HD 6870 and HD 6850 Reviews

The current debate is whether Nvidias obvious strengths there is only when supposed "unnecessary" amounts of tessellation are pushed to the GPU. Nvidia definitely has more power in that department but is AMD's current power (ie. barts & cayman) enough to process a "normal" amount of tessellation and still have a decent amount of fps? As an informed consumer I wouldn't be buying a 580 purely because it can double AMD's scores in Stonegiant (where obvious amounts of over tessellation is done).

I don't think Metro 2033 is a good tool for comparison. From what I know you can't turn off specific aspects of the engine (ie. just turn off tessellation) and it is obviously a heavily Nvidia-based title. No game should be used for comparison where you can't show non-tessellated performance at same detail levels on the same hardware.

 

You could run Metro 2033 in DX10 mode. No tessellation there. Whatever the deal with the game is though, you really do not want to buy a Radeon for it. I guess it's good that it's a somewhat forgettable game. But I imagine, like FarCry 2, it will be benchmarked for years.

 

These cards seem to do quite well in crossfire, how come?

 

Is there anything really wrong with the tessellation performance? It works as advertised. Arguably it could be considered the fault of game developers if they implement features for a specific feature set which are a poor fit for 4/5ths of the DX11 market.

 

That just sounds like an excuse to me. Apply the same logic to PS/VS shaders back in the DX8 generation.

Few thought shaders would be used as extensively as they are now, and they're only going to be used more and more in the future. Tessellation is the same deal. Right now, we're seeing the occasional game with tessellation, just like we barely saw shader usage back in the day. Eventually, it will be mainstreamed. Not as mainstream as PS/VS, no. It's nowhere near as versatile, but it will become a standard feature.

 

Any reviews pitching HD 6870 with an overclocked HD 5850? I see a...175mhz gulf at stock...here i am wondering how a mildly overclocked 5850 @ 800mhz @ lower voltages (>_< !) deal with AMD "new" HD 6 Bartsy..Heck...we need reviews pitching both at stock cum/or maxed overclock potential...stat!

 

I'm a bit of a lazy ass, does somebody tried to extrapolate how MLAA is taxing using hardOCP test?

Does the result scale in line with External bandwidth? texture fetching abilities? or ALU power?
I mean is there an obvious correlation?

 

One thing that can be deduced from that benchmark 10% core o/c is better than an extra 1gb of gfx memory even at 2560x1600

 

Just a wild guess on the correlation, but as the edges detected that need to be AA'd increase the performance hit increases. With less edges comes less performance hit.

 

no i think he means what part of the graphics chip is being used and what part of the chip do you need more of to increase mlaa performance

 

Not really a review but here's a sneak peak at MSI's Cyclone version of the 6850.

http://www.techpowerup.com/133917/M...0-Cyclone-OC-Power-Edition-Graphics-Card.html

It will be interesting to see if a lot of purchasers can get that level of an overclock.

I'm pleased to see this development. If Hawk versions of the 6870 arrive I'll be additionally pleased.

Is AMD currently allowing non-reference 6870's? I read at one site that AIB makers haven't gotten the go-ahead.

 

Sapphire HD 6850 new 1120sp BIOS

http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/84644/Sapphire.HD6850.1024.101008.html

anyone tried this? working properly?

 

Is there a consensus on whether or not the 6800s are superior to the previous generation 5800s in performance/watt?

This review seems to indicate that the 5850 is still the reigning champ:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6850/29.html

And yet, ATI promo material seemed to have mentioned an ever so slight improvement on the perf/watt front ...

 

6870 vs 5870, 6850 vs 5850. Remember the 50 SKU has lower voltage than the 70 SKU.

 

Yes, I had that in mind and the review I linked to shows the 5850 besting the 6850.
The problem I find with the majority of other review sites is that they publish power figures for FurMark tests alone (and regularly omit the score that each card achieves in FurMark...): one exception I've found is Xbitlab's review where they tested the power consumption of the cards in Crysis Warhead (but they reported max power consumption, rather than average).

 

S|A's review is up.

 

I just installed Gigabyte's UDVGA version of the HD 6870.

My first impressions will hopefully be viewable at Newegg soon. I think customer reviews take time to get approved.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-125-357

A funny youtube video about the card: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T33sv9o_lK0

Gigabyte's page: http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3663

Off topic: I really wanted a Christmas present and this is it.
The 6950 is certainly more powerful but I wanted a very quiet card and with the 6950 I'd be less likely to get by using my existing PSU. (425 watt, Dell XPS 420)

Though now that I have my 6870 up and running it's easy to second guess that. Meh, even if I could run a 6950 I doubt my PSU would handle a 6970 bios flash.

I hope I'm not jinxing myself but I'd like to say thanks to AMD for making a powerful card that my PSU can handle.