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

[Guest]

I just hope that the 6850 can make works my old LG CRT monitor at 100hz, cuz the serie 5000 can't do it just for because, its locked on 60hz :S

 

[CerianK]

A few of the 5850 Min FPS graphs show the wrong number and/or wrong bar length (e.g. Dirt2 - 2560, BBC2 2560, that I noticed).

 

[f-14]

interesting, less transistors, less power, 6 displays, triple core dual channel cards. same 256 bit memory bus, die shrink skipping means AMD is conserving money, hopefully to put out a better CPU.
interesting route AMD is taking it almost ledas me to think they are close to intergrating a gpu on a cpu die, but not quite. the 28nm shrink will reveal more i suppose.
with 6 display ports, it sounds like AMD is really aiming for corporate and government security sectors at the moment, oh and us simulator gamers 😉

"this sure would be a good time to introduce a card with a fully-equipped GF104 and 384 CUDA cores enabled (Ed.: I can’t comment, but I know something that you don’t, Don)."
and add in faster memory bus speed like the previous 200 series generation of 448bit and 512bit!

 

[megamanx00]

The 6800 series is a winner. The 6850 hangs with the 460 1GB pretty well (I'm guess it would beat up the 768MB part) and overclocked can compare well to the heavily overclocked GTX 460 FTW. The 6870 simply pushes out the good ol 5850 and compares well to the GTX 470. AMD can also afford to sell that 6870 for alot less than nVidia can afford to sell the 470.

Good job all around AMD. Now how about releasing a CPU that can keep up!? Where's Bulldozer!!!??

 

[Guest]

Performance per buying cost is about 10 - 20% better than the previous generation of ATI cards. A GTX 460 with just a 10% price drop is good to go again. I am rather disappointed with these cards and their pricing, with a price of 180$ and 130$ for 6870 and 6850 respectively the market would move forward. Now it is nothing more than an insignificant bump for the average consumer. For the same money you will get 55-60 fps than 50 fps a generation ahead. Wow...

 

[bombat1994]

the thing that i was very impressed with is not just the normal results, the 6870 out performs the 5850, the 6850 easily outperforms the 5830,

the crossfire results were very impressive. the xfire 6870 outperformed the sli 470, and the 6850 out performed the dual 460.

the only low point was the minimum frame rates, but they will get better as drivers update

 

[lp231]

Back when I was a noob, I was bored one day and decided to see if the random urls I've typed in would exist. The first I've tried was www.ddd.com.
Immediately that site caught my attention about 3D related contents. Too bad as that time, most us we're rocking out 17" CRTs. And if you got them 19 or 20" you must be rich.

btw, DDD is founded in 1993

 

[Guest]

great performance, good optimization and a fantastic refresh, cant wait for 69xx, its going to be very fast indeed!

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]Khushrenada529[/nom]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[/citation]

Thanks for pointing that out, the chart problem has been found and fixed. It was limited to bbc2, dirt2, and justcause 2 at the 2560x1600 res. the bar lengths were in fact correct, but the numbers had been unlinked to the proper data.

 

[K3vBot6000]

Great looking cards at competitive prices. Another great article. I especially enjoyed how you managed to reference Shakespeare and Friday in the same piece.

 

[rohitbaran]

[citation][nom]Chris_TC[/nom]I'm sorry, but instead of testing games which average 100 fps on any half-decent card I would much rather have Crysis in there. It still stresses graphics cards a lot, and to me it's still the best looking game.[/citation]
I agree. I haven't played Metro 2033 but to me, Crysis represents the best in visual fidelity in video games. Anyway, it is good to see that finally cards under $200 can play crysis at very high without hiccups.

 

[nate007]

[citation][nom]rockitman[/nom]Wow! Newegg has already dropped the price of a Sapphire 5970 from $600 to $550.A 5970 is still the top dog as far as I'm concerned. The only card that can run maxxed out Crysis smoothly.[/citation]
Hate to burst the Bubble but Metro 2003 will bring the hurt MORE then Crysis ever did. That game is a Monster on graphics. It seems that AMD need to sharpen there drivers for it though as they lagged behind a bit on that title. Although I could be wrong. In any case I can't wait for the NEXT version of the catalyst drivers.

 

[Ramar]

[citation][nom]jyjjy[/nom]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.[/citation]

Let me clarify also, GTX+

How about benchmarks from Tom's Hardware? http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2010-gaming-graphics-charts-high-quality/Battlefield-Bad-Company-2,Marque_fbrandx876,2466.html

That's at 1920x1200, 4AA, 8AF.

The performance advantage is a mere 35% faster, and the 1GB is only 40% faster.

How about another, http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2010-gaming-graphics-charts-high-quality/Dragon-Age-Origins,Marque_fbrandx876,2471.html

Dragon's Age with the same resolution, at 8xAA where I feel the 512MB is more of a limit than real horsepower of the 9800GTX. The GTX460 768 is still only 50% faster.

You're right on the generation count though, my bad. Even so, it's been the same time frame, and I think if anything is to blame it was the massive jump the 8-series saw, that Nvidia decided to sit on for so long because AMD couldn't really compete until the 4-series. Also, the GTX2-- were awful.

 

[Ramar]

[citation][nom]reprotected[/nom]Blame consoles.[/citation]

I do. That, and the lack of a third party in the graphics market.

 

[Guest]

yoiu guys have to look at the price..the 6850 is 199 while the 6870 is only like 290ish?

there is no need to look at name..whatever the price is, that is where the card will be related to performance wise

 

[youssef 2010]

It seems like ATI has realized and corrected the fatal flaw of the 5700 series.Their 128-bit memory bus caused the cards to stutter when AA was enabled.
Also, they seem to be mimicking Nvidia in limiting new sub $250 bords to dual card configurations( could the added cost be too much?).It also is no wonder that most manufacturers don't accelerate Graphics memory, as the MemIO can get somewhat hot compared to the rest of the card.

[citation][nom]article[/nom]“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”[/citation]
That's because you can smell the rose before you buy it but you can't see the VGA card perform until you buy it (assuming you're not well informed).

“Now go we in content!”------LOL

BTW,I stopped mentioning how great your articles are only because I felt like I'm repeating myself every article

 

[rand_79]

I'm not ati or nvidia biased.. I purchase either.

I recently purchased a hawk edition 460 for 209$ it overclocks to 920mhz

stock clocks on 460 is almost criminal..

That being said I dislike the marketing they should have called them 6750 and 6770 etc .. of course we know nvidia has never done this (sarcasm) so it is again buyer beware.

I would rather wait on a 28nm ati part though I think it will be a leap vs same 40nm tech.

 

[yose3]

nice try AMD but aint gonna buy it.....

 

[maliusmaximus]

It's so great to be able to buy the good stuff now for only $200. I remember paying $800 for my GeForce 2 GTS, and I think $700 for a Ti4600 back in the day.
The cards AMD and Nvidia are producing nowadays are beasts, and finally affordable God bless competition.

 

[ace5423]

They should have been named the 6770 and the 6750. Good looking cards though.

 

[eddieroolz]

At first look, the 68xx cards didn't look revolutionary. But it succeeded in one thing - bringing fierce competition down to even lower price levels.

 

[mastadisasta_31]

This is what keeps making me NOT buy an Nvidia card. Why can't they give us a good price at release, AMD IS! Once the competition releases a good card at an affordable price, then Nvidia is running to mommy. AMD you suck for releasing video cards with a f...... up naming convention, But.. But I will continue to buy your video cards because of the great price/performance ratio

 

[falchard]

nVidia: We finally have a competitive card to HD5770!!!
AMD one month later: You mean that expensive and hot device?

 

[devorakman112]

i think i know what the editor is talking about with a 384 cudacore chip =D but thats for another article.

name is confusing, i for one was waiting for this release like the midnight release of your favorite new game, just to be dissapointed. at the very least they could have called it the 6770, as a lower power unit of a new architecture. o well...

 

[brenslick]

your tests are different from all the other tests ive seen so far. You are the only site that puts the 460 as stronger than the 6850......