AMD Releasing Radeon HD 6950 1GB for $279?

[exfileme]

Although AMD hasn't released an official announcement, manufacturers are already listing Radeon HD 6950 1 GB cards.

AMD Releasing Radeon HD 6950 1GB for $279? : Read more

 

[alextheblue]

Yeah but if it gets down to the $250 mark it might be worth it. We'll see what happens.

 

[sseyler]

[citation][nom]alextheblue[/nom]Yeah but if it gets down to the $250 mark it might be worth it. We'll see what happens.[/citation]

True. The HD 5870 with a custom cooler for low $200s is the best deal right now.

 

[liquidsnake718]

this is similar to the 5850 or 5750 in preformance?

 

[aznguy0028]

[citation][nom]liquidsnake718[/nom]this is similar to the 5850 or 5750 in preformance?[/citation]
It's faster. The 6870's performance was between the 5850 and 5870.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Hmmm....I wonder how reducing the amount of memory will affect performance.

 

[4745454b]

Not much which is why the 1GB card is supposed to sell for only $20 less. Most of us are still on 1680x1050 or 1920x1080(or 1200) screens so the 1GB less of Vram means nothing to us. I'd only worry about having 2GBs of Vram if you are on an Eyefinity type setup. Then it will matter. The 5870 for low to mid $200s is a good deal, but they should be drying up.

I'm not sure I would have gone this route. I probably would have just price adjusted the 6870 unless its performance is so much behind the GTX560.

 

[sykozis]

With games using more and more vram....that 1GB card is going to suffer in the not so distant future. World of Warcraft can already use upwards of 850mb of vram according to MSI Afterburner. I would expect this to increase as graphics updates are released... 1GB of vram is quickly becoming a minimum....anything less really limits graphics detail, especially at higher resolutions (1920x1080 and higher).

 

[joelmartinez]

as said previously if this card hits 250 will have a good one, as is a 6950 2gb would be a better choice, unless gaming below 1920x1080

 

[DXRick]

Given that the 5870 2G version is $100 more than the 1G version, and the 6950 is selling for $300 on Newegg, we can extrapolate the price of the 6950 1G at around $229 (factoring the coeffecient of the price difference and multiplying that by Pi).

 

[rohitbaran]

Well, I read someplace else that it would be Radeon 6970 that would be launched with 1 GB RAM and at a price tag of $279. It seemed too good to be true. Looks like it was too good to be true.

 

[IzzyCraft]

Without the 2 gig frame buffer it will hurt some of it's redeeming qualities that allowed it to get high aa values and resolutions which bench happy sites would lead people on. (But i guess it's alright with AMD "optimizing" everything now by default why not)

 

[Scott2010au]

5 GHz x 256-bit ring bus = 1280000000000 bits per second (max)

x / 8 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 = Just over 149 GB/sec

That's still in the 125 GB/sec ballpark of previous generation cards, however the GPU enhancements may increase the efficiency of that figure and leverage it in previously unviable ways - thanks to improvements in lithography!

If they're not 256-bit wide buses (or 8 x 32 bit buses), let me know!

 

[ProDigit10]

If this is called a 'discrete card', I would like to know what is less discrete?

Also, the ram is running at 6x the cpu speed???

 

[RazberyBandit]

At $260-270, I think a 1GB version is viable, as it would be right between the 6870 (1GB & $230) and 6950 2GB ($299). At $280, I have to agree with you, Kevin - the 6950 2GB becomes very attractive at only $20 more.

 

[bystander]

I can tell a difference between 1GB and 2GB on a couple occasions at 1920x1200. The most noticeable is in Dirt2 in the LA stadium. They have so much in the stadium, without 2gb, the frames get crushed in the inner stadium area. I've noticed a couple other areas that were really choppy in Dragon Age Origin expansion, in one of the later dungeons which went away with more vram.

But for the most part, people won't notice a difference.

 

[martel80]

[citation][nom]ProDigit10[/nom]the ram is running at 6x the cpu speed???[/citation]No, it is not. DDR means two transfers per clock cycle. DDR 5 means that the RAM is clocked at 1/5 the speed but gets written to 5 memory cells at once (increasing throughput at the given clock speed but not improving latency [in ns] at all, meaning higher latency in cycles). They tend to multiply the base clock by 2 (for DDR) then by another 5 for DDR5 but its still clocked 10 times less.

 

[JOSHSKORN]

Article should read AMD Releasing Radeon HD 6970 1GB for $279?

Wasn't there a BIOS hack mentioned that would turn the 6950 into the 6970? That's where I'm going with this comment.

 

[rhino13]

I'm impressed with the 69xx cards they are very competitive.
But I'm sad that AMD has to go dual GPU to even compete at the high end

 

[g00fysmiley]

for 20 bucks nto worth it... now throw it down a 50 spot to 250 as said and its a good addition to the lineup... though i don't think it'll do eyefinity so well with 1 gig of ram

 

[forsayken]

I'm curious to see if the 1GB model features dual BIOS and can be flashed to 6970 specs. That would make the 1GB model a dealbreaker if it didn't have this - unless it was $250. The 2GB model can be flashed up to 6970 spec in less than 10 minutes. At the cost of only 2-4 degrees of heat, you get a 10-15% performance boost.

 

[wasupmike]

[citation][nom]forsayken[/nom]I'm curious to see if the 1GB model features dual BIOS and can be flashed to 6970 specs. That would make the 1GB model a dealbreaker if it didn't have this - unless it was $250. The 2GB model can be flashed up to 6970 spec in less than 10 minutes. At the cost of only 2-4 degrees of heat, you get a 10-15% performance boost.[/citation]

^ Agreed... the new 6950 1GB (has) to have the ability to 'flash' itself to a 6970, just like its 2GB counterpart, or its value will take a huge hit

The ability to be "upgraded" to a '6970' is more useful than 2GB of video RAM (unless you're on a multiple monitor setup /w extreme high resolutions)

 

[dark_lord69]

Is that supposed to be a good deal?
I just don't know cause I refuse to spend that much on a video card that will be worth less than 1/2 that in 1 year.
I bought a used 4870 for $80. Plenty of the 4870 benchmarks beat the 5770. Sure I don't have eyefinity or DirectX 11... But, I don't really need those features yet. Soon enough I'll spend another $100 and get a 58xx or 69xx card when those cards are considered old. And... $180 on two (slightly older) cards is better than $279 (or $299) on one. Today, I play any game I want without dumbing down the graphics. When frame rates start getting slow on the newest games.. That's when I upgrade. Not when next gen cards come out that have some features that I really don't need.

 

[coldmast]

Even more impressive would be losing half an inch in length

 

[Marco925]

Although consumers would save a few Hamiltons, would two extra $10 bills in your pocket be worth the performance hit due to halving the memory?

...what?