AMD Radeon HD 6870 And 6850: Is Barts A Step Forward?

[wolfram23]

Nice, thorough review!

 

[OvrClkr]

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. When Nvidia pulled this crap (8800, 9800, and 250) everyone slammed the comment section with how terrible Nvidia was. Ati is basically doing the same thing. They named these cards the way they did to cause confusion and essentially screw over impulse buyers. This practice was unacceptable with nvidia and remains unacceptable with ATI. I love my 5850 and I would have been very annoyed to find out the hard way that a 6870 is barely any better. In my case, it would most likely be worse since my 5850 is clocked at 1ghz. I love both companies, but they seriously need to stop screwing over the people that buy their stuff.

Sincerly,
Annoyed PC fanboy

I am a fan of both RED and GREEN, when the 250 came out I purchased 2 of them even though I already had a 9800GTX+. I never complained about anything other than the price-tag since IMO it should have been a bit cheaper since it was the exact same card as the GTX+ with a smaller footprint and a tad better in the TDP dept. AMD did nothing wrong, other than show NV that the 460 has a new kid on the block.

We all knew this before-hand, it baffles me that many users here are acting like they didn't know what was coming when we already had the specs 2 weeks prior to launch.

 

[bk420]

Me likey!!!

 

[17seconds]

The overclocked EVGA GTX460 is just about as fast as the 6870, for a lot less in price. It also has more headroom to overclock than the 6870. For enthusiasts who like to overclock, the 6870 is a boring failure. I'd take the MSI GTX460 Hawk Talon Attack edition over the 6870 any day, and any number of other overcloced 460's as well.

 

[Ramar]

Here's my problem: I bought a 9800GTX for 159.99 two years ago. Two years before that, I bought a 6800 for 159.99. In those two years, performance/dollar easily doubled.

Is there some reason that four generations later, we've barely reached 150% of the performance of my 9800GTX for the same price? It's really hard to justify spending 180 dollars to go from 30 to 40fps when that same upgrade two years ago bought me the difference between 20 and 60fps.

I don't know who's to blame, but something's fishy in the graphics market.

 

[bujuki]

I haven't heard any news on optimus-like feature in 6 series. Any idea?

 

[jyjjy]

[citation][nom]Ramar[/nom]Here's my problem: I bought a 9800GTX for 159.99 two years ago. Two years before that, I bought a 6800 for 159.99. In those two years, performance/dollar easily doubled.Is there some reason that four generations later, we've barely reached 150% of the performance of my 9800GTX for the same price? It's really hard to justify spending 180 dollars to go from 30 to 40fps when that same upgrade two years ago bought me the difference between 20 and 60fps.I don't know who's to blame, but something's fishy in the graphics market.[/citation]
I don't know what benchmarks you are looking at but the GTX 460 768mb is $160 and is roughly 70% faster than the 9800GTX at high resolutions. The GTX 460 1gb and HD6850 are closer to 90% faster. Also the generation count from the 9800GTX to GTX 460 is two, not four.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]OvrClkr[/nom] The bottom line is that NV better have a trick up their sleeve in Q1 2011 because AMD is coming full force with their next fleet pretty soon. If NV stalls on their next lineup these awesome prices will be a thing of the past.[/citation]
http://guru3d.com/news/geforce-gtx-580-coming/

 

[faraz1010]

way 2 go AMD..
a few more driver upgrades and these cards will b kicking even more..
Also AMD has given us all an open 3D solution..thats definately something that Nvidia will never do..
Thumbs up to AMD again.. 🙂

 

[tubers]

They could have at least named it 6860 or "5860 PLUS" xD

 

[ehanger]

Only reason why I don't buy AMD is their crossfire scaling sucks

 

[jonnyboyC]

This is honestly a win for everyone, price fall like an avalanche, they are magnificent buys now, especially the 6850, since it really has quite a bit of room to stretch out fully overclocked. On top of this i don't feel like i made a bad decision with the 460gtx since their prices are falls sli looking alittle nice now, then of course another round of price drops if nvidia comes out with there next line in the next couple of months

 

[reprotected]

Great. AMD has copied Nvidia. First with the overkilling GPUs (Geforce 8000 and the introduction of CUDA), then with a refresh + better CrossfireX (Geforce 9000 and SLI being the best scalings), and now they plan to sweep Nvidia with the HD7000 (Geforce 200). I believe we all know what's happening after the HD7000.

 

[Guest]

"The Radeon HD 6870 weighs in at 1 lb., 16 oz.--two ounces more than the reference 5850."

Around these parts, we call that "2 lbs".

 

[Travis Beane]

Wonderful article. Thank you.

I said it in the past, I'll say it again, anyone having grave issues with the numbering schemes should by a console and simply give up on ever being a game if they can type those #s into Google. The numbering from all the IHVs are meant to start to give some more indication than a naming scheme (the AMD Fajita vs the Chalupa vs the Gordita, which is spicier.. err... faster !!) and to equate this to the previous ones, let alone the rebranding habit simply reinforces the idea that people can't think in another way than linear, which is a dumbing down to the lowest common denominator. You even bothering to comment on the "..ill-informed Radeon HD 5870 owner.." leaves me with no more sympathy than the Quad-Fire/Tri-SLi owner wondering why their performance didn't improve dramatically on a P4 or @ 1280x1024. Seriously, someone who spent ~$400 on their previous card needs hand-holding in this review when this card comes out? [:thegreatgrapeape:5]

Reasonably enough I agree, but at the same time, it's understandable.
I bought a 5770, and later bought a 5830 (the 5830 was almost the same price as my local shop, so why not?). Remembering a 4670/4770/5830 form the last gen could be crossfired, I thought I could here too. Turns out, I was wrong. Oh well.
Sometimes, it's the little stuff that gets you. I just hope they allow a wide path of corssfiring for the next gen of cards (one of the reasons I went Nvidia to AMD in the first place).

 

[reprotected]

[citation][nom]Ramar[/nom]Here's my problem: I bought a 9800GTX for 159.99 two years ago. Two years before that, I bought a 6800 for 159.99. In those two years, performance/dollar easily doubled.Is there some reason that four generations later, we've barely reached 150% of the performance of my 9800GTX for the same price? It's really hard to justify spending 180 dollars to go from 30 to 40fps when that same upgrade two years ago bought me the difference between 20 and 60fps.I don't know who's to blame, but something's fishy in the graphics market.[/citation]
Blame consoles.

 

[piesangpopo]

What AMD did is infact a master piece.Listen to this!! first of all the die went from 325mm to 255mm(25% smaller).The saders is down from 1600 to 1120.The bit rate and rop's are the same but still this new gen is quieter and runs not to hot.They got the power down from roughtly 180 watt down to 150 watt(6870/5870).So long story short,they cut the card by 25% and it almost run as fast as a 5870.Great stuff.

 

[reprotected]

[citation][nom]piesangpopo[/nom]What AMD did is infact a master piece.Listen to this!! first of all the die went from 325mm to 255mm(25% smaller).The saders is down from 1600 to 1120.The bit rate and rop's are the same but still this new gen is quieter and runs not to hot.They got the power down from roughtly 180 watt down to 150 watt(6870/5870).So long story short,they cut the card by 25% and it almost run as fast as a 5870.Great stuff.[/citation]
But Nvidia did a strategic move. They created a huge die for their future release. Not only that, they drew out AMD by releasing decent SLI video cards, 3D Surround and the GTX 460. If it wasn't for that, AMD wouldn't have powerful CrossfireX, 3D or good prices. One problem however was the fact that a lot of people bought the HD5000 GPUs, making no room for the HD6000. Good luck HD6000.

 

[angelraiter]

[citation][nom]gitano[/nom]yes 6000 series (high range) supossed to be faster then 5000 series (high range) The 6000 series reviewed there are mid range cards, the high range ones will come next month.[/citation]

LoL, Thanks man, I was being sarcastic.. It just seemed like a weird product launch..
I was expecting at least a small bump in speed, but if you compare the 6870 to the 5870, it loses every time..

It was a worst product lauch than the GeForce 250gts (with its similar performance to the 9800 series).. At least it wasn't branded with the "top of the line" naming, this in the other hand was..

You see "6870" and you assume that it will at least be as powerful if not more than the "5870", right?

Anyway, doesn't matter to me.. I have a 5850 and am very happy with it, it just felt like the consumer is getting fooled here with the naming.. More appropriate would've been 6770 and 6750, or something like that IMO..

 

[silversurfernhs]

6000 marketing is a joke... "eyedefenition"... low key release, strange nomenclature that doesn't line up w/ previous gen...

 

[eyemaster]

Since AMD needs all the cash it can get, brigning up the price by 10$ on all these new cards would be nice money to them. For the customer, current prices are excellent.

 

[Guest]

I believe that the min FPS results for the 5850 at 2560 X 1600 were reported incorrectly since the 5850 bar says 30.1, but is higher than the 30.9 min FPS of the 6870.

I'm not being a troll, I just want to help clarify it for those who might have been wondering the same thing

 

[Guest]

"For anyone interesting in upping their game (or buying a Christmas present for a PC gamer), all of these cards are fantastic buys at prices we couldn’t have imagined back when they launched, Radeon and GeForce alike."

Seems you are mixing roles here, you're role is not to promote GFX-card sales but to objectively inform your readers. ATI launched the 5850 a year ago and even now street prices are higher than they were directly after launch. Street prices for the similar performing 6870 are now the same as the 5850 were at launch, A FULL YEAR LATER!

What we see here a significant lack of competition in a market with only two manufacturers and prices that strongly reflect that lack of competition. Everyone is overpaying for their GFX hardware and has been doing so for a long time. Nothing to do about it and buying advise based on value is still welcome just don't give us that crap about "fantastic buys at prices we couldn’t have imagined back when they launched" and start objectively informing your readers.

 

[tom thumb]

So the naming sucks... so it will screw over impulse buyers... so what. I couldn't care less if some dunce doesn't do their homework. Reading this article takes 10 minutes and is enough "research" for most people.

The main reason I am interested in both cards is the lower power consumption. The 5850 is still high end IMO, and the 6870 beats it, yet consumes less power - that is a huge win as I can get a cooler and cheaper card and use the saved money to get an aftermarket cooler and make it silent.

... Just need to make sure the AC coolers will fit 😉

 

[forces]

We want Crossfire review!!!!!!!!!! 6870 crossfire kicks SLI GTX 470, 465, 460 and the fastest video card in the world the radeon hd 5970, but at $480 its the best bang for the bucks, and you didn´t say anything about it, all other reviews in other website have more information in crossfire... maybe cause they aren't nvidia....