[H] 6970 vs 570 vs 580

[Skurge]

I don't normaly post these reviews, but there are a few interesting things I saw.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/08/09/sapphire_hd6970_bfbc2_vietnam_special_edition_review/8

At stock settings the 580 is horribly overpriced (not that we didn't know that), There isn't much of a difference between it and the other 2 cards that are $150 cheaper.

Another thig is how far the geforce cards have come in DA2 with driver updates, they are on par with the AMD cards.

Also it looks like after some driver updates the 6970 looks like its closer to the 580 than it is to the 570.

Also the 6970 has horrible overclock scaling. Seems like its IPC drops a lot over its stock 880mhz frequency, except in BC2. Anyone know why that could be?

 

[nitromullet]

At stock settings the 580 is horribly overpriced (not that we didn't know that), There isn't much of a difference between it and the other 2 cards that are $150 cheaper.

That's a matter of opinion. The GTX 580 is faster in almost every bench, sometimes by quite a bit:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=305

Your math also seems to be a little subjective. Newegg pricing shows the lowest priced GTX 580 is $420 AMIR and cheapest 6970 2GB is $320 AMIR. The Sapphire card in that review is closer to $400.

 

[SirPauly]

Also the 6970 has horrible overclock scaling. Seems like its IPC drops a lot over its stock 880mhz frequency, except in BC2. Anyone know why that could be?

Sometimes that may be tough to gauge based on the small sampling and specific titles but it sure scaled well in Battlefield: Bad Company 2:

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 through us for a loop. We received an extra 19.5 average FPS more than the SAPPHIRE HD6970 BFBC2:V Special Edition, an astonishing 23% performance gain.

 

[Skurge]

That's a matter of opinion. The GTX 580 is faster in almost every bench, sometimes by quite a bit:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=305

Your math also seems to be a little subjective. Newegg pricing shows the lowest priced GTX 580 is $420 AMIR and cheapest 6970 2GB is $320 AMIR. The Sapphire card in that review is closer to $400.

You are right about the pricing. Thought the 580 was still hovering around $480-500

The AT benches were done with launch drivers. That is specificaly why this one stood put for me.

 

[AnandThenMan]

That's a matter of opinion. The GTX 580 is faster in almost every bench, sometimes by quite a bit:

I would hope so, given the significantly higher power draw, not to mention the price. We're back to this again, AMD chooses to do their flagship card as a dual GPU setup, Nvidia goes all out on their top end single GPU and pushes as many transistors as the current process will allow. Different strategies.

Yes I realize Nvidia has their own dual GPU monster, but that is more a reactionary product than anything else, and it draws an insane amount of power, not that the 6990 sips power or anything. BTW, because [H] never uses canned benches and goes for the highest playable settings at a given resolution, their results can be quite different vs. other review sites.

 

[SirPauly]

True, but I liked ATI strategies much more when they created product leadership GPU's like the 1900 and willing to risk more, which translated into record revenue.

 

[AnandThenMan]

I dunno, AMD buying ATI and subsequently coming out with Fusion was a pretty risky move. I don't know if it will ultimately make AMD a profitable company, but it's about as risky a move as you will see, it nearly sunk AMD.

 

[Jhatfie]

The price difference between the 6970 and 580 seems to be usually closer to about $100. Having owned a GTX580 and a 6950 that was unlocked to a 6970, I can say that the 580 certainly is faster and if you get a good overclocker like mine, the frame rate difference is obvious if you benchmark them. However at stock clocks, for most games the difference is not large and generally does not allow for an increase in the gaming experience.

 

[Nebor]

I don't overclock because I mainly play older games, but I'm pretty happy with the evga gtx580 I got for about $400.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I'd have to say the GTX 580 and GTX 590 are kind of an oddball. The gap between the Radeon HD 6970 and the GTX 580 closes a bit in most games at 2560x1600 and 4xAA/16xAF due to the 6970s extra 512MB VRAM and there's a price disparity of $100 or so. The Radeon HD 6990 is either the same speed or a bit faster overall than the GTX 590 at 1920x1200 and then the gap quickly grows at 2560x1600. The GTX 580 is overkill for 1920x1080/1200 and yet not enough for 2560x1440/1600.

This brings me to my point: why would you go for NVIDIA cards at 2560x1440 or higher when you'll lose some performance due to them having insufficient VRAM? Two Radeon HD 6950 2GBs seem like the best bang-for-buck for 2560x1440/1600 if you're over-clocking. If you're playing at 5760x1080/1200 you should get either three Radeon HD 6950s or unlock one Radeon HD 6950 and get one Radeon HD 6990.

 

[badb0y]

If I had the money I would be running a GTX 580. It is undeniably the fastest single GPU graphics card but I just can't justify spending another 200ish$ dollars for like 10% performance boost.

 

[Tempered81]

If I had the money I would be running a GTX 580. It is undeniably the fastest single GPU graphics card but I just can't justify spending another 200ish$ dollars for like 10% performance boost.

I agree here. I have a 6950 2GB with unlocked shaders at 985/1400 like this gentleman does. Paid $240 on ebay for it - half the price of a 580, but within 5% of it. My card is faster than the OC'd 6970 in this HardOCP review.

 

[RussianSensation]

At stock settings the 580 is horribly overpriced (not that we didn't know that), There isn't much of a difference between it and the other 2 cards that are $150 cheaper.

Agreed. But once overclocking is taken into account, the GTX580 whoops the HD6970!

The GTX 580 is overkill for 1920x1080/1200 and yet not enough for 2560x1440/1600.

A stock GTX580 is 40% faster in Crysis 2. Can't have enough power for Crysis 2 at 1080P.

Still, even with GTX580's overclocking headroom, I'd still get 2x HD6950 2GB cards in CF for $500 instead if I am already spending that much $. With a 797mhz GTX570 @ $299, the value proposition behind a GTX580 isn't there. But most people buying the GTX580 are unlikely to care about value.

Also the 6970 has horrible overclock scaling. Seems like its IPC drops a lot over its stock 880mhz frequency, except in BC2. Anyone know why that could be?

Agreed. VLIW-4 architecture is not the way of the future for AMD. Good thing they are ditching it for a scalar architecture (hopefully starting with HD7970). HD6970 has terrible IPC scaling with increased frequencies as has already been investigated by Xbitlabs months ago.

I tested my card at 930-940mhz and there is hardly any difference between that and 880mhz speeds (hence I kept it at 1.175V @ 880mhz).

The AT benches were done with launch drivers. That is specificaly why this one stood put for me.

Since 11.2 drivers, the average gain has been 9% for HD6970 AMD cards with 4AA

Another thig is how far the geforce cards have come in DA2 with driver updates, they are on par with the AMD cards.

Ya, good job for NV's driver team. GTX580 easily trounces the 6970 in DA2 now. Once overclocked, the perfromance advantage grows to a significant 34%.

 

[Spikesoldier]

Agreed. But once overclocking is taken into account, the GTX580 whoops the HD6970! Plus 40% faster in Crysis 2.

Still, even with GTX580's overclocking headroom, I'd still get 2x HD6950 2GB cards in CF for $500 instead if I am already spending that much $. With a 797mhz GTX570 @ $299, the value proposition behind a GTX580 isn't there. But most people buying the GTX580 are unlikely to care about value.



Agreed. VLIW-4 architecture is not the way of the future for AMD. Good thing they are ditching it for a scalar architecture (hopefully starting with HD7970). HD6970 has terrible IPC scaling with increased frequencies as has already been investigated by Xbitlabs months ago.

I tested my card at 930-940mhz and there is hardly any difference between that and 880mhz speeds (hence I kept it at 1.175V @ 880mhz).




Since 11.2 drivers, the average gain has been 9% for HD6970 AMD cards with 4AA



Ya, good job for NV's driver team. GTX580 easily trounces the 6970 in DA2 now. Once overclocked, the perfromance advantage grows to a significant 34%.

seconded the 6950 seems to be the star of the 6xxx series. interesting about how the 6970 chokes on higher frequencies though. guess that 6970 lightning or super oc card isnt as appealing anymore.

but bring on the new gen cards!

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Agreed. But once overclocking is taken into account, the GTX580 whoops the HD6970!



A stock GTX580 is 40% faster in Crysis 2. Can't have enough power for Crysis 2 at 1080P.

Still, even with GTX580's overclocking headroom, I'd still get 2x HD6950 2GB cards in CF for $500 instead if I am already spending that much $. With a 797mhz GTX570 @ $299, the value proposition behind a GTX580 isn't there. But most people buying the GTX580 are unlikely to care about value.



Agreed. VLIW-4 architecture is not the way of the future for AMD. Good thing they are ditching it for a scalar architecture (hopefully starting with HD7970). HD6970 has terrible IPC scaling with increased frequencies as has already been investigated by Xbitlabs months ago.

I tested my card at 930-940mhz and there is hardly any difference between that and 880mhz speeds (hence I kept it at 1.175V @ 880mhz).




Since 11.2 drivers, the average gain has been 9% for HD6970 AMD cards with 4AA



Ya, good job for NV's driver team. GTX580 easily trounces the 6970 in DA2 now. Once overclocked, the perfromance advantage grows to a significant 34%.

Hmm, interesting. I agree with your assessment. Overall I think the decent single-GPU enthusiast cards in terms of price/performance are the Radeon HD 6950 and the GeForce GTX 570. For 2560x1440 you simply can't beat a Radeon HD 6950 2GB CF in bang-for-buck and the GTX 570 looks great in comparison to the 6970 if you want to play at 1920x1200 considering its lower price.

 

[notty22]

AMD is not really giving people the option to buy a 6970 anymore regardless. There is only one model in stock at newegg, thats about 3 weeks in a row. Newegg is not the only e-tailer in the USA obviously. But they move a lot of merchandise, it seems.
Tigerdirect is offering 2 models, available now.
edit: newegg is showing 2 in stock now

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

AMD is not really giving people the option to buy a 6970 anymore regardless. There is only one model in stock at newegg, thats about 3 weeks in a row. Newegg is not the only e-tailer in the USA obviously. But they move a lot of merchandise, it seems.
Tigerdirect is offering 2 models, available now.

Kinda makes sense, really. The Radeon HD 6950 2GB has the exact same GPU engine, just with vBIOS-disabled SPs and lower-clocked memory chips. That means it'll sell a lot more considering it costs a lot less for what amounts to a very similar product.

 

[RussianSensation]

AMD is not really giving people the option to buy a 6970 anymore regardless. There is only one model in stock at newegg, thats about 3 weeks in a row. Newegg is not the only e-tailer in the USA obviously. But they move a lot of merchandise, it seems.
Tigerdirect is offering 2 models, available now.
edit: newegg is showing 2 in stock now

You wouldn't want to have thousands of units in stock right before you are ready to replace them with the HD7970 .

 

[Red Hawk]

Another thig is how far the geforce cards have come in DA2 with driver updates, they are on par with the AMD cards.

Sure, but it's too bad that the latest drivers turn Dragon Age II into crash city. There are also reports of the latest drivers causing cards to heat up more than usual -- definitely not something desirable for the current high-end Nvidia cards.

I dunno, AMD buying ATI and subsequently coming out with Fusion was a pretty risky move. I don't know if it will ultimately make AMD a profitable company, but it's about as risky a move as you will see, it nearly sunk AMD.

It was a risky move, but I think it's paid off. AMD's graphics division has been quite profitable as of late (due in no small part to the bitcoin craze, I might think).

 

[notty22]

You wouldn't want to have thousands of units in stock right before you are ready to replace them with the HD7970 .

Well thats the key. Timing.
There are reports that Nvidia was filling the channel with large amounts of discrete cards.

Nvidia announced after hours, quarterly report , and things are looking up.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2011/08/11/nvidia-shares-jump-17-after-q2-earnings-beat/

 

[Silverforce11]

Depends on the games you play, but generally the fact that the 6950 once running at 6970 speeds can nearly match a gtx580 for half the price (and power use) is too good of a bargain.

I recommended people away from the 6970 and instead get the 6950 at launch. Selling the same functional core for a lot less is a stupid idea, i don't get why they went for that approach.

 

[Skurge]

Agreed. But once overclocking is taken into account, the GTX580 whoops the HD6970!



A stock GTX580 is 40% faster in Crysis 2. Can't have enough power for Crysis 2 at 1080P.

Still, even with GTX580's overclocking headroom, I'd still get 2x HD6950 2GB cards in CF for $500 instead if I am already spending that much $. With a 797mhz GTX570 @ $299, the value proposition behind a GTX580 isn't there. But most people buying the GTX580 are unlikely to care about value.



Agreed. VLIW-4 architecture is not the way of the future for AMD. Good thing they are ditching it for a scalar architecture (hopefully starting with HD7970). HD6970 has terrible IPC scaling with increased frequencies as has already been investigated by Xbitlabs months ago.

I tested my card at 930-940mhz and there is hardly any difference between that and 880mhz speeds (hence I kept it at 1.175V @ 880mhz).




Since 11.2 drivers, the average gain has been 9% for HD6970 AMD cards with 4AA



Ya, good job for NV's driver team. GTX580 easily trounces the 6970 in DA2 now. Once overclocked, the perfromance advantage grows to a significant 34%.

Yeah the 6950 and gtx 570 are gtreat value.

I'm not sure whats going on with you guys over there, but we have a bunch of 6970 avaialble here and in South africa. Not sure about Europe though.

 

[RussianSensation]

I recommended people away from the 6970 and instead get the 6950 at launch. Selling the same functional core for a lot less is a stupid idea, i don't get why they went for that approach.

Ya, I think AMD realized it 3-4 months into the launch and talked partners into removing the dual BIOS switch. Remember how quickly the reference design cards disappeared from the market? The problem is, enthusiasts now have information at hand that HD6950 overclocked to HD6970 speeds performance within 3-4% of it even without unlocking the shaders; and they can still seek out the few cards that still have the dual BIOS switch. It's pretty hard to recommend the HD6970 when you get HD6950s with aftermarket cooling for $250.

Unfortunately this likely means AMD won't be so generous next round and there will likely be no way to unlock the HD7950 into the 7970.

 

[n0x1ous]

Sure, but it's too bad that the latest drivers turn Dragon Age II into crash city. There are also reports of the latest drivers causing cards to heat up more than usual -- definitely not something desirable for the current high-end Nvidia cards.



It was a risky move, but I think it's paid off. AMD's graphics division has been quite profitable as of late (due in no small part to the bitcoin craze, I might think).

Yeah except they just lost 7 million last quarter....

 

[Red Hawk]

Yeah except they just lost 7 million last quarter....

There's a thing called "research & development".:thumbsup: