AMD 6900 reviews thread (UPDATED)

[Nemesis 1]

I didn't think ppl with 1 eye could see any type of stereoscopic 3D?

I said legeally blind. I can see colors but everthing runs together. Ya I seen 13 ghost years ago . Everyone else (KIDs) oued and awed . I seen nothing . So I assumed I couldn't see 3D . I found out last week thats not true . Now I may have missed some effects but I seen enough to like it alot. Problem is I have 4 26in monitors that won't do 3D . Ding dang it.

 

[Janooo]

The power of 2GB vs 1.5GB?

Yes, good choice on AMD part.

 

[Janooo]

Cayman is in the same situation as Fermi was in regards to driver development.
V5 -> V4 changes and off die buffering for tessellation; we'll see driver improvements for sure.

 

[n7]

Kudos to ABT for benching a SELECTION of games that i actually play, & not just the same old 5-10 newer titles every single site does.

So tired of how most reviews use the exact same games, no diversity, no classic games.


Also, kinda disappointed in these new cards as they really aren't much of a boost from my HD5870.
The GTX580 is really quite the beast, but the pricing on it i do not like.

Unfortunately i don't see these really bringing down its price much either, which is really too bad.

 

[Zargon]

i wish more places would bench in eyefinity/surround

 

[Wreckage]

i wish more places would bench in eyefinity/surround

I'm sure they will. They have to give you some reason to read next week, next month, etc. I wonder if there will be factory overclocked cards?

 

[Kuzi]

Really? Compared to your 5850 at 5870 clocks, you'll only have a ~30% improvement:

"Then there's the card that the Radeon HD 6970 is effectively replacing, the HD 5870. Based on our 1920x1200 benchmark data across 14 games the Radeon HD 6970 was on average 24% faster" - http://www.techspot.com/review/348-amd-radeon-6970/page14.html

You'd get much more from a crossfire setup, and that's what I'm considering. With the HD5850 now going for $180, I really don't see how a $370 HD6970 makes much sense. There's no way you'll come out ahead money-wise or performance-wise.

I actually lowered my OC to 775MHz/1150MHz for everyday usage, so a 6970 would be around 35% faster, while being more future proof because of the 2GB video memory. I agree that buying a second 5850 for crossfire would be a better upgrade path, but I really never liked CF/SLI/Dual-GPU setups and I have a buyer for my card so it's all good. Thanks for the suggestion though.

This brings me to my next point - I think it's kind of shame that jumps in generations now only net us 25% performance. Even the 4870 to 5870 was better than that, although far short of the 100% improvement that the specs would have suggested. The 5870 at its original $380 MSRP was a game-changer, no doubt. The 6970 is not, at the same price.

Well wasn't the GTX480 selling for +$500 only a few weeks ago? And now we get similar performance for $370, what is so bad about that?

Also getting a 30-40% performance jump on a yearly basis is pretty good, software developers need time to catch up too you know. Why do we need a doubling in performance from generation to the next when all we get on the PC (for the most part) are console ports?

 

[Zargon]

yeah one place did a eyefinity l4d2 bench but thats it, no bc2 which works great in eyefinity

i mean, i game in 1920x1200, I dont NEED anything more than a 6950 unless I'm doing multimonitor gaming

 

[ak317]

Anyone noticed that there is wearing at the leftmost bottom power pin in every sample?

 

[happy medium]

So who won...

Well.................I'd say the gtx570 for less money? Or for pure performance the gtx580. AMD drivers used for this were the latest huge 10.12 rc2's.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...899-amd-radeon-hd-6970-hd-6950-review-28.html

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Of course, the delta between the HD 6xx0 series and the HD 5000 series will grow wider as AMD improves on their drivers. i believe i noted several occasions where it appeared that drivers are holding back the 69x0s.

There is less of a HW bottleneck with HD 6900 than HD 6800 and the 5000 series is getting a bit outdated for DX11 games.

As to HAWX 2, *all* of the Radeons got a solid boost over the previous drivers. However, i need to take a closer look at the DX11 shadows. i think there will be further rebalancing and more significant improvement for 69x0 series.

Yeah, what you say makes sense and lines up according to the details of the changes AMD made.

Also it's surprising how fast these things fly in Crossfire. I wasn't expecting them to be this good.

I've compiled a list, which can be used to compare several things:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc...XRRaEp3YV9GQVV2a251T1E&hl=en&authkey=COCVz9EL

Concerning Crossfire, the 6900 series about 85% boost on average. The GTX 500 series sees about a 70% boost, for comparison, and the 5870 sees an average 72% boost.

The 6950 is basically 90% the performance of the 6970. This seems like it would be a good card to overclock, as you only need to get 11% more performance to match the 6970.

The 6970 and 570 are tied, on average. Although there are a couple of games, tested over again, which show a big lead for the 570 and help it match the 6970. One of these games is Hawx 2. Another is Battleforge, which most reviews show the 5870 matching or beating the 6970. So I suspect driver updates will push the 6970 towards the GTX 580. But as of now, it's a toss up and the 6970 battles back and forth with the 570. AMD still has the same advantages over the Nvidia as it did with the 5870 vs 400 series, but they have made their DX11 performance more competitive.

The 6970 is, as of now, about 31% faster than the 6870 on average. But in quite a few DX11 games it is up to 80% faster. The 5870 fairs better than the 6870, but there are a tests showcasing the 6970 being about twice as fast in a DX11 titles.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Well.................I'd say the gtx570 for less money?

Or the HD6950 for less money? Or the ___________ for ____________. The pissing match is annoying.

 

[thilanliyan]

Well.................I'd say the gtx570 for less money? Or for pure performance the gtx580. AMD drivers used for this were the latest huge 10.12 rc2's.

You quote ONE review and say the GTX570 and GTX580 won? How about the other reviews that show a 6970 close to a 580 and a 6950 close to a 570? In that case the 6970 and 6950 win because they are close to the competition and cheaper.

In case anyone takes offense to the above, my point is that you should look at many reviews, including which games you play and then decide which card to get...not just one or two reviews.

 

[Termie]

I've compiled a list, which can be used to compare several things:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc...XRRaEp3YV9GQVV2a251T1E&hl=en&authkey=COCVz9EL

Wow - this is very helpful. Thank you!

 

[nitromullet]

And Nvidia also has room for improvement with their drivers; possibly less than AMD, but the performance delta will not change that much

I would think the evidence points to more room for improvement for NV actually.

Consider the fact that the GTX 580 is a faster card pretty much across the board but Xfire'ed 6970s can beat GTX 580 SLI. The raw GTX 580 performance is there, but the SLI scaling is not. Given that multi-gpu performance is heavily driver dependent, I imagine NV can close this gap with drivers. Actually, If NV plans to launch a dual GF110 card to compete with the 6990 their SLI scaling will have to improve.

 

[woolfe9999]

Meh, totally unimpressed with all the $300+ video cards in terms of price/performance versus the mid range right now. While high end always has less price/performance, the disparity here seem larger than usual. The 5870, 5850, 470, 460, 6870 and 6850 all look like pretty viable options right now compared to any of the high end stuff.

 

[happy medium]

You quote ONE review and say the GTX570 and GTX580 won? How about the other reviews that show a 6970 close to a 580 and a 6950 close to a 570? In that case the 6970 and 6950 win because they are close to the competition and cheaper.

In case anyone takes offense to the above, my point is that you should look at many reviews, including which games you play and then decide which card to get...not just one or two reviews.

I thought WON meant the fastest?
I guess it depends on how you look at it.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I would think the evidence points to more room for improvement for NV actually.

Consider the fact that the GTX 580 is a faster card pretty much across the board but Xfire'ed 6970s can beat GTX 580 SLI. The raw GTX 580 performance is there, but the SLI scaling is not. Given that multi-gpu performance is heavily driver dependent, I imagine NV can close this gap with drivers. Actually, If NV plans to launch a dual GF110 card to compete with the 6990 their SLI scaling will have to improve.

But I think on single gpu perspective AMD possibly has a larger improvement potential - look at those games where the 6950/6970 barely beat the 5870.

 

[tincart]

I thought WON meant the fastest?
I guess it depends on how you look at it.

It matters how we look at it in the following way: Most of us don't look at it as a contest.

The winners with any product release are gamers, not companies or graphics chips.

 

[thilanliyan]

I thought WON meant the fastest?
I guess it depends on how you look at it.

Then why did you mention the GTX570?

 

[Teizo]

You quote ONE review and say the GTX570 and GTX580 won? How about the other reviews that show a 6970 close to a 580 and a 6950 close to a 570? In that case the 6970 and 6950 win because they are close to the competition and cheaper.

In case anyone takes offense to the above, my point is that you should look at many reviews, including which games you play and then decide which card to get...not just one or two reviews.

That review shows results typical to all reviews, and that is that @ 25x16, for that very small market segment, the 6970 is the way to go. But, for the vast majority of people, unless they just want an AMD card, the 570 is the better solution price/performance, and espcially the 570 OC which is the same price, but further exceeds it performance wise. Taking in less overall wattage under load is good, but NV no longer has the noise/heat issue to go along with it, so the power usage scenario is not as important because no one is going to save money or save the planet over the amount of wattage used. AMD has good pricing on their 6950, but the 6970 is skirting it close. And they don't really have much room for the supposed price increase. They need to keep them where they are.

Then why did you mention the GTX570?

The 570 OC, which is a legitimate card whether people like to compare factory OC'd cards or not, is the same price of the 6970, but faster. That is a fact hard to ignore.

 

[WelshBloke]

The 570 OC, which is a legitimate card whether people like to compare factory OC'd cards or not, is the same price of the 6970, but faster. That is a fact hard to ignore.

He was commenting on Happys metric about only the fastest card being the 'winner'.

 

[Teizo]

He was commenting on Happys metric about only the fastest card being the 'winner'.

Well that is still the 5970 for the time being

 

[MentalIlness]

To me the winner is the highest performance at a given price. And right now, I "myself" say that it is AMD.

GTX580 is irrelevant "although being the fastest card" because of the price. But still, the GTX580 is only the fastest card if you forget the 5970 exists.

For the price of a GTX580....you can also get 6870 Crossfire. Which will smack it around.

And anyway, who says the "winner" has to have higher maximum fps ? In my opinion, the winner has minimum fps. And at these prices, it is not Nvidia.

Ive been reading reviews for the last 7 hours. And games "I" play the AMD cards are simply better.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

And anyway, who says the "winner" has to have higher maximum fps ? In my opinion, the winner has minimum fps. And at these prices, it is not Nvidia.

Chuckle, chuckle. That's probably not what you really meant, but I'm sure setting Powertune to -20% will ensure you have as minimal fps as possible. Along with minimal heat and noise too, so there are benefits!