Radeon HD 6970 And 6950 Review: Is Cayman A Gator Or A Crock?

[blackwater11]

Funny, I just swapped out my old 285 GTX for a new HD6870 and fired up Counter Strike.

Steady vsync with the 285 60fps np
25-31 fps from the HD6870

2560 X 1600 resolution.. WTF you would think that ATI would have made a card capable of CS:S on a big monitor by now.

 

[Guest]

What I find realy strange and I have seen it happen before on timed fps runs is the data on furmark in this test
http://forums.legitreviews.com/about31256.html
It would seem on average that the 6970 has a far better average fps than the 580 but because the 580 spikes above to gain the highest fps it gets the crown. I realy think tests need to steer away from highest fps because they can be missleading on the overall performance of a card.

 

[cobra5000]

The good news is, looks like my 5870 will hold me out till the 7k series.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I like what is said about the drivers. I'll be interested to see what effect the upcoming Crossfire speed-bump will have on my 2 XFX Radeon HD 4870s.

 

[pandemonium_ctp]

I guess AMD really went after efficiency of scaling and power consumption with their chipsets as opposed to raw power with this set.

I'm absolutely baffled by how well the 69xx scales in Crossfire. To see 205% performance in Battlefield company from the 6950 is what I'd like to call theoretically implausible. That card may be my next target to get once my current 4830's no longer provide the performance I need.

We can clearly see how well the 6850 works in CF, but it wouldn't hurt to put that on the comparison tables with the rest of them as well. ^^

Thanks for the review and more diverse line-up!

 

[pandemonium_ctp]

Oh, in future benchmarking, would Tom's consider using FFXIV (either the official benchmark and/or running FPS averages/maximums)? As one of the most demanding on hardware MMORPGs (or PC games in general) on the market, it's a very viable platform to showing the prowess of any configuration.

Thanks!

 

[dalta centauri]

Oh, in future benchmarking, would Tom's consider using FFXIV (either the official benchmark and/or running FPS averages/maximums)? As one of the most demanding on hardware MMORPGs (or PC games in general) on the market, it's a very viable platform to showing the prowess of any configuration.

Thanks!

I second this, it would be nice to just have as a benchmark in the next video card line-up review.

 

[jfem]

So, is there a person who won the ten points for the title?

 

[neo_moco]

acording to techpowerup at 1920x1200 amd 6950 is equal to gtx 570 in crysis , metro , and futureproof unigine heaven benchmark , total performance difference 6950 is 9 % slower in all games , i would guess in future dx11 games the cards are equal, in bigger resolutions 6950 does even better , 6950 is 50 $ cheaper so i think overall the 6900 is a good value

 

[neo_moco]

in unigine heave 1920 x 1200 radeon 6950 40 fps 5850 22.6 fps that is huge improvement in tessalation so much better in dx11 next gen games

 

[Avro Arrow]

[citation][nom]fstrthnu[/nom]This reminds me a lot about the recent release of the updated AMD processors - a temporary holdout while the company plans to release new ones ahead. Except these graphics cards don't even have value going for them. Nvidia was behind just a couple months ago, but now they're ready to crush AMD/Radeon. AMD better have something new coming, and FAST. Holding procedures will only do so much when your competitor is already developing their next-gen GPUs.[/citation]
And the lord said "Let there be Antilles!"

 

[alexapi32]

There is a mistake @ the Dirt 2 2560x1600 Ultra settings chart regarding the 5870 1GB (should be 40.1fps)

 

[brisingamen]

can you run crossfire 6970's and then use a gtx 470 for physx?


id like to see the minim fps on that. vs lets say 3 gtx 580's and compare price vs performance.

 

[ramx]

Please check the second to last page, and the PowerTune page for more there

Chris,what i meant is a bar chart showing peak power draw & average power draw values [ like noise ] besides the power draw graph.
Mean power draw is mentioned there but i feel providing bar charts will enable the user to save it and refer it later offline.

 

[ramx]

I would still like to see Crysis shown in these benchmarks. Even though the game is already 3 years old, it still stands the test of time.

Yes,I too wanted crysis as a benchmark.
Especially the last level Reckoning at very high quality &4XAA. Its a demanding test for any GPU.That level has plenty of explosions and physics.If benchmarked, Plz provide minimum fps charts also since frame rates vary very abruptly.

 

[hannibal]

Well the situation is back to normal!
The Nvidia makes bigger super fast, power hungry sport car type GPU's and AMD smaller more efficient but not so powerfull GPU's. Actually this is good!
The Nvidia dropped the ball baddly with 4xx series (not includung the latest 460). Now we have two good chip series again! Both are good, but different.
The next bigger step will be 28nm production. Untill then AMD 5xxxx and 6xxxx series are good enough and Nvidia 5xx series (plus 460) are very competative indeed. The difference between 5xxx and 6xxx are not so big that it would make much difference.
It is interesting to see, if the Nvidia increase the prize of 580 or AMD drops the prize of 69xx? There is no big need, but Nvidias margins are most propably thinner, so It is possible that they up the prize because they now have the extreme upper end in their hands (untill 6990 appear ofcource, But 6990 is not going to be too cheap...)

 

[dsaddons]

cayman is a gator

 

[Avro Arrow]

Well the situation is back to normal!
The Nvidia makes bigger super fast, power hungry sport car type GPU's and AMD smaller more efficient but not so powerfull CPU's. Actually this is good!
The Nvidia dropped the ball baddly with 4xx series (not includung the latest 460). Now we have two good chip series again! Both are good, but different.
The next bigger step is 28nm production. Untill then AMD 5xxxx and 6xxxx series are good enough and Nvidia 5xx series (plus 460) are very competative indeed. The difference between 5xxx and 6xxx are not so big that it would make much difference.
It is interesting to see, if the Nvidia increase the prize of 580 or AMD drops the prize of 69xx? There is no big need, but Nvidias margins are most propably thinner, so It is possible that they up the prize because they now have the extreme upper end in their hands (untill 6990 appear ofcource, But 6990 is not going to be too cheap...)

Sorry to burst your bubble but the GTX 580 did not succeed in knocking the HD 5970 off its perch. The ATi Radeon HD 5970 is still the king of the hill.

 

[socratesx]

It is just now the time that nVidia takes the lead. After a while AMD will be back again with the fastest card and then nvidia will launch a super GC and the story just goes on... This happens all the time.

 

[night009]

so this new card is garbage huh lol

 

[grinderifz]

why oh why dont they use two 6870's in these performance tests ?

They are much better performers and cost only a little bit more than the run of the mill 6850's

This would make much better compertition than what is shown here !

I also agree with using two 460 gtx's

 

[HappyBB]

I am an Radeon user and will remain so for quite some time until there's an absolute compelling reason for me to switch side.

 

[timobkg]

I'd really like to see Eyefinity / NV Surround resolutions in the SLI / Crossfire comparisons. Those are the resolutions that really require dual video cards, and us multi-monitor gamers are the ones likely to drop $600 on graphics cards.

 

[mojo123]

what GTX 460 did they use? the GTX 460 SE (which has 1GB but has 288 cube cores) or the GTX 460 1GB (with 336 cube cores)?

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]mojo123[/nom]what GTX 460 did they use? the GTX 460 SE (which has 1GB but has 288 cube cores) or the GTX 460 1GB (with 336 cube cores)?[/citation]

The actual GTX 460 with 336 CUDA cores. A 460 SE would be listed as an SE