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

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[citation][nom]brenslick[/nom]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......[/citation]

After doing some research, the man has a point.
 
because toms used 708 mhz core clock
silly to compare ref gtx 460 with 6850 anyways since nvidia released it with such low clocks that can OC so easy
 
[citation][nom]forces[/nom]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....[/citation]
Nvidia was owning ATI/AMD in multiple card configuration until this was created. Just proves that AMD wants to copy everything as long as they win, even if it confuses their beloved customers.
 
[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]nVidia: We finally have a competitive card to HD5770!!!AMD one month later: You mean that expensive and hot device?[/citation]
AMD: We finally have an awesome CrossFireX scaling graphics card AND 3D!
nVidia: And how long did that take?
AMD: STFU. We scale up to 100%.
nVidia: Yeah, but we were owning your HD5870 CrossFire with our GTX 470 SLI. Maybe you should apologize to your customers for buying HD5870 Crossfire when they really should have purchased your decisively named HD6870 in Crossfire since our GTX 470 SLI is pretty much equivalent HD5870 CrossFire.
AMD: Maybe you should apologize to your customers about that crap Fermi that melts computers and motherboards. Plus, we're still beating you...
nVidia: But we are a generation behind, we have less driver issues AND our die is bigger than yours.
AMD: ... We are owning.
nVidia: Quadro 5000.
AMD: FirePro 3D V9800.
nVidia: Quadro 6000. Tesla.
Hardware Reviewer: Owned.
I do not support either one more than the other, but I did have a bit of problems with ATI drivers. Point is, this will always happen. Can't stop competition. Stop talking about nVidia getting owned by AMD. They aren't.
 
I guess this is not exactly the technological breakthrough I had been hoping for ... but damn, is the price ever right. Don't know if I'll go for a 6870 or a GTX 470 on the system I'm building next month, but I figure this is saving me at least $60 either way. Thanks, AMD!
 
40nm been shaped to perfection.AMD given it max aa.That chip have no more jagged edges.Did you guys see that perfect chip,smooth edges(lol).Ye that is what it is.If you wait for chip makers that's behind in the nano meter tech ypu have to improvise on what you got.I'm surprise thought it's going to be more shaders and ropes also higer mhz clocks(bigger die).but it you have cost amd much more and the budget is not that bright.
 
I think the price of the 6870 is a slap in the face to everyone who bought the 5850 or 5870 a few months ago. They knew their next card would outperform the $300 5850 and cost $250 retail...so why does the 5850 STILL cost $240?
 
I'm laughing at all you people who are complaining at the naming scheme for this generation. I knew as did most of you that there would be no process shrink for this generation. Yet you still want a faster chip which means either more clock speed (very hard to do with the massive die of graphic cards) or more shaders making the die bigger than it already was. This coming from the same fanboys who laughed at Nvidia for their massive die. So either enjoy the new features and wait for the 6900's or quit your bitching and live with your 5800's. For the new features, I'm glad AMD/ATI made a new generation instead of shoving cards into the existing lineup with new features a la Nvidia with GT 210, 220, and 240 because that would be even more confusing to the average consumer.

I'm running a 4850 and I am perfectly happy with the performance of it but more features would always be nice. Looks like I'm in the market 6870 or maybe more depending what its big brothers bring to the table.
 
Awesome news, especially just after how I commented on your article for CF/SLI scaling comparisons and now AMD has come back with the thunder. This is very pleasing to the eyes.

I think the model numbers assigned were silly and they should've just stuck with the 5800 series...5875/5855. It's basically a remake, no real new hardware; whatever.

I'm glad to see comparable benchmarking results from new cards that draw much less power and generate less heat - noise isn't quite as important to me, but certainly is welcomed. Efficiency > raw power. Well done, ATI! ^^
 
Nvidia's response was compelling. But the heat and power consumption associated with a 3 billion transistor GPU counterbalanced some of its brighter performance highlights.

Only when Nvidia started rolling out derivatives did AMD's position seem truly challenged.
Click to expand...

Oh give me a break. When amd was shipping very very hot cpus that beat intel cpus by 5-10% you jumped for joy... forgetting you had to put a jet fan on top of the things to cool them (they even made one that looked like a jet engine IIRC) Now Nvidia does the same thing and you chastise them claiming the amd product is better? Hypocrite says what?

And of the dx11 games that were out at the time one of them was metro2033 which plays like shiznizzle on amd cards once you turn physx on but played just fine on my gts250 just in dx9 or 10 mode. After that there were what 5 other dx11 games out at the time? People were barely using dx10 functions when m$ rolled out dx11 and the 5000 series came out but yet you tout it like amd hit the sweet spot for timing because everyone was starving for dx11... like I said in the beginning... give me a break!

[edit] lastly why didnt you put this brand new shining example of perfection from your idols over at amd up against the gtx 480? If its so great that its the next step forward why are you putting it up against a 470? scared that if you put it up against the fastest single core gpu on the planet no one will buy it? [/edit]
 
[citation][nom]shin0bi272[/nom]Oh give me a break. When amd was shipping very very hot cpus that beat intel cpus by 5-10% you jumped for joy... forgetting you had to put a jet fan on top of the things to cool them (they even made one that looked like a jet engine IIRC) Now Nvidia does the same thing and you chastise them claiming the amd product is better? Hypocrite says what?[/edit][/citation]

You're talking about AMD prior to them purchasing ATI. AMD's processors and graphics are completely seperate divisions. So what, things can't mature and people can't be neutral respecting when companies accomplish something?

[citation][nom]shin0bi272[/nom]And of the dx11 games that were out at the time one of them was metro2033 which plays like shiznizzle on amd cards once you turn physx on but played just fine on my gts250 just in dx9 or 10 mode. [/edit][/citation]

PhysX is proprietary software developed by Nvidia. Amazing how it helped Nvidia cards perform better and not AMD! /boggle

[citation][nom]shin0bi272[/nom]After that there were what 5 other dx11 games out at the time? People were barely using dx10 functions when m$ rolled out dx11 and the 5000 series came out but yet you tout it like amd hit the sweet spot for timing because everyone was starving for dx11... like I said in the beginning... give me a break![/edit][/citation]

While the number of games that came out for DX11 may not be substantial in your eyes, the actual function of DX11 should be. At the time, it was very hyped due to supporting GPGPU, tessellation, and better multi-threaded processing. It was also release immediately following Windows 7 release. As said in the article, ideal timing.

[citation][nom]shin0bi272[/nom][edit] lastly why didnt you put this brand new shining example of perfection from your idols over at amd up against the gtx 480? If its so great that its the next step forward why are you putting it up against a 470? scared that if you put it up against the fastest single core gpu on the planet no one will buy it? [/edit][/citation]

Laf. Stop whining about why so-and-so card wasn't used to boost your fanboism. Similar price comparison was deeply seated and mentioned in the article several times. I think you need to actually read the article.
 


You miss the point entirely. Comparing cpus to cpus they lauded amd's success over intel... even when the amd was hotter than the intel... when the nvidia is hotter than the ati they chide nvidia. The point about the physx game was that it was one of like 6 games on the market at the time the 5 series came out that did dx11 and it ran like poo on ati cards BECAUSE it was geared towards nvidia cards so that left amd users 5 games that ran dx11 well ... great! Except like I said the reviewers here touted the amd release of the 5 series as the perfect time because they had 6 months lead on nvidia... yeah great 6 months playing the handful of games that used dx11...woohoo.

I can tell that youre just an amd fan and thats fine Im just pointing out the slobbering love affair that so many of these reviewers have with amd/ati over nvidia or intel. I also noticed that you lack any response to my final point of why they didnt put it up against a 480... convenient no?
 
255mm^2 die size is a no funny thing, I don't know maybe TSMC improve their facilities right now.
If you compare 5830 and 6870 it sounds like 5830 is a loosy IC having 1120 shaders, 16 rops on 334mm^2 unlike 6870 with the same shaders,twice the rops but on 255mm^2.

What if AMD's main baker Global Foundries already finished it's
28-22-20 nm Foundry in New York.. Will NVIDIA takes the lead?
I know TSMC is a very competitive Foundry but it is better to have it's own Bakery than baking on your friend's bakery.(AMD owns GF by 34.2%)
 
708 Mhz will be 33 Mhz over the reference, anyway, good news and good article. I'll wait for the powerful 6000 series cards which will beat both the gtx 480 and the the hd 5970 :)
 
It’s important to note that because morphological AA is a post-process effect, the resulting output can’t be captured with a regular screen capture utility
Click to expand...

*BUZZER* Wrong it's very procurable using windows print screen function or snipping tool. :)
 
I just got 2 GTX 460 768MB for $132 x 2 plus shipping from newegg why bother with 6850/70, when value/performance is huge in nVidia's favor
 
[citation][nom]plum[/nom]because toms used 708 mhz core clocksilly to compare ref gtx 460 with 6850 anyways since nvidia released it with such low clocks that can OC so easy[/citation]

Well you can OC the HD6850 and 6870 too but then it is not stock anymore so why bother.
The BIG question I have hear is this.........Why did Nvidia release the 460 with "low clock speeds" to begin with ?
I never OC my stuff simply because there are unknown issues that don't become apparent until sometime later on in the products life. So while OC your CPU and or Memory , Video Card all contributes to a small performance gain, it also shortens the Life span of the said device.
I agree that how much shorter or how much less of an issue you would have by OC is debatable, but we can all agree that operating outside the of what the product was designed for could introduce some problems , sometimes sooner rather then later.
That said OC is done allot and often today but of course usually you have to change some parameters such as Fan, or heat sink or whatever it may be.
All in all I still don't agree with Nvidia's method of selling a 460 OC and charging a premium for it, why bother when you could reach the same results or better if you put time and effort in to learning how to do it properly. Besides the OC cards offer a few frames more but you end up paying $$ for it.
So again it brings me back to square one,Nvidia is telling re-sellers that the Stock 460 ( of which MANY people have purchased ! ) is obsolete and that they should only sell the OC parts.....Why ?
I can understand that Nvidia wants to look more competitive compared to AMD new HD 6000 cards but saying the Stock 460 is no good kinda smacks right in the face of the buyers who already have purchased it and also kinda silly really because using that thinking then I could also say don't purchased the stock 6850/6870 , get the OC version.

This is all about marketing, otherwise there would be NO cards sold OC.
In my opinion OC cards are just another Money grab.
 
WOW! You seriously don't get it? The HD 6870 And 6850 are mid range cards. The high ends are coming out Q1 2011.

It's also important to note that the price of the 6870 is HALF the price of the 5870.
 
After reading this review and the one over at Anandtech, and after a day thinking about it, I have to say that, while the new naming convention will induce some confusion and even lead some gamers to say AMD released a worse card (but that will only last until next week, or whenever AMD launches the 6900 series), I will concede that their argumentation makes perfect sense. Not desirable, but at least they're not rebranding cards like Nvidia did.

Anyway, Nvidia is left in a very difficult position. It immediately dropped the prices on their GTX 460 1GB by an unbelivable amount. Where I live, the cards would go from € 210 to € 269, and the overclocked version is now being sold for an incredible € 169.99. Yes, it is mad!

But what they are trying to hide here is the fact that a stock 6850 is a match for the stock GTX 460 1GB at a lower price and increased power efficeincy.

And while they had to push reviewrs to use it, Nvidia won't ever release an officially overclocked GTX 460 because that card comes dangerously close to the GTX 470, sometimes even surpassing it!

What they will do is release a replacment for the GTX 470, probably next week. (And no, it does not take insider information to know this, it just makes sense). That have the CPU ready, it's the same powering the GTX 460, and in fact it's been in the wikipedia page for quite some weeks now. The fully fledged chip while having less cores, will be faster than the GTX 470 and WILL replace it (as it's much cheaper to produce), leaving Nvidia with a single behemoth, the GTX 480.

I have to agree with a reader who said these cards are like the 8800GT compared to the 8800GTX. They're good enough, more efficient, have more features and are CHEAPER.

When it was launched, the GTX 460 1GB seemed like the best card to replace my factory overclocked 8800GT, but, suddenly, it's not.

And that is quite an achievement for AMD. I spent all this time postponing a decision, but I made it now: I'm going to buy a 6850 next week!

Cheers!
 
I think both AMD and Nvidia have done a great job in the mid to high range market in the past year with the release of both the 460 gtx and the 6800 series.
Regarding the naming of the 6870 and 6850 i think the fuzz is without due cause. This naming scheme could confuse a lot of buyers who think that the 68xx cards will out perform of the 5870 and the 5850. Most of this confusion and frustration will most likely be cleared up with the launch of the 6900 series next month, when the true replacements to the 5870 and 5850 cards are released. AMD's reason for naming the cards 68xx not the 67xx name that most people wanted, is a valid one, allowing the 5700 cards to be a major part of AMD's lineup for the next 4 months or so. If AMD had named the 6870 the 6770, and the 6850 the 6750 people would probably complain that they are too expensive.
I personally would have gone with naming the more powerful of the cards the 6850 and the weaker the 6830, with no card being named 870 (the name of the flagship for the past 3 AMD gpu generations, but im sure AMD had their reasons. That way they would both give 5%-10% better performance, 5 screen Eyefinity, and generally they would cost $10-$20 less than their respective 5000 series cards (some 5830s can be bought for $180 now). The naming of the product shouldn't matter at all, its the actual product that does. AMD could have named the new cards the 95g72p8l7h1n, the g1g124fh8 for all i care and they would still be great graphics cards.
 
I do get it!, it's cheap and is a upgrade from my current card 4670, so yes i will buy one, because i'm not dumb enough to go out and spend 500.00 on a video card.
 
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