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

[dEAne]

I thought this one can beat up GTX 580, I guess not.

 

[hyetech]

So now the real question is what setup I'm going to go with in the $350 price range for running WoW on a 30" monitor at 2560x1600? I'm leaning towards the GTX 570 and debating getting the EVGA OC model. What do you guys think?

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]demodus[/nom]It's caiman, and it's a crocodilian.[/citation]

DING DING DING--You, sir, WIN!

 

[Anik8]

A GTX 570 has a very high overclocking pottential as much to deliver performance quite close to 580.So getting a card for $349 which may soon drop further nd then gettin such a boost is what every1 will look for unless HD 6970 can fire up the same way...

 

[mrjericho1991]

sick,ati sucks.

 

[brisingamen]

i really like the refinement of these new cards and despite what people say about amd's drivers ive had alot of issues with drivers on my gtx 580's. much more than my 4870. i cant wait for a set of 6950's.

i think toms should include more pictures of games rendering the anti aliasing modes. i prefer the look of the radeon anti aliasing vs the nvidia modes. technically i dont know what the diff is other than the basic ugly dot shots but when playing a game i know what i like. the difference between the way nvidia and amd use aa has been most evident in mass effect 2, despite the pissing contest of what is faster, these little cards have a wackload of features that i like.

 

[eltoro]

Considering a 2-card solution, one should take into account the higher complexity of these setups.
Taking a look at both AM and nvidia's release notes for each driver release, you'd see how about half of the fixes are for CF/SLI specific bugs.
So, the multi-card alternative consideration shouldn't only be based on case/motherboard space/compatibility and PSU capacity, but also about the higher complexity of such solutions.
I'd prefer to pay 10% more and get a 10% less performance of a single card, than have to deal with multi-card issues.

 

[zybch]

I think I'll be sticking with my Radeon HD 5970 for the foreseeable future.
It still wins the large majority of single-card benchmarks and has served me well since I purchased.
The new naming conventions AMD is using seem damn stupid though. Who'd have thought a 6970 is way slower than a 5970 in most situations!

 

[cangelini]

It's all in the system config and application choices. More important, though, the results I show basically confirm AMD's target, as shown on the conclusion page. I'm sure AMD's marketing department would love to hear from anyone who says the 6970 goes up against the 580

 

[youssef 2010]

the reference means hunter or prey, I guess

 

[reaversedge]

nvidia and ati....always a cat and mouse chase, and vice versa....

 

[dimar]

Great, my Radeon HD 5850 isn't going anywhere for at least a year. I'll probably be going nVidia 600 series for the next upgrade, if the new features will be worth it.

 

[pinkfloydminnesota]

[citation] My guess is that a lot of the AMD/ATI fanatics will be scrambling to salvage some dignity after all their talking up of Cayman and how it would eat Nvidia's lunch.[/citation]What on earth is wrong with you people? Do you spend time in front of Exxon gas stations with signs touting how much better Aamco gas is? Who the hell cares either way?

 

[redraider89]

You have to take into account that this is not ATI's original plan. They had to make sacrifices and alterations from what they wanted to do because of TMSC keeping them from going to 32 nm as they originally wanted to do. Just wait until the 32 nm version, or whatever the next shrinkage is. So ATI isn't the top performance leader for now. It is still a great price/performance offer. When they can do what they want to do, have all the features they wanted at first built into the next shrinkage die, then we will see. They could have had more, but it would have been a overheating, energy hog just like what Nvidia is offering, which Nvidia fans conveniently dismiss.

 

[gamerk316]

Not bad, especially when you factor in price. But not very impressive, performance wise.

 

[pinkfloydminnesota]

No GTA IV? Considering it's the game most likely to show benefits from the 2 GB memory?

 

[elbert]

AMD’s Radeon
HD 6970 shows decently here, losing out to the $350 GeForce GTX 570 at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080, but picking up steam at 2560x1600, where it’s able to narrowly slide past the GeForce GTX 570 and GTX 480.

Incorrect as only the 2X460GTX wins in only 1 benchmark. The 6970 destroys the 570 and 580 in all bad company 2 benchmarks. The only cards beating the 6970 in these is the 2X 6850's.

 

[Judguh]

I just bought a 5870 for $215 after MIB and finding a very healthy $35 instant saving promo code for newegg

 

[elbert]

[citation][nom]elbert[/nom]Incorrect as only the 2X460GTX wins in only 1 benchmark. The 6970 destroys the 570 and 580 in all bad company 2 benchmarks. The only cards beating the 6970 in these is the 2X 6850's.[/citation]
Sorry was the 5970 instead of the 6970. Need to check my eyes.

 

[brisingamen]

awesome for the price point.

 

[dalta centauri]

So Nvidia is on the top of the hill for now, that's great. Nvidia and AMD have fought to be the 'king' for a while now, slowly beating the competition until their the only ones left (Consumer sell point, I'm sure there's Companies that sell GPU's that I haven't heard of though.)
Nvidia had a time when they kept reusing the same architecture, and it brought them down; now it happens to be AMD's turn, but these are bringing the price down for the 5800+ series.
Really it's nothing surprising, I'm sure in 1-2 years AMD will come out with something that topples Nvidia's line up, and then Nvidia does the same. This is competition after all, we'll see what happens.

 

[elbert]

So basically the 6970, 6950, 580GTX, and 570GTX are all over priced for their performance. Guess the choice of 2 med level cards wins. 2X5850's, 2X460GTX's, or 2X6870's in this order are the best bang for the buck all up to and maybe beyond 2X570's price. Guess the next review will test the 2X570's and up to see if their price is worth performance gain over 2 mid range cards.

 

[youssef 2010]

[citation][nom]Article[/nom]AMD’s $369 Radeon HD 6950 looks a little more impressive as it bests the Radeon HD 5870 in all three resolutions, coming close to the $350 GeForce GTX 570 at 2560x1600.[/citation]

This is an obvious mistake since the 6970s are priced at $369.99 and the 6950s are priced at $299.99 according to newegg.Also 2 6850 can be bought for as low as $360

6950s: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000048&IsNodeId=1&Description=6950&name=Desktop%20Graphics%20%2f%20Video%20Cards

6970s: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=6970&x=0&y=0

ATI's new cards show impressive scaling(Crossfire is better than SLI at laong last)but we are, as usual, waiting for the dual-GPU board to trump the 580 before the cycle starts all over again. Man, they never run out of new ideas, do they?

BTW, this is a great launch article, thank you, toms

 

[jfem]

[citation][nom]iam2thecrowe[/nom]Dissappointed. well i guess anyone that bought a 5xxx series card that couldnt wait can now be content that they made an ok choice. The only thing i got from this review is that i want 2 x gtx460's or 2 x 6850's, not the new amd cards.[/citation]
I couldn't agree more.

 

[elbert]

[citation][nom]youssef 2010[/nom]This is an obvious mistake since the 6970s are priced at $369.99 and the 6950s are priced at $299.99 according to newegg.Also 2 6850 can be bought for as low as $3606950s: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] eo%20Cards6970s: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 70&x=0&y=0ATI's new cards show impressive scaling(Crossfire is better than SLI at laong last)but we are, as usual, waiting for the dual-GPU board to trump the 580 before the cycle starts all over again. Man, they never run out of new ideas, do they?BTW, this is a great launch article, thank you, toms[/citation]
Wow now these prices has the 69XX makes for a much better price for performance ratio. Even with these prices tho the resolutions are give the single cards the advantage. I would really like to see benchmarks on 3 monitors were 2 cards can really stretch their legs.