AMD 6900 reviews thread (UPDATED)

[RussianSensation]

RussianSensation should get very pleased with AMD fixing their DX11 performance (asides from Lost Planet 2 that is an outlier).

They are getting there with dual graphics engines :thumbsup: (although NV still has an advantage in tessellation at higher LODs). I am impressed by $299 / $369 price points, which brings more competition into the marketplace. It now costs about $70 more to get an HD6950 overthe HD6870 (something I could definitely recommend). Personally, I think GTX580 is priced way too high relative to the GTX570/6970, especially if a person intends to play at 2560x1600 where AMD does exceptionally well from a price/performance perspective. Of course you always pay a premium for the best performance.

25x16 8xAA
570 = 0.92
6950 = 1.00
6970 = 1.13 ($140 less than the 580!)
580 = 1.16

"With 2GB of RAM our AMD cards finally break out of the minimum framerate crash Crysis experiences with 1GB AMD cards." - AT
What a great card move by AMD.

At this point if I was aiming at the 580, I would strongly consider adding $100 and grabbing the HD6950 CF setup. Did you see HD6950 CF vs. GTX580 at 2560x1600 on AT?

It's becoming very difficult to recommend a videocard this round. I still think for 1920x1200 or below, the HD5870 for $260 is a killer deal. With 2GBs of ram onboard, HD6950 overclocked at $299 is also very sweet.

Wow fail. I was just waiting to be one of the first people to buy a 6970. I'll pass. Hard to believe that AMD didn't go for a bigger die and basically pissed away the last year and a bit to launch such a marginal improvement over old tech.

Both the 6970 and GTX580 are "refresh" generations imo from a performance perspective (although the 6900 series is a brand new architecture). Expect to see major performance increases from both sides on 28nm. Of course if you already have a GTX470/480/5870 or an overclocked 5850, then you are probably better off waiting until 28nm. We have seen similar situations in the past with 9700Pro --> 9800XT or X1800XT --> X1900XT, or 7800GTX --> 7950GTX. More or less both companies were limited by 40nm. No worries though, Crysis 2 has not arrived yet -- the real punishment awaits in 2011. Save your pennies! :biggrin:

 

[CosmicMight]

Aren't most 24 inch monitors 19x12? If so, I'd go with the 570 OC. If you get a larger monitor with 25x16 then the 6970 would be better. I suppose you could go 6970 straight away and then upgrade your monitor later, but by the time you do that the 28nm's are going to be out and the performance @ 25x16 is going to be more ideal and you are likely going to want to upgrade again anyway.

Myself, I don't really see much need for higher than 19x10, but that is mainly because the pricing of the 25x16 monitors is too high imho for what they bring since 4xAA at 19x10, and especially 8xAA, completely removes all jaggies and delivers a really good blend of IQ and performance.

This. Four years and my 2407WFP is still rocking. Building a new rig, but I don't see myself upgrading this thing any time soon unless I come across a substantial amount of money. I do wish I had paid the extra $500 four years ago tho....

 

[Nemesis 1]

Which would be what ? Extremely high settings ? And that isn't good ?

Wouldn't that mean, that a person could keep a 6970 "longer" than a 580? If they went to a bigger monitor, they wouldnt need to upgrade the card. Including Eyefinity.

It seems to me, the higher the resolution, the better they do. Unless I'm tired and don't know what I'm talking about.

I have seen a lot of posts about waiting for the [H] review. And now, they are using "picked AMD settings that run best for AMD only" ?

Relax don't feed into it . Its only hardware. In less than 30 days we get another batch of reviews with the SB release . That will be interesting . You'll see. What will be interesting is the sli/XF benchies . We will see if there cpu bound , Trust me everthing is good.

 

[MentalIlness]

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=605&Itemid=72&limit=1&limitstart=2

 

[Nemesis 1]

At 25x16 with generous amounts of AA, 6950/6970 performance for its price is quite amazing, but below that, it's not great when compared to the 570 (but it's not bad).

The trend is similar to what we saw in 480 vs 5870, where the 480's large advantages at 19x12 shrunk considerably at 25x16.

The interesting question is while Cayman has great performance at 25x16 with AA, how will it perform against GF110 in future games, games that are too demanding for either GPU to run at 25x16 with AA?

It looks very good @ 1920x1200 also my native res.

 

[MentalIlness]

So what do you all think will happen with the GTX480 now that the 6900's are launched ? With it being "most of the time faster and cheaper" ?

Even the 5870's and 6870's. Price drops ?

Shit, I even seen a GTX470 OC for $229

 

[nitromullet]

As others have already said, kind of odd results for the single cards. Good value either way though, but I'm not really seeing the 6900s forcing the prices down on the GTX 500s. I actually predict that AMD prices will go up instead. As I said earlier in the thread, if you want one get it NOW!

It looks like AMD really focused on their CF driver quite a bit, as the CF results are very impressive. This bodes very well for the 6990. With some SLI driver improvements there might be a really tight race for the performance crown if NV does come out with a GF110 dual gpu card.

 

[Larnz]

I was waiting to see the outcome of these cards as I'm currently running an HD5870 and wanted to see if the upgrade to 6970 would be worth the money. I am still undecided, I'm quite torn now between upgrading to a 6970 or buying another 5870 on the cheap and going crossfire.

Do you guys think saving some money and going crossfire 5870's would be a reasonable move at this point? I would probably not look to upgrade again for 10-12 months.

Cheers
Larnz

 

[badb0y]

Larnz Go with the CF setup if you have the mobo.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Aren't most 24 inch monitors 19x12? If so, I'd go with the 570 OC. If you get a larger monitor with 25x16 then the 6970 would be better. I suppose you could go 6970 straight away and then upgrade your monitor later, but by the time you do that the 28nm's are going to be out and the performance @ 25x16 is going to be more ideal and you are likely going to want to upgrade again anyway.

Myself, I don't really see much need for higher than 19x10, but that is mainly because the pricing of the 25x16 monitors is too high imho for what they bring since 4xAA at 19x10, and especially 8xAA, completely removes all jaggies and delivers a really good blend of IQ and performance.

What reviews you reading . The tech reports so far is the best of the bunch as they had more games. But only did the 6950 that I have seen . Beings how O/Cing has been brought into reviews now with the 6800 series. This hand has yet to play out . Were discarding now and drawing to see has best hand. Less than 30 days sb reviews show up . Bob and I have gone threw all the benchies with all the cards . This hand hasn't played out yet.

 

[kitchiku]

@Larnz, sell the 5870 , buy 2 6950s

 

[MentalIlness]

I was waiting to see the outcome of these cards as I'm currently running an HD5870 and wanted to see if the upgrade to 6970 would be worth the money. I am still undecided, I'm quite torn now between upgrading to a 6970 or buying another 5870 on the cheap and going crossfire.

Do you guys think saving some money and going crossfire 5870's would be a reasonable move at this point? I would probably not look to upgrade again for 10-12 months.

Cheers
Larnz

Welcome to the forums :thumbsup:

I say if your going to spend now, just go with Crossfire. Only go with a 6970 if you can sell the 5870 for a good amount to save. A 6970 for around $100 would be great.

Resolution ?

 

[Nemesis 1]

I was waiting to see the outcome of these cards as I'm currently running an HD5870 and wanted to see if the upgrade to 6970 would be worth the money. I am still undecided, I'm quite torn now between upgrading to a 6970 or buying another 5870 on the cheap and going crossfire.

Do you guys think saving some money and going crossfire 5870's would be a reasonable move at this point? I would probably not look to upgrade again for 10-12 months.

Cheers
Larnz

Its hard to get honest ans to your question . Its what games you like . But I think you should wait for SB reviews. You will understand when you see those. See my avatar that expression and that hand out there says it all.

 

[dookulooku]

Wow fail. I was just waiting to be one of the first people to buy a 6970. I'll pass. Hard to believe that AMD didn't go for a bigger die and basically pissed away the last year and a bit to launch such a marginal improvement over old tech.

It is quite a bit larger than Cypress. As Anandtech's title suggests, Cayman was designed so AMD wouldn't fall too far behind in geometry and compute performance. That's the cost of making it more Fermi-like: the increase in die size doesn't translate into significantly better performance in yesterday's games.

 

[RussianSensation]

That's the cost of making it more Fermi-like: the increase in die size doesn't translate into significantly better performance in yesterday's games.

True, but not for all older games. HD6970 also seems to clean up in OpenGL games at 2560x1600 which should please BFG10K.

 

[Aristotelian]

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=22610&all=1

Alienbabeltech (apoppin) review.

In short, "great value" is what the 6950 and 6970 bring so far. I do have to say that I'm a bit disappointed that AMD does not appear to want to bring a single gpu single card blistering speed solution to the table. Not that the 6970 is "slow", but - oh well.

 

[MentalIlness]

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20126

6950 Crossfire http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/Radeon_HD_6950_CrossFire/6.html

 

[dookulooku]

It looks very good @ 1920x1200 also my native res.

6970 actually has worse price/performance than the 570 at that resolution. It'll be interesting to see if prices for the 570 and 6970 change from now to the end of the year.

 

[apoppin]

Alienbabeltech (apoppin) review.

In short, "great value" is what the 6950 and 6970 bring so far. I do have to say that I'm a bit disappointed that AMD does not appear to want to bring a single gpu single card blistering speed solution to the table. Not that the 6970 is "slow", but - oh well.

Thanks. i believe the expectations for Cayman were ridiculous. AMD brought great value to their aging lineup; they match the GTX 570 and beat it in some games to bring recently $500 value to $369. i also pointed out that the market would settle the prices (which i believe will be much closer to GTX 570 pricing).

That performance summary chart really tells the entire story in a glance. AMD's top GPUs run with Nvidia's - except for GTX 580 which was probably a real surprise to them.

Who now thinks that Antillies will beat Nvidia's (unannounced but likely) GX2?

 

[HurleyBird]

Both the 6970 and GTX580 are "refresh" generations imo from a performance perspective (although the 6900 series is a brand new architecture). Expect to see major performance increases from both sides on 28nm. Of course if you already have a GTX470/480/5870 or an overclocked 5850, then you are probably better off waiting until 28nm. We have seen similar situations in the past with 9700Pro --> 9800XT or X1800XT --> X1900XT, or 7800GTX --> 7950GTX. More or less both companies were limited by 40nm. No worries though, Crysis 2 has not arrived yet -- the real punishment awaits in 2011. Save your pennies! :biggrin:

There's a huge difference between:

a. AMD waited a full product cycle and had the ability to design a much bigger die

b. Nvidia waited half a product cycle and was limited by die size

580 is obviously a refresh. 6970 *should* have been next-gen. The opportunity has been completely squandered on AMD's part.

 

[Udgnim]

The opportunity has been completely squandered on AMD's part.

until Antilles gets released, then people can start complaining about the drawbacks of multi-GPU versus single GPU

 

[Hallowed_Dragon]

All these reviews show something amazing: the new and improved Xfire scaling. For an enthusiast the 6950 CF is the best option without breaking the bank. It destroys everything at the same price (even more expensive setups).

 

[thilanliyan]

I'm personally disappointed in the performance of the 6970...I was hoping it would consistently match the GTX580. I am however very pleased with the prices. A 6970 (with a price drop), GTX570, or 6950 are in my cards for the future. Hopefully there's a bit of downward price maneuvering.

 

[dookulooku]

Some of the expectations were ridiculous. I remember someone on the Hardocp forums claimed it would be 71% faster than or 6870, or around 25% faster than 580, just because it had 71% more SPs than the 6870 (1920 vs 1120). And then we had people here talk for pages about the new VLIW4 architecture and how it would lead to 50% improvement in performance over Cypress.

 

[Nemesis 1]

6970 actually has worse price/performance than the 570 at that resolution. It'll be interesting to see if prices for the 570 and 6970 change from now to the end of the year.

Its all a matter of perspective, Some games we didn't bench . But I viewing it from another perspective. I like techpowerup reviews but not real pleased with his 6950 Xfire results . In less than 30 days we gett SB reviews its to bad it wasn't out yet. But depending on games many things change.