AMD 6900 reviews thread (UPDATED)

[Vdubchaos]

I must say, this is 2nd disappointing AMD launch this year.

Perhaps not from sales perspective (I'm sure they will sell) but let's face it this generation is VERY 7800>8800 like. Not a big jump AT ALL.

I should've gotten a 5870 for $235 few weeks back...

 

[bryanW1995]

anand shows a commanding lead while [H] shows they are almost equal - maybe 1-5 frames. HMM who to believed.

tpu, hwc, hocp all show ~ 10% faster for 580 over 6970 at 19x12 and 25x16. go up to 8xAA and the lead drops down to ~ 5% due to the vram advantage of 6970. don't remember anands right now but I think it was something similar. [H] data looks pretty similar overall to the others, it's just that their review looks it was written by amd marketing.

 

[-Slacker-]

Gonna hold my breath for more cat 10.12 reviews. And if that doesn't turn out better, I'll just have to turn blue in the face until 10.13 releases. And if that doesn't turn out better either, screw it, I'm getting me a nice little hd 5870.

 

[Soleron]

Gonna hold my breath for more cat 10.12 reviews. And if that doesn't turn out better, I'll just have to turn blue in the face until 10.13 releases. And if that doesn't turn out better either, screw it, I'm getting me a nice little hd 5870.

A leap month to celebrate the 69xx?

 

[Mem]

A leap month to celebrate the 69xx?

I think he means 11.1s since thats how AMD does their numbering on drivers ie year then month.

 

[Illyan]

Perhaps not from sales perspective (I'm sure they will sell) but let's face it this generation is VERY 7800>8800 like. Not a big jump AT ALL.

I agree with the disappointment, but the 7800>8800 was one of the biggest jumps in performance. Maybe closer to 2900>3870 or 8800>9800.

 

[Avalon]

Mildly disappointed, but I do have to remind myself this was supposed to be a 32nm card, so mostly I'm just disappointed in TSMC for ruining what could have been. What we're stuck with seems to be a card that is generally tied with the GTX570 at 1920x1200 res, and 5% faster at 2560x res, for $20 more. I'm underwhelmed.

The fact that performance is so inconsistent, especially compared to the great 58xx series, really bothers me. I'm thinking it's a driver thing, since the arch is different. I've only read Anand's and portions of HOCP's review, both of which use the 10.11 driver. More interested now to see how these 69xx cards shake out in 2-3 months time after some driver updates.

Really hoping what this launch will do is push the 68xx series down in price some. The 6870 is priced too closely to the 6950, so pushing it down in price should push down the 6850 as well, which I think is going to be the card that I upgrade to from my lowly 4850. With a heavy OC, I might be able to reach close to 6950 performance, since the gap isn't that big

*Edit*
Which btw, is so strange seeing the upper mid range (6870) perform so closely to the lower high range (6950). When was the last time the gap was so small? I can't even remember...

 

[Vdubchaos]

It just seems to me like AMD/Nvidia has settled on the price wars.

OR AMD simply figured that they shot themselves in the foot undercutting Nvidia by $100.

I think it's safe to say that price wars have been over since 4800 generation....we went from $100 gaps to $15-20 gaps IF that.

 

[hclarkjr]

if you guys were in my shoes and wanted DX11 card which one would you get? it would go into system in my signature. budget around $300.

 

[Idontcare]

Mildly disappointed, but I do have to remind myself this was supposed to be a 32nm card, so mostly I'm just disappointed in TSMC for ruining what could have been.

TSMC cancelled 32nm because the customers (that would include AMD) didn't want to pay for the node to be developed.

Did you want TSMC to spend money on something that wasn't going to be used?

Want to take a wild-ass guess why TSMC isn't building a 31nm, 30nm, 29nm, 27nm, or 26nm node? If your answer is "because the customers only wanted to pay for a 28nm node to be developed" then you'd be right.

 

[Idontcare]

I must say, this is 2nd disappointing AMD launch this year.

Perhaps not from sales perspective (I'm sure they will sell) but let's face it this generation is VERY 7800>8800 like. Not a big jump AT ALL.

I should've gotten a 5870 for $235 few weeks back...

Does not compute: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2116/21

 

[Idontcare]

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

That's not what he is getting at. Today's 3D is processed with left/right polarization versus the red/green filtering of 3D movies 20-30 yrs ago.

Go to a 3D movie today and intentionally close one eye with your eyelid or block one side with your hand, you still see the movie just fine (albeit in 2D) because the polarizer in the glasses filters out the part of the image that would make everything seem blurry/hazy without the glasses (one eye or two).

 

[SlowSpyder]

Not terrible parts by any means, but not as 'exciting' as I think many were expecting. I think these parts offer decent performance for the money and have some unique features that may interest some people. Overall I'd say they're going to be decent cards, but there just isn't much for me to get excited about when I already have a 5870.

 

[Borealis7]

i'm also a little bit underwhelmed. it seems to me that AMD are like "we see what nVidia does, and react with similar performance for a bit less cash."

and the boxes come with a note: "no grounds were shook during the making of this card."

time to look for a cheapo 2nd hand 5850.

 

[JM Popaleetus]

After seeing all these numbers finally come out, for the price I paid ($320) for my two EAH6850s....I think I made out damn well.

 

[SlowSpyder]

i'm also a little bit underwhelmed. it seems to me that AMD are like "we see what nVidia does, and react with similar performance for a bit less cash."

and the boxes come with a note: "no grounds were shook during the making of this card."

time to look for a cheapo 2nd hand 5850.

I think if there is a feather in AMD's cap with these cards, it is CF scaling. For someone looking for two cards these are pretty nice options. And I think it points to the 6990 being a beast.

But when everything is said and done, the 6970 more or less offers the performance the GTX570 does at a similar price. So, it isn't going to excite many of us.

 

[Avalon]

TSMC cancelled 32nm because the customers (that would include AMD) didn't want to pay for the node to be developed.

Did you want TSMC to spend money on something that wasn't going to be used?

Want to take a wild-ass guess why TSMC isn't building a 31nm, 30nm, 29nm, 27nm, or 26nm node? If your answer is "because the customers only wanted to pay for a 28nm node to be developed" then you'd be right.

Sorry IDC, I didn't know...I had thought it was canceled due to issues. Your questions seem a bit harsh...my disappointment still stands, though, knowing that this card should have been built on a smaller node with more SPs.

 

[Wreckage]

AMD sending slower cards to reviewers(aka green sticker myth)to mask performance: DEBUNKED

AMD hiding a magic driver to boost performance on launch: DEBUNKED

6970 being 15-30% faster than the GTX580: DEBUNKED

Looks like my hunch was right when I ordered the GTX580....fastest single GPU out there

I wonder how things will look when AMD raises prices next year...

Where is Silverforce11 today? :hmm:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=30915045&postcount=489
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=30907384&postcount=255

 

[tincart]

On a smaller node, the 6970 would likely have beaten the GTX 580 if it were still being made on 40nm. Not a likely result.

People are still saying that 10.12 is the panacea that will come make everything right. I don't buy it. Driver improvements seem to be incremental, so I doubt we'll see massive jumps. If improvements bring a 5% or so increase over the 570, maybe it will justify the pricing gap.

 

[SirPauly]

I must say, this is 2nd disappointing AMD launch this year.

Perhaps not from sales perspective (I'm sure they will sell) but let's face it this generation is VERY 7800>8800 like. Not a big jump AT ALL.

I should've gotten a 5870 for $235 few weeks back...

For me, it offers similar performance gains from the 2900XT vs the 1950XTX, when compared to the 6970 vs 5870 and the 2900XT offered a brand new DirectX, with going from 10 to 9 and this is based on 11.

2900XT vs 1950XTX

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/...on-hd-2900-xt/32/#abschnitt_performancerating


6970 vs 5870

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/...950/26/#abschnitt_performancerating_ohne_aaaf

 

[Kenmitch]

So disappointing... Buying these cards now depends completely on what games you are playing since the performance varies so much

I also dont see the point of the 6970, since a 6950 with a small OC would beat it anyway

6950 Xfire is looking like the most attractive high end solution however, its good to see they scale just as well as the 6800 series

Still, the thing that really makes me go "WTF" is how these cards at times are barely faster than the 5870... I hope they are just lacking driver optimizations, because this is very underwhelming for a 14 month gap

With the performance all over the map I would tend to think that the drivers need to mature. Did the 5xxx series not see some nice performance gains from the first couple of driver updates? I'm thinking that the 69xx series has changed enough that's it's given them somewhat of a driver delema.

Isn't the old saying don't buy a new(er) gen card untill the drivers have had time to mature. This round Nvidia had the advantage as the 5xx is not much diff than the 4xx series.

I'd think that AMD pumped the 6xxx series out more for keeping the wheels turning than expecting a huge gain in performance....Only time will tell.

 

[Janooo]

tpu, hwc, hocp all show ~ 10% faster for 580 over 6970 at 19x12 and 25x16. go up to 8xAA and the lead drops down to ~ 5% due to the vram advantage of 6970. don't remember anands right now but I think it was something similar. [H] data looks pretty similar overall to the others, it's just that their review looks it was written by amd marketing.

That seems to be the case. Higher resolutions and settings and 6970 is getting very close to 580.
These cards are made for high res and Eyefinity. CF scaling is very good as well.

Also Fermi got better with driver releases, the same can be expected for 6900.

 

[solofly]

So who won...

 

[apoppin]

After browsing benchmarks it seems AMD has room for improvement on the driver front. Perhaps the rumors about them delaying launch to get better driver support are true. If you just look at DX11 benchmarks alone some show the 6970 50+% faster than the 5870 and a some show barely any improvement at all.

Hawx 2 is a good example:
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=22610&page=26
http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-6970-and-hd-6950-review/10474-8.html

On the plus side, Crossfire scaling is the best I've seen. I've done a few averages and Crossfire seems to be around 80% scaling, with many games getting above 90%, and of course some games are still CPU-limited or aren't good scalers.

Compare Catalyst 10-10 or 10-11 to Cat 10-12. Performance dropped for the HD 5870 and was mixed for HD 6870 (mostly up). So i would say they got their "aggressive optimizations" under control and they got their driver for HAWX 2 fixed. There is a big improvement for ALL Radeons with Cat 10-12 over the last driver set.

Since the architecture is improved, especially DX11 games will show the most improvement over their last generation.

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

 

[Kuzi]

The 6970/6950 offer great price/performance, awesome CF scaling, improved tessellation performance and 2GB RAM. You can't go wrong with either card, same thing with the GTX570. Although the new Caymans are more future proof because of the extra RAM.

In some games the cards underperformed, I think that's because of the brand new architecture and immature drivers. I believe we will see at least a 10-15% increase in performance from new drivers in the next few months.

I've decided already, getting a 6970 by the end of this month