who is the winner of this war (for now)


----------



## JCPUser

Quote:



Originally Posted by *saint19*


Now we need the GTX 590 to see who is the winner of this war (for now)


If you are expecting that quote from the review to read any differently for the 590 you going to be sadly mistaken. SLI/Xfire is always superior to dual GPUs and there are only specific cases where going dual is really useful.


----------



## Newbie2009

I see some people are not impessed by this card, I cannot understand why?

It overclocks well, to 6970xfire performance. Will use less power than 6970xfire. I am very impressed I must say. Much more than the 5970.

I would have liked to seen it cheaper though. RRP is €599, so expect most places to be selling for €650+
The card beasts crysis maxed @ 1920x1200.

I think Nvidia will struggle to top this.


----------



## Newbie2009

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Evtron*


so, when are they going on sale










On sale now by the looks of it. Very pricey.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1752


----------



## parityboy

Quote:



We are going to talk about this new high-end video card from AMD and then do some gameplay testing in comparison to three other multi-GPU setups that are competing for your money.

First, let's reveal the price as this is likely the most important factor in your buying decision. The new AMD Radeon HD 6990 is going to set you back $699 MSRP. This is no cheap video card! You are in essence purchasing two Radeon HD 6970 GPU based video cards in one single video card package.


Source


----------



## Hy3RiD

Around 580 SLI, matched 570 SLI on some








Looks like a good card


----------



## 161029

Awesomesauce and Awesomecake.


----------



## AzO

If AMD can fix scaling issues I want to see someone with deep pockets build a system with four of these monsters.


----------



## wongwarren

Quote:


> The most powerful graphics card in the world as of now.


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xanF38jfho&feature=feedu[/ame]


----------



## Atomfix

Not for long lol


----------



## Newbie2009

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Atomfix;12653719*
> Not for long lol












If you are a fanboy or not, anyone with a brain can see Nvidia will have a tough job beating this card.
I'm not saying they can't, but it's going to be interesting.


----------



## eggs2see

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Atomfix;12653719*
> Not for long lol


----------



## Blindsay

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;12653664*
> If AMD can fix scaling issues I want to see someone with deep pockets build a system with four of these monsters.


believe you can only run 2, only 1 bridge connector and since these have 2 gpus, 2 would be quadfire as it is


----------



## trendy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Hy3RiD;12653526*
> Around 580 SLI, matched 570 SLI on some
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Looks like a good card


I think matching the GTX 570 in SLI is what they needed to achieve. Considering you can have either for the same price.


----------



## ih2try

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Newbie2009;12653732*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you are a fanboy or not, anyone with a brain can see Nvidia will have a tough job beating this card.
> *I'm not saying they can't, but it's going to be interesting.*


I thought so too when AMD said this thing would be 67% faster than the GTX 580 LOL Showing that number, AMD seem to think their users are without a brain, though.
But now anyone with a brain can believe it isn't that "tough" for Nvidia to beat it considering its actual performance, 2x8 pins connector, power consumption (375W to 450W) and noise. The limits are broken.


----------



## Capwn

The real question is,, Is it as much of a nightmare to try to game on as the 5970 was???


----------



## Dark

I've never exeperienced a multi gpu AMD setup that wasn't.


----------



## saint19

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *JCPUser;12652426*
> If you are expecting that quote from the review to read any differently for the 590 you going to be sadly mistaken. SLI/Xfire is always superior to dual GPUs and there are only specific cases where going dual is really useful.


No, I'm not expecting that. I know that SLI/Crossfire is much better that a Dual GPU, and in some cases more cheap.

I just wanna know which one, nVidia or AMD offers more performance and win the 1st place with the faster GPU in the world.


----------



## Redwoodz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Hy3RiD;12653526*
> Around 580 SLI, matched 570 SLI on some
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Looks like a good card


I think the results show it is faster than 570's no?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;12653664*
> If AMD can fix scaling issues I want to see someone with deep pockets build a system with four of these monsters.


Impossible to run more than 4 GPU's-that would be 8







now 2 on the other hand...

Good work AMD-just keep improving those drivers
I think the most impressive thing on the 6990 is the power draw-603w!
What this review lacks is overclocking performance.


----------



## Mongol

AMD's got Nvidia beat on the price war...guarantee the 590 hits the market at $799-$849. As far as performance and who beats who, it's all up to how Nvidia decides to release it...is it dual 570 or dual 580 downclocked. It's going to be a rat race imo.


----------



## Plex

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Newbie2009;12653732*
> anyone with a brain can see Nvidia will have a tough job beating this card.


What?

580 > 570 >= 6970 > 6950

2x 580 > 2x 570 >= 2x 6970 > 2x 6950

??? > 6990

What was that about "anyone with a brain?"

Honestly. I'm far from a fanboy, too. I'm upset that AMD couldn't do better, we need better competition than this.


----------



## dizzyscure1

Yeah the performance if the 6990 isn't really making me jump and scream ya know it's about 30% faster in those screens


----------



## ACM

Cannot wait to see some of the Non-Ref designs for this card.


----------



## richuwo11

Quote:


> Some may question the reasoning behind the release of a $700 dual core graphics card in today's market. However, the HD 6990 isn't geared towards people who really care about saving money or want to save on their energy bills; it's for gamers who want uncompromising performance regardless of mere worldly common sense. It also gives AMD the ability to once again plant their flag into ultra high end soil while giving consumers access to what is (for the next few weeks at least) billed as the fastest graphics card in the world.


Source

Looks pretty good.


----------



## Plex

Phew. Thanks! I was a little worried that we wouldn't get our 6th 6990 review news thread this morning.


----------



## amang

Quote:


> I think the most impressive thing on the 6990 is the power draw-603w!


Second this!

There are several articles here with regards to overclocking and crossfiring this card.


----------



## Mongol

lol..wait until the 590 releases...the whole news section will be swarmed.


----------



## AzO

These 6990 threads are getting out of hand. Can't the mods consolidate all 6990 review threads?


----------



## Chrono Detector

Would prefer to see a non reference model because I think ATI's reference cards look ugly.


----------



## Atomfix

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Capwn;12653903*
> The real question is,, Is it as much of a nightmare to try to game on as the 5970 was???


The Real question is.....

.............

Does it blend? hopefully we will see it on YouTube blending away in bits soon


----------



## lordikon

Seems like a great card, looks like ATi solved their dual-GPU issues for now.

I do miss the days when you could have cutting edge gaming technology without paying an extra $125/year in power bills.


----------



## Redwoodz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Annex;12652144*
> Supposedly running crossfire in x8 doesn't really show any performance decrease, and for the price of this card you could have a decent new motherboard and either crossfire 6950s, 6870s, or simply a 5970.. You'd get more than satisfactory performance with any of those setups.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gabe63;12652251*
> I really thought this would be $599 max. Looking at reviews I think it sould be $599 max. I hoped it would stir things up, or lower prices.


When you are top dog you charge for it.That price also includes 4 display adapters.When the 590 arrives,I'm sure the price will drop a little.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *saint19;12652332*
> *Full review*
> 
> Now we need the GTX 590 to see who is the winner of this war (for now)


Another biased review-only 2 reasons to buy this card?







We only need one,how about performance?T here is no single card that can beat it-good enough reason for many people.And for those who keep saying"but 2 cards is better,no need for this" Well 2 6990's is even better still.Sure the 590 will be a monster-but I have to think with it's power draw it is going to be at a disadvantage here.Right off-the-bat we see 1000MHz core speeds will be possible with the 6990.Will the 590 be able to match that?


----------



## Stealth Pyros

Definitely looks like I'm going with NVIDIA this time around whether it's a 580 or 590. My build date is roughly some time in September.


----------



## richuwo11

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Plex;12654259*
> Phew. Thanks! I was a little worried that we wouldn't get our 6th 6990 review news thread this morning.


Well if I was gonna drop $700 on a GPU, I know I would like to have 6 different perspectives.


----------



## Newbie2009

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ih2try;12653889*
> I thought so too when AMD said this thing would be 67% faster than the GTX 580 LOL
> But now anyone with a brain can believe it isn't that "tough" for Nvidia to beat it considering its actual performance, 2x8 pins connector, power consumption (375W to 450W) and noise. The limits are broken.


Fermi runs hotter. Hell with limiter off the 580 shown to use more than the 480.
Even if go by the 570, bigger chips on one PCB=Harder to cool. Which means more heat. To lower heat you need to lower clocks. Nvidia may be able to fix this with great cooling on a single chip card, 2 on one card is another thing.

So it will come down to clocks. Will the 590 be able to ship with 570 clocks to compete with the 6990? That is the question.
Hard to see it happening. So it will be tough to see Nvidia matching this seen as the 6990 will match the 6970 xfire roughly when overclocked.

AMD said it would be 67% faster? Where? Mabye if AMD put a nvidia sticker on it might help eh?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Plex;12654173*
> What?
> 
> 580 > 570 >= 6970 > 6950
> 
> 2x 580 > 2x 570 >= 2x 6970 > 2x 6950
> 
> ??? > 6990
> 
> What was that about "anyone with a brain?"
> 
> Honestly. I'm far from a fanboy, too. I'm upset that AMD couldn't do better, we need better competition than this.


What is wrong with the performance? If the 6990 is overcloked it matches 6970s in xfire?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *dizzyscure1;12654187*
> Yeah the performance if the 6990 isn't really making me jump and scream ya know it's about 30% faster in those screens












What is bad about the performance?









Quote:


> Going into this review, I was perfectly happy to set myself up for disappointment since *dual GPU cards have almost always fell short of expectations. Whether it was driver issues, excess noise or something else, there has usually been some major pothole preventing me from buying what products like the GTX 295, HD 4870X2 and HD 5970 were trying to sell. AMD's HD 6990 on the other hand has proven that my apprehension was misplaced as it threaded its way perfectly between the two other top-end Crossfire solutions.*


And to put in context where the 570 is in SLI stock clocks:


----------



## DjiXas

Wow, 4GB of memory... That's like 4,294,967,296 bytes

I wonder when will we finally be able to use both GPUs memory when using crossfire.


----------



## Levesque

Never had any problems with my 1 year old Tri-Fire set-up 5970+5870. Pebkac much?

So, the 6990... For the price of 2X Nvidia 580 SLI, you can get a Tri-Fire set-up 6990+6970 and totally wipe the floor with it... since 6990 alone is around 15% slower then 580 SLI, Tri-Fire will be alot faster... for around the same price... and more Vram! And with the great 6xxx serie scaling, it's really a no brainer for me.









Nvidia should lower the price of the 580. really.


----------



## saulin

Very fast card but you really only see it pull way ahead of a GTX 580 on extremely high resolutions like for 3 displays


----------



## Plex

I could cherry-pick benches to prove my point too, but I'd rather not waste my time.


----------



## Dark

Precisely.


----------



## lordikon

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DjiXas;12654475*
> I wonder when will we finally be able to use both GPUs memory when using crossfire.


Not anytime soon without some serious changes. You're rendering a single image, which means both GPUs need to know about what to draw, both need to have access to the same vertex, index, and depth buffers. The only way both GPUs get access to the same memory is either by sharing a unique source of memory, or by duplicating it (which they are doing now). If they were able to share the same source of memory then you'd run into issues as they were both trying to read from that memory. You'd have to have twice the memory bandwidth to allow both GPUs to read the memory in the same amount of time that both of them currently read from independent sources, and you'd have to lock the memory as read-only while both cards attempted to render a frame. Needless to say, there are some hurdles to overcome before it will happen.

For 3D tech I wonder if it would be feasible to give each eye's perspective (two different camera frustums in-game), to a different GPU. You render each view with its own GPU. Of course, that doesn't change the memory situation, the cards are still using mostly the same buffers. I say mostly because the different view frustums mean each view will have a slightly different set of vertices within it.


----------



## Newbie2009

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Plex;12654578*
> I could cherry-pick benches to prove my point too, but I'd rather not waste my time.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Dark;12654638*
> Precisely.


Cherry pick? If the card sucks so much there would be no good benchmarks









http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/41404-amd-radeon-hd-6990-4gb-review-23.html










Dunno mabye I am the only one impressed with this card. And considering it goes toe-to-toe @ stock against 570s in sli is bad news for Nvidia.

Assuming they manage to keep stock clocks for the 590, it will still be slower than 570s in sli. Just like the 295 vs 275s sli and 5970 vs 5870s xfire. (even at same clocks)

Sorry, I am cherrypicking facts.


----------



## XCRapid

Nice to see the card performing well, and that they draw the distinction that this card is for people with $$$ who want max performance. Still, I feel if this were a hot, expensive, NVIDIA GPU that every review site would be complaining about the very things that the 6990 is being praised for.


----------



## Wishmaker

Deja Vu when the 5970 launched. It was the same issue. Poor scalling and over a year later we have the same issue.


----------



## damninhell

aaaaaawwwwwwwwww, my ears are bleeding!!!!!
o, its fkn linus again!!!!!


----------



## Plex

lol, I like Linus. I like him way more than that one dude over at OC3D, anyway.


----------



## Timlander

I do not like the trend of gpu's now. More power, more heat, more expensive and mediocre performance. I think someone needs to focus on new tech or designs or something. Because I personally do not care for buying a $700 gpu that uses 350watts. Yes it is a dual gpu design, but I am saying in general I expected them to come up with some better designs that were more power efficient. I sure do not look forward to my next GPU upgrade if something like this is what I have to get for high end.


----------



## grunion

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Plex;12654173*
> What?
> 
> 580 > 570 >= 6970 > 6950
> 
> 2x 580 > 2x 570 >= 2x 6970 > 2x 6950
> 
> ??? > 6990
> 
> What was that about "anyone with a brain?"
> 
> Honestly. I'm far from a fanboy, too. I'm upset that AMD couldn't do better, we need better competition than this.


Underclock your 580s 25% and see where performance is relative to the 6990.


----------



## scottb75

I am highly considering selling my GTX 480s and getting one of these 6990's.


----------



## GameBoy

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *damninhell;12654851*
> aaaaaawwwwwwwwww, my ears are bleeding!!!!!
> o, its fkn linus again!!!!!


I like Linus.


----------



## Dark

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Newbie2009;12654732*
> Cherry pick? If the card sucks so much there would be no good benchmarks
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/41404-amd-radeon-hd-6990-4gb-review-23.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dunno mabye I am the only one impressed with this card. And considering it goes toe-to-toe @ stock against 570s in sli is bad news for Nvidia.
> 
> Assuming they manage to keep stock clocks for the 590, it will still be slower than 570s in sli. Just like the 295 vs 275s sli and 5970 vs 5870s xfire. (even at same clocks)
> 
> Sorry, I am cherrypicking facts.


You're comparing the 6990 to 570-SLI? I'm guessing in terms of price then I can understand but in absolute performance 580-SLI is proving to be better in most cases.

Also, it's a stretch to say the 590 will under-perform 570-SLI when the 590 is running dual 384-bit memory interface (compared to 320bit on a 570) and similar clocks.


----------



## damninhell

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Plex;12654870*
> lol, I like Linus. I like him way more than that one dude over at OC3D, anyway.


yeah linus is cool, but a few months ago i saw him on a livestream and his mic made his voice even higher hahaha, so we all ragged on him on the chatbox.great vids though.


----------



## saulin

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Newbie2009;12654732*
> Cherry pick? If the card sucks so much there would be no good benchmarks
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/41404-amd-radeon-hd-6990-4gb-review-23.html
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dunno mabye I am the only one impressed with this card. And considering it goes toe-to-toe @ stock against 570s in sli is bad news for Nvidia.
> 
> Assuming they manage to keep stock clocks for the 590, it will still be slower than 570s in sli. Just like the 295 vs 275s sli and 5970 vs 5870s xfire. (even at same clocks)
> 
> Sorry, I am cherrypicking facts.


Nice I was looking forward to the Hardware Canucks review. To tell you the truth I expected the 6990 to be about 1.5x faster than a 580. So I'm impressed. But I didn't expect it to use so much power after all the talk about power comsumption there was on the GTX 480

Since obviously these companies don't care about power comsumption anymore I think we can expect the GTX 590 to be close to 580 SLI most likely


----------



## GTR Mclaren

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6990-review/


----------



## amstech

6970's are faster or as fast and just as quiet.
570's are even quieter!


----------



## saint19

I guys
Quote:


> i can promise you won't have to wait long, but i'm not expecting too much different from the 6990 in the power/noise dept.


The exact words of the 6990 reviewer about the GTX 590


----------



## grunion

We need to see some sli 580 numbers at 700/1400/3800.
That's what I predict the clock speeds will be.


----------



## Newbie2009

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Dark;12654984*
> You're comparing the 6990 to 570-SLI? I'm guessing in terms of price then I can understand but in absolute performance 580-SLI is proving to be better in most cases.
> 
> Also, it's a stretch to say the 590 will under-perform 570-SLI when the *590 is running dual 384-bit memory interface (compared to 320bit on a 570) and similar clocks*.


I was not aware, mmm I see.


----------



## soilentblue

i know it won't happen but i would love to see nvidia undercut this card's price. i think this card is overpriced and could have gone without the extra adapters. i would not buy this card until is has competition.

i am disappoint.........currently.


----------



## Sov90

Pretty damn impressive, but doesn't make me regret picking up my SLI 580's.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Sov90;12656634*
> Pretty damn impressive, but doesn't make me regret picking up my SLI 580's.


GTX580 will probably have better resale value, run much cooler, and much faster and earlier time. HD 6990 is fail if you put HD 6950/70 in the picture.


----------



## xlink

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Atomfix;12653719*
> Not for long lol


correct, given the rapid advancement of the market, there is a very high likelihood of either(or both) AMD or nVidia releasing a faster card in the near future(within a year or so).


----------



## OmegaNemesis28

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er;12656673*
> GTX580 will probably have better resale value, run much cooler, and much faster and earlier time. HD 6990 is fail if you put HD 6950/70 in the picture.


Sure, but these benchmarks are with Switch #2 and not #1 so they're technically underclocked to be within PCIe spec like the article mentions on page #1.
Also: not everyone likes or can have 2 cards in their case. The 6990 is a sweet card.


----------



## NitrousX

That sucker is huge!


----------



## Mygaffer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Atomfix;12653719*
> Not for long lol


Depending on how much Nvidia has to downclock the gtx590 this may end up being the fastest single card even after the gtx590 launches.


----------



## InterestedThirdParty

isn't it delayed?


----------



## Newbie2009

There are pros and cons to all cards, but I think the 6990 is superb, in comparison to the 5970, which people seem to hold in high regard.
Mabye it's because AMD are launching for more than they did with the 5970


----------



## Phallic Tractor

Quote:


> In every game we played the GeForce GTX 580 SLI did give us the highest framerates. Beyond that though, GTX 580 SLI provided the smoothest gameplay. There was less choppiness with SLI and it seemed lower framerates felt smoother on GTX 580 SLI than it did with 6990 or 6970 CFX. If you've got the cash to burn, you can't beat GTX 580 SLI for true multi-display gaming performance.


Are they trying to say microsttuter is worst on AMD than for Nvidia?


----------



## Enfluenza

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Atomfix;12653719*
> Not for long lol


HAHAHA FANBOY TROLLLLLLL
you dont know that. we dont have any specs/benchies/prices on the 590 so put a sock in it.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AzO;12653664*
> If AMD can fix scaling issues I want to see someone with deep pockets build a system with four of these monsters.


i thought they did!?
CF scailing has improved dramaticly with the 6xxx series and is on par with SLi (if not, better)
idk about quad fire tho...
then again 4 way SLi kinda sucks too. we cant win


----------



## 2010rig

Here's a 6990 Crossfire review:
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1128/pg1/sapphire-radeon-hd-6990-crossfire-graphics-card-review-introduction.html
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *soilentblue;12656633*
> i know it won't happen but i would love to see nvidia undercut this card's price. i think this card is overpriced and could have gone without the extra adapters. i would not buy this card until is has competition.
> 
> i am disappoint.........currently.


Good luck getting Nvidia to undercut this price, the 580 already retails @ $499.

I predicted this card would be priced $699, and I'm guessing the 590 will be $800 - $850, considering it should have 2 580 chips inside.


----------



## saulin

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Phallic Tractor;12658696*
> Are they trying to say microsttuter is worst on AMD than for Nvidia?


Sounds like it. Microstutter is the main reason why I would not get a dual GPU card or 2 cards for that matter.


----------



## saulin

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *2010rig;12659143*
> Here's a 6990 Crossfire review:
> http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1128/pg1/sapphire-radeon-hd-6990-crossfire-graphics-card-review-introduction.html
> 
> Good luck getting Nvidia to undercut this price.
> 
> I predicted this card would be priced $699, and I'm guessing the 590 will be $800 - $850, considering it should have 2 580 chips inside.


I predicted the GTX 590 to be around $600 but I didn't think we would be talking about this level of performance and power consumption. So I predict the GTX 590 to be $700 as well and a maybe 5% faster than the 6990. But if it ends up being faster than the 6990, retailers will probably price it at $750


----------



## Pillz Here

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *saulin;12659176*
> Sounds like it. Microstutter is the main reason why I would not get a dual GPU card or 2 cards for that matter.


What are you talking about? I've yet to experience microstutter on any of the 50 or so PC games that I own with my 460's. Every game runs just as smooth or smoother than any single GPU setup I've ever owned.


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *OmegaNemesis28;12657253*
> Sure, but these benchmarks are with Switch #2 and not #1 so they're technically underclocked to be within PCIe spec like the article mentions on page #1.
> Also: not everyone likes or can have 2 cards in their case. The 6990 is a sweet card.


More cases can fit 2 cards then they can the extra long HD 6990. The Extra OC in HD 6990 is horrible. GTX580s will smoke it if you OC them and they can do 900Mhz easy.


----------



## Pillz Here

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *saulin;12659214*
> I predicted the GTX 590 to be around $600 but I didn't think we would be talking about this level of performance and power consumption. So I predict the GTX 590 to be $700 as well and a maybe 5% faster than the 6990. But if it ends up being faster than the 6990, retailers will probably price it at $750


Considering the 6990's are already being priced at $740-$750, you can easily expect the 590's to be in the $800+ range.


----------



## 2010rig

GTX 590 for $600? - I doubt that would ever happen with 2 580 cores in there? $800 - $850 will be more in line.

Some 6990's are as high as $739 - $749, which is pretty much the price of 2 6970's, no deal there.

2 x 580's = $1000 ... $850 would be a bargain.


----------



## soilentblue

Quote:



Originally Posted by *2010rig*


GTX 590 for $600? - I doubt that would ever happen with 2 580 cores in there? $800 - $850 will be more in line.

Some 6990's are as high as $739 - $749, which is pretty much the price of 2 6970's, no deal there.

2 x 580's = $1000 ... $850 would be a bargain.


you won't be getting 580 sli performance. it's just like you don't get 6970 xfire performance from the 6990. no one should be comparing the 6990 to 580 sli cause it's not the same thing. 6990 vs 590 will be more accurate.

i'm real curious to see what nvidia does. hopefully the card comes with no stupid extra 60 dollar accessories like amd to help keep the cost down. also it won't perform like dual 580s so that should help keep the cost down. the best you can hope for with the 590 is that it performs like dual 570s(overclock it to 580s but terrible heat problems), no accessories, and it comes in at the same price as two 570s.

edit: only thing that really really worries me is that anytime you hear the words "hand picked" you know it's coming with a hefty price.


----------



## soilentblue

when EK gets a waterblock for this thing it will finally shine brightly. it seems like this thing was made for water.


----------



## OmegaNemesis28

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


More cases can fit 2 cards then they can the extra long HD 6990. The Extra OC in HD 6990 is horrible. GTX580s will smoke it if you OC them and they can do 900Mhz easy.


Ok most cases can fit two cards, nice observation I couldn't have possibly gathered that myself. -.-
Not my point dude.
I for one can't for example. I have plenty of space in my case but regardless my motherboard essentially doesn't allow it in my case due to the fact I have a PCI sound card. That card takes up the space I need for a second card if I were to choose. 
I COULD put a second video card in the upper 3rd upper PCIe slot but then I have to get an extension on my PSU and an extra long Xfire or SLi cord. Then I would also have to remove my USB3.0 card as well.

That's alot of sacrifices for something that performs as well as dual cards, and that's essentially UNDERCLOCKED. When you switch the BIOS to Switch #1 - you're not really overclocking the cards. You're more or less returning the card to it's real stock settings: the way it ~should be. Then you can overclock from there for even more. First page of the OCP again.

Also, I watercool. So thats DOUBLE the waterblocks, fittings, and tubing. More trouble for my pump to push water as well.

Single card solutions have always been the cheapest and easiest solution for someone like me. The 6990 is a fantastic card. You seem to act like no one has uses for a single slot card and that this card has nothing to offer. It does, a hell of alot more than any dual card solution could offer me even if the 6990 is about $100 more than what it should cost.

Quote:



For 3D tech I wonder if it would be feasible to give each eye's perspective (two different camera frustums in-game), to a different GPU. You render each view with its own GPU. Of course, that doesn't change the memory situation, the cards are still using mostly the same buffers. I say mostly because the different view frustums mean each view will have a slightly different set of vertices within it.


I thought thats how Nvision works when you have SLi enabled?


----------



## trivium nate

this thing is a beast I wonder how this thing will handle Crysis 2 once DX11 is released wish I could get one


----------



## Lostcase

Quote:



We thought that scoring 9,500 points in 3Dmark 11 from a reference HD6990 was a hell of an achievement, but it somewhat pales in comparison with 14,000 in dual CrossfireX. Sure, we donâ€™t play benchmarks, but the performance geek in all of us loves to see exciting new results from the latest hardware. I remember thinking 6,000 points from a GTX580 was monumental. How quickly the performance charts move.












da Source


----------



## ZealotKi11er

Quote:



Originally Posted by *OmegaNemesis28*


Ok most cases can fit two cards, nice observation I couldn't have possibly gathered that myself. -.-
Not my point dude.
I for one can't for example. I have plenty of space in my case but regardless my motherboard essentially doesn't allow it in my case due to the fact I have a PCI sound card. That card takes up the space I need for a second card if I were to choose. 
I COULD put a second video card in the upper 3rd upper PCIe slot but then I have to get an extension on my PSU and an extra long Xfire or SLi cord. Then I would also have to remove my USB3.0 card as well.

That's alot of sacrifices for something that performs as well as dual cards, and that's essentially UNDERCLOCKED. When you switch the BIOS to Switch #1 - you're not really overclocking the cards. You're more or less returning the card to it's real stock settings: the way it ~should be. Then you can overclock from there for even more. First page of the OCP again.

Also, I watercool. So thats DOUBLE the waterblocks, fittings, and tubing. More trouble for my pump to push water as well.

Single card solutions have always been the cheapest and easiest solution for someone like me. The 6990 is a fantastic card. You seem to act like no one has uses for a single slot card and that this card has nothing to offer. It does, a hell of alot more than any dual card solution could offer me even if the 6990 is about $100 more than what it should cost.

I thought thats how Nvision works when you have SLi enabled?


Well if you put it that way then you are the flew people that benefit from it. As far as overclocking goes unless water the card fails. GTX480 was a failure for many people because of heat and noise and on top of that power consumption. It was a dream to have if it was under water.


----------



## Brutuz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Enfluenza;12658754*
> i thought they did!?
> CF scailing has improved dramaticly with the 6xxx series and is on par with SLi (if not, better)
> idk about quad fire tho...
> then again 4 way SLi kinda sucks too. we cant win


Keep in mind scaling with the HD58x0s just plain sucked, hell, the drivers for them sucked period. When I had a HD4890 CFX set up that beat a HD5870 in terms of FPS when it should have been losing.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *saulin;12659176*
> Sounds like it. Microstutter is the main reason why I would not get a dual GPU card or 2 cards for that matter.


Microstutter in CFX/SLI was fixed around the HD2000 series/GTX 200 series, dual GPU cards still get it for some reason.


----------



## damninhell

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *2010rig;12660762*
> GTX 590 for $600? - I doubt that would ever happen with 2 580 cores in there? $800 - $850 will be more in line.
> 
> Some 6990's are as high as $739 - $749, which is pretty much the price of 2 6970's, no deal there.
> 
> 2 x 580's = $1000 ... $850 would be a bargain.


so its confirm that the 590 will have 2 580's ? or are people just guessing...any ways your right it will break the no matter what gpu's are packed in that card, nvidia loves high price tags


----------



## wongwarren

Quote:


> We know that discerning readers of KitGuru will want to see how two of these video cards perform in a Dual CrossFireX configuration.


http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/his-hd6990-dual-crossfirex-review/


----------



## Pheatton

Really liking the results from this card. Its a monster!!

Quote:



So with that much perf in-house, please do flick open all image quality settings a game offers you. I mean, if I take Battlefield 2 Bad Company, which is massively GPU dependant and enable all and only the very best image quality settings, apply 8xAA and we still get 80 FPS on average in a monitor resolution of 2560x1600 (!), well that just says it all really. That's pure, raw and unadulterated performance.


Source


----------



## X-Nine

At 700+ dollars, it damn well better be pure, unadulterated performance.


----------



## OmegaNemesis28

Quote:



Originally Posted by *ZealotKi11er*


Well if you put it that way then you are the flew people that benefit from it. As far as overclocking goes unless water the card fails. GTX480 was a failure for many people because of heat and noise and on top of that power consumption. It was a dream to have if it was under water.


I have 9 fans in my computer case full blast all day and night. Having a noisy GPU even if I didnt watercool it doesn't really bother me. What I want is performance regardless of something like power consumption or heat or noise. Those imo are irrelevant to the card's worth unless it's something ridiculous and it sounds like an industrial fan going off or the thing itself requires a dedicated PSU.

Honestly even if the 6990 is THAT loud, from my experience with having 2 8800GTXs - that was 10x louder than it was with my 4870x2 when it had a fan on it. 1 louder fan is better than the 2 loud fans especially if you overclock it. If you're going to argue overclock, then fan speed/noise shouldn't even be apart of it.


----------



## Razi3l

Not sure if anybody has posted, but Sapphire 6990 @ 1Ghz (OC) at TweakTown.

Performance increase wasn't too amazing, compared to 6970 CF because the memory was still running below 6970 speeds. If it had been at around 1450Mhz or 1500, this would've been neck and neck with the 580s.


----------



## theyellowlemon

WSGF did a review.

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/AMD_Radeon_6990_Featured_Review


----------



## anand00x

I am going to purchase a 6990 from tigerdirect today. Any recs on brand?
Diamond - $739.99
Visontek - $719
Sapphire - $714.99
MSI - $734.99
Powercolor -$729.99


----------



## chinmi

anyone have an experience with club 3d 6990 ?

i have a friend that wanna sell his club 3d 6990 for around $540,- is that a good deals ?


----------



## Mad Pistol

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *chinmi;15100802*
> anyone have an experience with club 3d 6990 ?
> 
> i have a friend that wanna sell his club 3d 6990 for around $540,- is that a good deals ?


1 small post for chinmi.

1 *GIANT BUMP* for OCN.

You should start a thread about it in this section: http://www.overclock.net/amd-ati/
You'll get a better response there.


----------



## Imglidinhere

Oh so the 6950 is the equal to the GTX 480! Wow. I didn't know this!









Makes me feel a LOT better about getting a 6950 in the future.


----------

