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

[Lamiel]

[citation][nom]techworm[/nom]future DX11 games will stress GPU and video RAM incrementally and it is then that 6970 will shine so it's obvious that 6970 is a better and more future proof purchase than GTX570 that will be frame buffer limited in near future games[/citation]
I wouldn't say that's obvious. I'd say it was an assumption. Very possibly a correct assumption, but hardly set in stone. And I'd be interested to know what you refer to as "near future games". Would that be within a couple of months? A year? Keep in mind, most PC gamers don't hold onto the same video card for longer than 2 years at the outside, and in many cases no longer than a year. I remember a few years ago when everyone thought dx10 would change the games that we play and the way we play them, but that didn't happen quite like we thought it would. So, though I believe that it's possible we'll see a need for a 2GB memory buffer in the "near future", I don't believe it's probable. The GTX 570's 1.25GB memory will most likely be plenty for as long as the average owner keeps it in his/her PC.

 

[wolfram23]

So they kept the status quo, then? I just don't like that they screwed up the numbering.

 

[Lamiel]

[citation][nom]pinkfloydminnesota[/nom][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?[/citation]
Exxon might care? But seriously, if you read the comment again, you'll see that it has nothing to do with Nvidia being better than AMD/ATI. It just has to do with the rabid segment of the ATI fan-base. Personally, I think AMD's great, for both CPUs and GPUs. They sort of slipped with the 6000's, but that's no biggie. I'm not going to leave Team Green for them, but I wish them the best of luck. I just get tired of the Charlie D's of the world who think Nvidia and Intel are Hitler and Sadaam. I'll concede that there are Nvidia fans who are just as bad, but for some reason they don't post nearly as much here on Tom's. So apart from downranking their comments about how ATI sucks, I don't think there's much point in addressing them. I'm far more weary of the ATI maniacs, simply because there are so many more of them...

 

[twztechman]

So now I am sitting on a 5870 (way over a year old). Looks to me like I should pick up a 2nd 5870 for cheap and be content for another year, as that will beat any of the single card solutions. I would go for the 580, but at well over $500, I don't think so.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]buzznut[/nom]Hey Chris-We are used to using FPS (and benchmarks) as a means to compare how powerful or fast a graphics card is. But I rarely hear about image quality, or how the games look or feel. You touched on that regarding the tesselation. What do you think of these less quantitative but still important qualities? Do you ever run some bluray tests, and do you use multimonitors for testing?[/citation]

As you might have heard, there have been many discussions about image quality lately. This is something I've been engaging both AMD and Nvidia on. Neither company is going to see eye-to-eye here, but we definitely need more time to dig into the time-consuming subjective measurements. Both companies have agreed, however, to collaborate with me on a piece that explores image quality in a more thorough way than we've been able to do in a launch story. I'm hoping to see that happen in January!!

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]f-14[/nom]good article Chris, pretty much everything we asked for! i'd say if you put a price tag on that great system component choice minus the video card(s)i'd have nothing left to wonder about {because i'm too lazy to jump to newegg and search it out }the 460's SLI'd makes me wish Nvidia would surprise the he..ck out of us with another continuation of 3DFX's dual gpu cards![/citation]

Thanks f-14! Keep the feedback coming and I promise I'll do whatever I can to oblige =)

 

[Marcus52]

Outstanding job Chris of reporting the minimum frame rates. These are the numbers that should be reported in video card tests - the max numbers have some meaning, but really of what importance are they beyond your display's refresh rate?

People keep saying these cards are powerful enough for anyone's needs - clearly, they are only powerful enough for the people who are happy with frame rates that dip to single digits on occasion. That's not me, and I wish more people would speak up and tell Nvidia and AMD they aren't happy with those conditions.

 

[Guest]

All of that manuevering on the naming sequence, and such a let down....! AMD has "usually" been very good at marketing as an underdog must be. This time AMD Marketing earns an "epic fail". I hope Bulldozer doesn't turn into "Lawnmower".

 

[LORD_ORION]

Well, as I stated a month ago, I waited, and got my 460GTX for $150 with free shipping. (it does have a $30 mail in rebate too... but that's probably a crap shoot)

Thanks AMD

 

[LORD_ORION]

[citation][nom]Drdeath777[/nom]All of that manuevering on the naming sequence, and such a let down....! AMD has "usually" been very good at marketing as an underdog must be. This time AMD Marketing earns an "epic fail". I hope Bulldozer doesn't turn into "Lawnmower".[/citation]

I dunno about that... it performs around the 58xx series, but it is probably significantly cheaper to make.

They probably have quite a bit of maneuvering room on price, but like all new product launches, why sell for dirt cheap when the first batch will sell anyways if it is reasonably priced.

I would call that an epic win for AMD marketing... they forced Nvidia's hand with the 68xx allowing them to pick the 69xx prices. Then as sales taper off, they can lower price and keep winning.

 

[-Fran-]

Übercharged review Mr. Angelini as usual, thank you very much.

I guess my 4890 will have to kiss good bye; time for dual 6950's! Hell, even dual 6870's look sweet @1920x1080 given their lower VRAM count.

Cheers!

 

[Darkv1]

I must admit that I was expecting better single card performance out of the 6970 and 6950. I expected the 6970 to at least go hit for hit with the GTX 580. I will say that I about s*** myself when I saw the crossfire scaling results though. A 70-105% performance increase sounds more like SLI numbers than crossfire ones. Needless to say though I look forward to seeing what AMD continues to do with crossfire scaling.

 

[lradunovic77]

Add crappy drivers on top of it...thanks no!

 

[jdwii]

OK review i would like to see some directX 9/10 games...but overall good. if you can look at these charts and try to defend these cards (6950,6970) then you can defend anything...this is a huge disappoint to me amd just cant seem to stay number 1..darn but they did improve on bang for buck my amd 6850 is fast for 180$

 

[spentshells]

I am quite underwelmed especialy after the 6850 and 70
sounds to me like if some 6870's came out with 1.5 GB ram
there would be much point in anithing else. That 5890 is still top dog I am
suprised.

 

[pinkfloydminnesota]

What about eyefinity/3d benches? I think that we are beginning to see performance that is so high that it's beyond what most people would need for all but a few games (new dx11 games, Crysis etc.).

So far as AMD Nvidia fanatics trying to grab bragging rights: there is no winner's here, as the new generation of GPU's has been delayed by the decision to forgo 32 nm processing altogether by their supplier in order to gear up for 28 nm.

Whatever the shortcomings of either side (price/power drain vs. raw single GPU power), we are not seeing any dominance by either side.

Each is able to supply competitive products at a variety of price points.

 

[pinkfloydminnesota]

Also it'd be helpful to see what the difference in power draw means over the course of a year of gaming. Is the $20 extra for the 6970 vs. the 570 paid for in energy savings?

 

[stiehl]

[citation][nom]lradunovic77[/nom]Add crappy drivers on top of it...thanks no![/citation]

So thats why SLI is better than crossfire....oh wait.....thats not true anymore. So it seems the tables have turned. If someone said a few years ago that Crossfire will be better than SLI, I would have called them crazy. But here we are...

 

[stiehl]

[citation][nom]jdwii[/nom]amd just cant seem to stay number 1..[/citation]

for some reason I keep on seeing this card named "5970" thats been at the top of the charts for over a year....is it just me or am I going crazy?

 

[pinkfloydminnesota]

[citation][nom]Lamiel[/nom]I'm far more weary of the ATI maniacs, simply because there are so many more of them...[/citation]
Republicans, I'm wearing of. Brand maniacs? People who buy and wear labels contribute greatly to economic growth which brings with it the creation of jobs which wouldn't exist without them. Love them, don't hate them.

 

[ioa94]

Well, you have to admit, certain titles were NVIDIA-optimised. There's no denying that NVIDIA GPUs will run them better. It's not really a fair comparison anymore.

 

[Userremoved]

Well this is the end of the big ATi logo on top of the charts. Oh well. It was a nice run.

 

[FloKid]

Yeah gj ATI, I think that will be my next system upgrade. They are very nice company aren't they? I had an AMD once and it was great and cheap, the comp is still working lol. But I wanted to try out Intel and Nvidia, cost me like 1.5K, worthless peice of junk...

 

[i_am_aronman]

This is exactly what i was expecting after ATI released the 6800 series. I think if ATI can improve their drivers and price the 6990 to compete with the 580 then Nvidia will have competition. Then we just expect some price drops and everyone is a winner, not to mention the mobile gameing applications the 6xxx series provides. i expect i will grab a 570 for my desktop and wait to see the mobile options are for the 6xxx for me to pick up for my girlfriend to play whatever sims is out then.

 

[rmerwede]

the upside, is that I feel pretty good having purchased my 5850 last year ans its still relevant. Kinda hard to not be a bit disappointed though. A year later, semi-new technology, and no real significant increase over the previous generation? Never mind Nvidia, they are doing what they can to gain back some market share. They came up a bit short on the 400 series but kudos with the 500's. They pushed hard and they created a superior product a step ahead of the competition. . I really hope the next generation AMD's are a bit more impressive when compared with the 6000 series. I can't help but ask: Whet the hell they been doing all year?