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

[payne_ksharp]

The names are tricky here but i dont think that any1 would just go and buy a 250$ card without quite a bit of research and surfing.... For the typical and aware gamer names really dont matter.. do they ???

 

[Mousemonkey]

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.

For starters they're GPU's not CPU's and the GTX460 with 384 cores might not be faster than the current GTX470 if the same base clockspeed is kept.

 

[sirkillalot]

having a 5870 i dont need the 6870 but the price is good

 

[yyk71200]

[citation][nom]sirkillalot[/nom]having a 5870 i dont need the 6870 but the price is good[/citation]
Just wait a month or so for AMD's high end models to come.

 

[brenslick]

[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]

The 6850 already has been shown to be able to get 1000mhz core, something that the 460 has yet to do, so why not overclock the 6850 too? Toms is being biased, plain and simple.

 

[jeffredo]

Weak overclocking. I would wager a GTX 460 1GB at maximum overclock would keep up with or beat an HD 6870 at maximum. This isn't the first review I've read showing that small percentage OC.

 

[dgwalker_]

Be patient, by the first of the year people will have forgotten the "controversy" about the numbering and be too busy discussing the merits of the 6950, 6970, and probably the 6990. That and likely talking about how low the price of the remaining 5000s will go.

 

[allan_karman]

The article says, "The HIS Radeon HD 6850 features an output configuration identical to the reference card: two DVI (one single-link and one dual-link), one HDMI, and two mini-DisplayPort outputs."
The HIS HD 6850 card looks to me like it has one full size DisplayPort, not two mini-DisplayPorts.

In fact, all four of the HD 6850 cards available at one famous online vendor have one full-size DisplayPort rather than two mini-DisplayPorts. Did AMD change the spec, or are all these vendors deviating from reference?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

And to be frank, I am bothered at the thought that some poor schmuck with a 5870 may very well go out and buy himself a 6870 assuming it's better. It's a fair assumption I think, and the decision to abandon the naming scheme doesn't have proper justification.

To be frank, I don't think there are any 'poor' schmucks out there with HD5870s, and holding their hand on this suddenly discovered 'new' PR issue is laughable. Especially since it deviates from the old line I thought you shared in the forum of not upgrading until you need to, and then researching, not just running out and buying a new card with a higher number, pretty much since the GF4MX & GF4Ti->FX5600 era. Once again the whole issue of a moron making a bad upgrade decision is a Google search failure IMO and it's not something that needs anymore focus than someone thinking putting a DVD in a Blu-Ray player makes that DVD equivalent to a BluRay disk.

As for it being an editorial decision, it's interesting that it falls in line with the same 'squirrel' forcus of so many other non-tech reviews... hey we're incapable of going too deep into this, let's talk about the numbering. That's why my expectation was for something more.

To me it's funny that this article focuses it's first breath on deviating from a usual, but not codified, standard, when the review itself deviates from the tradition, even recently used in the GTX465 review, of the top card in a test getting top spot in the graphs. However now as shown in the AvP, BF2, StarCraftII and DiRT2 test that's not the case where the GTX470 remains at top spot but doesn't get top marks, same with the GTX460 over it's competitors. Then in the AA tests you switch again and put the HD5850 in top spot, and then in the Overclocked section the OC'ed HD6870 is always above the GTX470, yet it's below it in the rankings and the other ones are all over the map too.

Isn't that going to confuse the poor schmucks too? Or are they supposed to look a little deeper too? [:grahamlv:3]

Then you didn't even bother to really look at the best feature for some of us the improved media playback and connection support. There wasn't even a quick comparison between old and new HD6K vs HD5K let alone between IHVs?

In the time it took to write the blurb about the numbering would it have been possible to run the HD5850 through an HQV 2.0 run also?

After reading the whole review now, I'm just disappointed that when combining yours and Chris' efforts we have so little review content with the naming scheme taking up as much or more analysis than anything else.

I wasn't 'rubbed the wrong way' , I was just hoping for more from this first review from the two of you with Chris focusing on the gaming and you focusing on the multi-media, but that didn't happen. The end result didn't seem to combine your strengths so much as rely on what appears to be two half-hearted efforts to make a whole article just like anyone else's.

 

[plum]

The 6850 already has been shown to be able to get 1000mhz core, something that the 460 has yet to do, so why not overclock the 6850 too? Toms is being biased, plain and simple.

how is toms biased? who actually buys a ref gtx 460? all the oc editions run around 220$, this is the price range it should have been aimed at and not some downclocked ref 460 with terrible fan

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph3987/33249.png

enjoy your oc headroom with load at 81c, currently newegg selling the 460 hawk at 199$ run at 60c load

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]TheGreatGrapeApe[/nom]I was just hoping for more from this first review from the two of you...[/citation]

Well, it looks like we were both hoping for more from each other, Grape.

I think you might be under the assumption that we have a shedload of extra time to sit around with our thumbs up our keester. Frankly, I've been doing nothing but running benchmarks for over a week since I was handed the hardware, I've pulled more than two all-nighters, not sleeping much the rest of the time, and Chris has been having fun with his first child born within the last couple weeks.

Despite this we are the only site I've seen so far who managed to pull morphological AA demos and numbers (other sites not bothering after being handed the morphological aa driver the day before the nda was up, that was great fun).

I'm extremely proud of this article, and I maintain that the 6800 series naming convention sucks ass IMHO. You disagree, that's certainly your prerogative. But that doesn't make you right, either.

And if we wasted too much time bitching about the name in a couple paragraphs, then I can't help but notice you've easily more than doubled that with your lengthy complaints on the subject.

 

[cleeve]

The 6850 already has been shown to be able to get 1000mhz core, something that the 460 has yet to do, so why not overclock the 6850 too? Toms is being biased, plain and simple.

Hmmmmm. You do realize we *did* overclock both the 6850 and 6870, right sport?

You might be better equipped to make complaints if you read the article first...

 

[brenslick]

[citation][nom]cleeve[/nom]Well, it looks like we were both hoping for more from each other, Grape.I think you might be under the assumption that we have a shedload of extra time to sit around with our thumbs up our keester. Frankly, I've been doing nothing but running benchmarks for over a week since I was handed the hardware, I've pulled more than two all-nighters, not sleeping much the rest of the time, and Chris has been having fun with his first child born within the last couple weeks.Despite this we are the only site I've seen so far who managed to pull morphological AA demos and numbers (other sites not bothering after being handed the morphological aa driver the day before the nda was up, that was great fun).I'm extremely proud of this article, and I maintain that the 6800 series naming convention sucks ass IMHO. You disagree, that's certainly your prerogative. But that doesn't make you right, either. And if we wasted too much time bitching about the name in a couple paragraphs, then I can't help but notice you've easily more than doubled that with your lengthy complaints on the subject.[/citation]

I have long used toms as a reliable review site, but when i see something that is so out of the ordinary that there is no explanation for it i call it out.

http://i52.tinypic.com/297tdx.png

I believe that those temps are not as bad as toms puts them, and that same site consistently has the 6850 10% faster than the 460, while toms is the exact opposite.

 

[brenslick]

[citation][nom]brenslick[/nom]I have long used toms as a reliable review site, but when i see something that is so out of the ordinary that there is no explanation for it i call it out.http://i52.tinypic.com/297tdx.pngI believe that those temps are not as bad as toms puts them, and that same site consistently has the 6850 10% faster than the 460, while toms is the exact opposite.[/citation]

"(all clock rates have been set to reference specifications for the purpose of benchmarking)"

So, you overclocked both huh? thats not what it looks like to me. It looks like to me you took a factory overclocked card and put it against a stock 6850 and then called both cards reference.....suspicious? i say so...

 

[rohitbaran]

[citation][nom]mastadisasta_31[/nom]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[/citation]
Well sir nVidia did give a good price on their GTX 460 at its time of launch. If it had been launched at higher prices, AMD wouldn't have even bothered to launch this new series so early. They could have waited for November or December to clear out their 5XXX series stock first.

 

[Guest]

I don't get what's with people having issues with the product naming.
Shouldn't it be about what category the product model is in and it's Price vs Performance against comparable products?
HD6000 series still gonna have 2 cards that is in the High performance category, just that 6870 is no long in the category it used to be and it's price like nearly 150 bucks cheaper then the 5870 release price.
Why are people are still comparing 6870 with 5870 and 470?
Didn't they mention this??
[ Barts is designed to fill the $150 to $250 range, far below today’s Radeon HD 5870. This is more like Radeon HD 5830 and 5850 territory. The high-end Radeon HD 5870 and 5970 will be replaced by the “Cayman” and “Antilles” Radeon HD 6900-series before the end of Q4 2010. ]

 

[IzzyCraft]

You never disappoint, sir.

Truly, I can always trust you to spin anything and everything into an AMD-hating article, scrum. No matter how positive for AMD it might be, you can rustle up a conspiracy. 😀

I should give scrum a present
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12388&Itemid=47
Doesn't effect tom's but i'm sure he can spend his time enjoying it.

 

[cinergy]

[citation][nom]jeffredo[/nom]Weak overclocking. I would wager a GTX 460 1GB at maximum overclock would keep up with or beat an HD 6870 at maximum. This isn't the first review I've read showing that small percentage OC.[/citation]

You do realize that they are using reference card from AMD to compare one of the highest overclocking nvidia card there is in the market. Comparison is not exactly fair. Check e.g. Kitgurus Sapphire HD6850 which has a custom cooler and you see it overclocks as good as GTX460.

 

[renixis_infinity]

Nice to see some new GPUs from AMD crunching out some performance although the GPU names really are misleading. So that means there's a possible chance of AMD having "HD6890" replacing HD5870?

Also nice to see some new technologies for the new AMD graphics cards

 

[SininStyle]

Thanks for the all nighters. Grats on the new born !

Dont know why people insist on complaining.

 

[SininStyle]

Thanks for the all nighters. Grats on the new born !

Dont know why people insist on complaining.

 

[edilee]

They needed to add the GTX 480 and ATI top dog to this test for reference as to where these price performance cards stack up and so you can see actually what you are getting for your $$. I know they have tests in the past with them compared but it is still nice to see the full scale.

 

[reprotected]

If you go to Tweaktown, you see a much more fair game of AMD vs Nvidia. This review only shows Aliens vs Predator for multi-GPU configuration when they should review other games as well. Plus, the GTS 450 in SLI is probably the best bang for your buck.

 

[SininStyle]

[citation][nom]reprotected[/nom]If you go to Tweaktown, you see a much more fair game of AMD vs Nvidia. This review only shows Aliens vs Predator for multi-GPU configuration when they should review other games as well. Plus, the GTS 450 in SLI is probably the best bang for your buck.[/citation]

"Word has quickly started to get around regarding the AMD Radeon HD 6850 carrying with it 1120 Shaders. This afternoon when I was testing for my HD 6850 OC article, I noticed that in GPU-Z my HD 6850 was listed as 1120 Shaders. When I realized I double checked the video card to see if it was actually the HD 6850 and it was. "

 

[arunloveshacking]

Dont you get it?

From next gen , 1. the Higher end is going to be x900 series.
2. The mainstream is going to be x800 series
3. The Higher midrange going to be x700 series
4. the lower parts, as usual x600, etc....

This is the strategy for AMD.... Look at Cayman, its going to be 6900 and better than Barts...

And southern Islands, will be 7900,7800 and 7700....

I believe its an excellent move, as they prove they can provide a card which will suite in between 5870 and 5770....