AMD 6900 reviews thread (UPDATED)

[praktik]

I disagree. If you are gaming at 1920x1080 why do you need to spend $500 on a GTX580? Unless you make so much $$ that you simply don't care, then buying the fastest videocard doesn't make any sense.

I dunno man I think it makes sense! I like the AA on at that res and the 580 is clearly leading with AA on at that res.

I was on AMD for many years, the 9800Pro was the successor to my Voodoo 5 5500 and this is first Nvidia card I'll ever own.

I got tired of waiting, had money set aside to reward myself for a promotion this summer - and sitting there with money in the bank waiting for this shoe to drop was painful.

At the end of the day I wanted single card after bad experiences with crossfire, I wanted great 19x12 performance, and maybe just to see if the grass was greener on the other side..

This one 'll last me a while but I must say I'm very happy with the state of competition and if I wasn't sitting prettier this year the 6950 or 6970 would have been it for sure.

 

[Arkadrel]

I still think the 6970 and 50's are abit disappointing...

I really hope its just the 4D shaders codeing thats messed up, and once drivers improve performance goes up like 10% accross the board or so.

6970 just barely faster than the 570... seems almost wasted all that R&D for a new arch and the size increase only to get there performance wise..... maybe it ll be better for the 7xxx cards time.

A slightly bigger chip on same arch as the 5870 would have been enough... still maybe what they discovered designing the 69xxs will pay off on the 7xxx and up cards.

 

[bryanW1995]

<snip>
Whoever is buying the 580 - Thank you on behalf of all of us for funding NV's R&D.

naw, it's the professional users who are funding the r & d, not the tiny % that buy high end consumer cards.

 

[MentalIlness]

My point was to show that there is no real difference between the gtx580 and 6970 at ultra high res. 2500x1600.
Thanks for reinforcing that.

Not by posting this you didn't. Nice try though.

The 6970 has trouble beating the cheaper gtx570 in 5 out of ten games. In fact the gtx570 wins in 5 out of 10.
THE gtx580 wins 9 out of 10

Settled?

You believe there is no real difference, when you post that the 570 wins 5 out of 10 tests ? And the 580 wins 9 out of 10 ? But there is NO real difference ?

LOL yea ok. I don't believe that and I hope you dont expect others to either.

What I think you did was, after you seen my post...you couldnt retract what you said, you your "trying" spin it around on me.

You fail at spin.

 

[bryanW1995]

AMD knows they are going to improve drivers:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1503834&postcount=6632

Vec5 -> Vec4 is a big change as well. Drivers will improve the performance.

I didn't say that they wouldn't improve drivers, I said that I didn't think that they would improve very much MORE than nvidia would improve over the same time period. I think that 3-4 % more improvement due to the brand new vliw4 vs 8 month old fermi is probably a reasonable estimation, but 8-10% relative improvement is, based upon past history, extraordinarily optimistic.

 

[happy medium]

Not by posting this you didn't. Nice try though.

The 6970 has trouble beating the cheaper gtx570 in 5 out of ten games. In fact the gtx570 wins in 5 out of 10.
THE gtx580 wins 9 out of 10

Settled?

LOL yea ok. I don't believe that and I hope you dont expect me or others to as well.

ANd?

We came to the same conclusion right? There is no advantage, some sites say part A is faster and some sites say part B is faster.

But some were saying (mabe not you) that the 6970 is faster then the gtx580and, I countered that.
No biggy.

 

[MentalIlness]

ANd?

We came to the same conclusion right? There is no advantage, some sites say part A is faster and some sites say part B is faster.

But some were saying (mabe not you) that the 6970 is faster then the gtx580and, I countered that.
No biggy.

No. I say some sites part A is faster and some sites part B is faster. As per my images. You said part A is faster. Based on "one" review.

 

[happy medium]

You said part A is faster. Based on "one" review.

The first web site I trust is Anandtech thats why I'm a loyal follower. I check there first and believe (most of the time) what I read. Harware Canucks came to the same conclusion with the latest 10.12 drivers.
If other sites say different ,so be it.

 

[notty22]

I disagree. If you are gaming at 1920x1080 why do you need to spend $500 on a GTX580? Unless you make so much $$ that you simply don't care, then buying the fastest videocard doesn't make any sense.

I grabbed a GTX470 for $200 over a GTX480 for $450. Now I have $250 in "savings" that I can put towards HD7000 or Kepler next year, for example. The difference between a 470 and a 480 is about 30% which isn't that breathtaking imo. However, I bet a $300 Kepler/HD7950 card will be 70%+ faster than my 470.

Similarly, I picked a $175 HD4890 over a $350 GTX285 and now would pick a GTX570/HD6970 over a $500 GTX580 in a heartbeat. Not everyone is willing to pay $100-200 more for another 20% performance increase when in 15 months or so that $100-200 in "savings" will buy you at least another 50% performance increase.

HD6970 vs. GTX580 is HD4890 vs. GTX285 all over again. Sure GTX285 was faster, but no one cares anymore since we have upgraded from those generations a long time ago (but some of us did come away with $175 savings in our pocket). It's not even that....even if I had the $$, it's the principal - I hate the idea of funding 50%+ profit margins on $500 videocards and throwing $$ for the sake of higher AA quality alone. If anything HD6970 is even closer in performance to the 580 at highest resolution than the 4890 was to the 285 due to the card featuring 2GB of Ram, and AMD historically being more efficient at 8AA.

Even the most hardcore NV fan would have to think twice when cross-shopping an 800mhz GTX570 for $370 and a $500 GTX580....
At 2560x1600 4AA/8AA, GTX580 is at best 12% faster and at worst about 2% faster than the HD6970 on average, while being 35% more expensive. :whiste:

Whoever is buying the 580 - Thank you on behalf of all of us for funding NV's R&D.

I can understand why some make the decision and splurge and get the VERY best. No one can do that all the time, and every aspect of our lives need to be a little balanced. But woman sometimes buy 300-500 dollar pocket books, I've gotten that 80 dollar bottle of champagne for new years eve etc. Someday, I wouldn't mind owning 'the best'

The fellow posting from that o/c UK storefront mentions the 70/50 are going to go up in price after this initial period/batch, that would be a repeat of last year. If they sell well, I guess they hedge whether they lose a sale or NOT by asking for a extra 20 dollars ?
We will see.

 

[MentalIlness]

The first web site I trust is Anandtech thats why I'm a loyal follower. I check there first and believe (most of the time) what I read. Harware Canucks came to the same conclusion with the latest 10.12 drivers.
If other sites say different ,so be it.

I am done with this argument. Since most people know what is what now anyway.

And besides, I am getting extremely dizzy.

 

[NIGELG]

I find it funny the amount of people that are upset by this release, especially when they don't even have a high-end card from last generation, never mind this new refresh. Honestly, it literally seems like some of you dig for things to whine or troll about.

Anyway, I read through all the reviews I could find and the 6950 and 6970 both look great. Unfortunately, this entire round from both companies didn't offer performance boosts so much as re-balancing their cards and adding features. I'll hold on to my 5850 for now, but if there comes a sale on the 6970 to bring it down to the ~$300 range I'll probably jump on it.

Yeah some very vocal posters have crappy ATi cards in their sig but waste so much time praising and gloating Nvidia's 'win'.Maybe they could expend that energy and time to make some money and upgrade their crappy rigs.....just a thought.

 

[MentalIlness]

Wouldn't that be because the 580 is based on Fermi which that arch is pushing a year old as well. And the 6970 is still based on Evergreen/Southern Island and is still from the 6 series from AMD.

Maybe we'll get alot more performance from both camps at 28nm with the NV 6 Series and the AMD 7xxx Series.

Kepler/Maxwell could be twice as fast as the GTX580. And the new "what ever it will be" from AMD could be a single GPU as fast as the 6990.

 

[happy medium]

Yeah some very vocal posters have crappy ATi cards in their sig but waste so much time praising and gloating Nvidia's 'win'.Maybe they could expend that energy and time to make some money and upgrade their crappy rigs.....just a thought.

Its allmost as bad as having no signiture,judging someone by there rig status (that might not be updated), and trolling and praising a card that was thought to win but fell short.:hmm: I agree with you 100%.

Did xbit get there review up yet?

 

[Termie]

Did xbit get there review up yet?

Xbit review: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd6970-hd6950.html

 

[MentalIlness]

Its allmost as bad as having no signiture,judging someone by there rig status (that might not be updated), and trolling and praising a card that was thought to win but fell short.:hmm: I agree with you 100%.

Did xbit get there review up yet?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd6970-hd6950.html

And why hasn't Xbit posted a review on the 580/570 ? Ive been checking everyday. Unless im overlooking it.

 

[happy medium]

Thanks guys, Xbit seems to have the same conclusion,the gtx570 and 6970 in a virtua tie with one more win for the gtx570 @1900x1080. @2500x1600 the 6970 wins about 75&#37; of the benches.
No gtx580 charts?wth?

I love xbit Labs charts and %.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/video/radeon-hd6970-hd6950/charts/24_69vs470aa_big.png

 

[MentalIlness]

Thanks guys, Xbit seems to have the same conclusion gtx570 and 6970 a virtua tie with one more win for the gtx570 @1900x1080. @2500x1600 the 6970 wins about 75% of the benches.
No gtx580 charts?wth?

I love xbit Labs charts and %.

It don't make any sense. Xbit has a single 580 review. But no review for the 570. However, they dont post the 580 results in with Cayman, but the 570 results they do. :\

 

[NIGELG]

Its allmost as bad as having no signiture,judging someone by there rig status (that might not be updated), and trolling and praising a card that was thought to win but fell short.:hmm: I agree with you 100%.

Did xbit get there review up yet?

Wow ...did that fall in your garden??...and you say your sig might not be true?having no sig is better than having a false one.I never praised these new ATi cards....I felt a smidge disappointed with them.They might make great crossfire cards but I'll hold on to my 5850 FOR NOW....take it easy,man...you take this stuff WAY too seriously.You can check Rage3D for my system specs if you're so interested.

 

[happy medium]

Wow ...did that fall in your garden??...and you say your sig might not be true?having no sig is better than having a false one.I never praised these new ATi cards....I felt a smidge disappointed with them.They might make great crossfire cards but I'll hold on to my 5850 FOR NOW....take it easy,man...you take this stuff WAY too seriously.You can check Rage3D for my system specs if you're so interested.

I was not talking about me or you , I was agreeing with you.
I dont understand the hostility.

 

[NIGELG]

I was not talking about me or you , I was agreeing with you.
I dont understand the hostility.

But you quoted me....anyhow I'm not hostile to you or anyone here.I enjoy the forums...so just chill,man:biggrin:.

 

[notty22]

The power usage of the 6970 equals or surpasses the gtx 570. I think thats going to take many people by surprise. I keep seeing the saving power mantra attached to AMD's list of pro's today.
I never consider load power a negative, unless it brings heat related stability issues. One more area where the cards are now even.

AMD introduces AMD Radeon HD 6900 series graphics

Dec 15, 2010 (TELECOMWORLDWIRE via COMTEX) -- Technology company AMD (NYSE: AMD | PowerRating) on Wednesday announced AMD Radeon HD 6900 series graphics, its most advanced enthusiast GPU.
The company said the new series of graphics cards provides gamers with an enhanced second-generation, Microsoft DirectX 11-capable architecture for high performance, advanced image quality features and PowerTune power management technology that dynamically adjusts power draw.
The new AMD Radeon HD 6970 and AMD Radeon HD 6950 graphics cards also offer flexible AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology and AMD HD3D technology for 3D entertainment.
The new series of graphics cards features dual 8th generation tessellation units, delivering up to 2.9x tessellation performance compared to ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics and offer 2GB of video memory.
In addition, enhanced anti-aliasing features include Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing (EQAA), which uses a new sampling technique to help improve visual quality, Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA), compatible with any DirectX 9, DirectX 10 or DirectX 11 application and improved anisotropic filtering.

 

[rgallant]

notty22
-"I can understand why some make the decision and splurge and get the VERY best."

er some people like to buy high end cards to play games at max. setting on cheap 24" monitors[1920x1200]
-crysis bench[1920 ] 48fps[6970] -51 fps[580] both cards fail.

 

[dust]

Wow, nearly 70% penalty hit on enabling AA in Starcraft for the avg frames, 75% for minimum frames. Pretty underwhelming part if you ask me.

It seems the 570 is a better balanced part to me, already at a better price. If Nvidia chooses to lower the price slightly for it I think it's gg for the 6970.

 

[happy medium]

I think we should see a slight/good improvement with the 10.13 drivers.
fps for the 69xx series seems eratic to me.


On a side note and off topic but wheres tweakboy? I need some comic relief.
I think the guy is just great.

 

[busydude]

I think we should see a slight/good improvement with the 10.13 drivers.

Hehe there won't be 10.13.. no 13th month .. that would be 11.01.