AMD Radeon HD 6870 & HD 6850 Video Card Review @ [H]

cannondale06 said:
it was Furmark being used at Anandtech too. either way its doesn't really matter and I was just surprised the difference was that much.
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Could be an anomaly. Perhaps when [H] does some 6870 vs 470 testing, they will test them against each other directly.

Either way I would still take the ~70 W savings. Even the draw of the 6870 concerns me. I would be going for a 6850, it is single power connector and a load I am comfortable with. Not everyone builds monster systems.
 
PooprScooper said:
Thanks for the link to the review Mr K6, ....
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You are continuing to ignore the fact that the one, single 470 that was $220 is SOLD OUT, and will probably NOT be coming back again in the near future and the average outside of that ONE CARD is $259. You also continue to ignore the fact that the Radeon cards have features that the 470 DOES NOT HAVE such as eyefinity, ALSO has some of the features you are claiming for the 470 (3d playback and gaming). So really, it comes down to PhysX and Cuda vs. Eyefinity and AMD APP Compute. Oh- and hey, the 6870 and 6850 both use LESS power at idle and load when compared with the GTX460 according to [H], so I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure they are lower than the GTX470 as well. Anyway- I'm tired of answering your clearly biased point of view. You got a 470 for $220- good for you, ya got a great deal. After that deal though, be happy and stop spouting clearly biased/ignorant crap.
 
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I bought the XFX 6870. The things that were importaint to me were good looks (I like the look of the card and the XFX sticker), external exhaust for my FT02, double lifetime warranty for resale value, 5850+ level performance, reletively quiet load performance, overall cool running with low watt draw = less noise and longer life, HDMI 1.4 and Displayports. I think this card checks off my needs and wants better than any other at the moment, so reletive value matters less to me.
 
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Flyinfinni said:
You are continuing to ignore the fact that the one,
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Did you have to quote his whole annoying post full of graphics? I add him to my ignore filter and you go and defeat the purpose. :(


Edit: Thank you. :)
 
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I just realized that that's a factory overclocked GTX 470 being compared to a stock 6870.
 
Flyinfinni said:
470 that was $220 is SOLD OUT
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Yea till it's restocked... As days and weeks go by, the 470 is only going to get cheaper. You'll find deals where it's even cheaper than $220, so relax.


Flyinfinni said:
Radeon cards have features that the 470 DOES NOT HAVE such as eyefinity
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Ever heard of Nvidia 3D surround? Yeah, nice try...

Flyinfinni said:
Radeon ALSO has some of the features you are claiming for the 470 (3d playback).
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They rely on 3rd parties to create 3D gaming. No one has a working one yet. Didn't someone else talk about buying something now so that it "might" work in the future?

Flyinfinni said:
it comes down to PhysX and Cuda vs. AMD APP Compute.
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If you're going to ignore the actually working Nvidia 3D Vision unlike AMD's version, you're still forgetting the superior Tessellation. But hey, why care about these features or even superior FPS for that matter? It's not like we want more for our money.

Flyinfinni said:
Oh- and hey, the 6870 uses LESS power at idle when compared with the GTX460
I'm pretty sure they are lower than the GTX470 as well
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Please see:
idle.png
 
Snowdog said:
Did you have to quote his whole annoying post full of graphics? I add him to my ignore filter and you go and defeat the purpose.
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When Fanboy's are wrong, they bury their heads in the sand. Charts showing annother brand's graphics card that has more fps is "annoying" to fanboys.
 
You'll find deals where it's even cheaper than $220, so relax.
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From $350-220.........Nvidia's resellers better hope that doesn't happen. I'll believe that when I see it.



Ever heard of Nvidia 3D surround? Yeah, nice try...
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That requires two cards in Nvidia's case.
 
PooprScooper said:
Thanks for the link to the review Mr K6, you're only making your case worse. Let's dive right into the review and read what it actually says:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/amd_6800series/7.htm


For the couple hours of gaming it consumes 40Watts more. Wait, did we read that right? 40 Frickin Watts!! Yeah, so much for that "double the power consumption" even when overclocked with "heavily voltage modded" LOL theory...

Curse those 40 Watts!!! We'll need a nuclear reactor in our backyard to power that thing!!!! Never-mind the fact that we'll be saving power when in idle though!
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That was not measured during gaming and is lower than any other review out there, so it's useless.

Ok, let's take a look at a bunch of other games as well:

Ummm? This shows a 6850 getting beat by a 460... What was your point again?
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All I see is one DX11 game (after all, it is future proofing that you're after) where 6870vs470 and 6850vs460 are on par and a bunch of TWIMTBP games. Also, I would like to see some real world test. This is [H] after all, and frame here and there in a benchark is of no significance.

O, rly? That's why when you switch from normal to extreme Tessellation the image is extremely(no pun intended) different? It looks much more visually appealing.
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Maybe you really should Google Heaven and Fermi. And "good" enough tessellation which isn't related to those.

We're talking about t-t-today junior. It does FPS, Tessellation, 32xAA, PhysX, CUDA and 3D Vision better already.
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FPS - similar
32xAA - ?? to slow to be useful
PhysX - absolutely useless
CUDA - slightly less useless and not that future proof
3D Vision - proprietary, useless, gimmick (68xx has 3D support too, open one at that)

So, why was the 6870 better than a 470 again? Oh, right, it consumes more power at idle and 40Watts less when gaming but has fewer FPS and less features. Sure, let's pick the under-performing card because it saves .04KW(10cents?) of electricity!!
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Because it performs about the same, costs less (one model in one store in one country on other card's launch day isn't relevant), uses way less power, is quieter, has more useful gaming features.
 
@ Kyle & anyone else doing the reviews..

Being as this is not meant to be the high end cards the primary purchasers are going to be those coming from the 5770 & lower, & Especially the 4k series.. Any chance of on the next article/refresh throwing in the more popular cards in that segment (5770, 4870, 4850)
 
PooprScooper said:
Yea till it's restocked... As days and weeks go by, the 470 is only going to get cheaper. You'll find deals where it's even cheaper than $220, so relax.



Ever heard of Nvidia 3D surround? Yeah, nice try...


They rely on 3rd parties to create 3D gaming. No one has a working one yet. Didn't someone else talk about buying something now so that it "might" work in the future?


If you're going to ignore the actually working Nvidia 3D Vision unlike AMD's version, you're still forgetting the superior Tessellation. But hey, why care about these features or even superior FPS for that matter? It's not like we want more for our money.


Please see:
idle.png
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The 470 deal for $220 is not likely to come back in stock at that price. Nvidia set the price at $259, which is likely closer to where even that particular card will restock at. It was a SALE plain and simple.
The problem with Nvidia 3D surround is that it requires you to use SLI- not a competing feature if you can't do it on a single card like you can with Eyefinity. Also- AMD's 3d solution DOES WORK NOW no future crap. You just have to use a 3d capable TV. It may not be as elegant, but it'll work (though I can't stand 3d anyway, so it doesn't matter to me). I've also not forgotten the "superior tessellation". I've addressed it multiple times- THERE IS NO REAL WORLD ADVANTAGE THERE! The only place you actually see a difference is in Ungine Heaven BENCHMARK. Who gives a CRAP about the benchmark that has no bearing on REAL PERFORMANCE.
The couple extra FPS, like I've also said a bunch of times already, are very few on average, and definitely NOT worth the $20 extra to me (which is what you have to spend to actually get one right now, as opposed to the deal that is SOLD OUT), along with the power usage. What am I not getting across to you?
 
Meeho said:
That was not measured during gaming and is lower than any other review out there, so it's useless.
Actually, that's exactly what it tested with.

FPS - similar - Yeah, who cares about 10-30fps more
32xAA - ?? to slow to be useful - Works flawlessly on a 2 year old i7 920 @ 4.2, maybe upgrade your dinosaur of a system??
PhysX - absolutely useless - Obviously you just play WoW or something... Of course you would think that
CUDA - slightly less useless and not that future proof - Being able to edit 4K video in real-time is useless... Cutting my export time in half doesn't give me more free time... Do you just make this stuff up?
3D Vision - proprietary, useless, gimmick (68xx has 3D support too, open one at that) - 3D gaming is useless? Try to find a vendor that support AMD's 3D gaming... Good luck.



Because it performs about the same, costs less (one model in one store in one country on other card's launch day isn't relevant), - Do you just walk into a B&M store and just buy anything at full price? Obviously you've never heard of a sale. There's plenty of sales all the time. I recently got a i7 930 for $200. It happens every couple months. What are you doing on enthusiast sites like these without knowing how to look for a deal?
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At this point, there's nothing valid being brought forward to support your claims. Just keep repeating convincing yourself that less for more is better.
 
PooprScooper said:
At this point, there's nothing valid being brought forward to support your claims. Just keep repeating convincing yourself that less for more is better.
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Great, now everyone can hush then. :D Just get the card you feel satisfies your needs.
 
PooprScooper said:
When Fanboy's are wrong, they bury their heads in the sand. Charts showing annother brand's graphics card that has more fps is "annoying" to fanboys.
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You're have a really hard time dealing with the fact ATI's midrange cards are kicking Nvidia ass. To the point that your comparing Nvidia's second best card to ATI'S midrange offerings. Just accept the fact Nvidia got their ass handed to them this round and move on. Atleast Sonda5 is happy about the 6870.
 
Harry1969 said:
You're have a really hard time dealing with the fact ATI's midrange cards are kicking Nvidia ass. To the point that your comparing Nvidia's second best card to ATI'S midrange offerings. Just accept the fact Nvidia got their ass handed to them this round and move on. Atleast Sonda5 is happy about the 6870.
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Did you realize that the 6870 is ATI's second best single GPU card as well? Both ATI(6900) and Nvidia(580) are releasing new higher end models in a couple months. I'm not sure how ATI is "kicking Nvidia's ass" when they have equally priced cards and the 470 is performing better. The 480 still walks all over a 5870, but we're comparing mid-range cards here.
 
PooprScooper said:
Did you realize that the 6870 is ATI's second best single GPU card as well? Both ATI(6900) and Nvidia(580) are releasing new higher end models in a couple months. I'm not sure how ATI is "kicking Nvidia's ass" when they have equally priced cards and the 470 is performing better. The 480 still walks all over a 5870, but we're comparing mid-range cards here.
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Well, the reason they're "kicking Nvidia's ass," so to speak, is exemplified by the fact that the 470, which ( if you look at Nvidia's classification system) is an enthusiast card, is competing with an upper-tier mid range. The 470 has dropped in price by almost $100 bucks; whereas AMD's previous generation cards have only slightly budged in price. The 5870, for instance, is still in the mid $350' in most cases.

In fact, two crossfired 6850's beat the 480 in performance, but are almost a $100 cheaper:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon_HD_6850_CrossFire/23.html

Come next month, the 480 will have to compete against both the 6950 and 6970 on its lonesome. Let alone the dual gpu 6990. The 580 won't appear until late this year/early next year (presumably).

And this is coming from someone who has typically supported Nvidia products.
 
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PooprScooper said:
Did you realize that the 6870 is ATI's second best single GPU card as well? Both ATI(6900) and Nvidia(580) are releasing new higher end models in a couple months. I'm not sure how ATI is "kicking Nvidia's ass" when they have equally priced cards and the 470 is performing better. The 480 still walks all over a 5870, but we're comparing mid-range cards here.
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We don't know how well the 470 is comparing to the 6870 in real world tests. Benchmarks are all over the place. In truth they're probably pretty close.
 
heflys20 said:
Well, the reason they're "kicking Nvidia's ass," so to speak, is exemplified by the fact that the 470, which ( if you look at Nvidia's classification system) is an enthusiast card, is competing with an upper-tier mid range. The 470 has dropped in price by almost $100 bucks; whereas AMD's previous generation cards have only slightly budged in price. The 5870, for instance, is still in the mid $350' in most cases.

In fact, two crossfired 6850's beat the 480 in performance, but are almost a $100 cheaper:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon_HD_6850_CrossFire/23.html

Come next month, the 480 will have to compete against both the 6950 and 6970 on its lonesome. Let alone the dual gpu 6990. The 580 won't appear until late/early next year (presumably).

And this is coming from someone who has typically supported Nvidia products.
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True, but you can also buy 2 460s that beat a 480 at reference as well, which is what I did when they came out. But neither can beat the 480 when overclocked properly.
True, the 580 may come out in December and the 6970 in November, but we'll see how much better the 6970 is when both are out. And that's just going to make the 470 even cheaper which makes it easier to buy a 2nd or 3rd one. We can't really argue which one will be better until both are reviewed.

I have both ATI and Nvidia cards in my systems. I just choose what's the best at the time of purchase. I still love my 5870.
 
bastage said:
@ Kyle & anyone else doing the reviews..

Being as this is not meant to be the high end cards the primary purchasers are going to be those coming from the 5770 & lower, & Especially the 4k series.. Any chance of on the next article/refresh throwing in the more popular cards in that segment (5770, 4870, 4850)
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Agreed...I'd really like to see how my 4850 xfire stacks up in the same tests.
 
raveux said:
Agreed...I'd really like to see how my 4850 xfire stacks up in the same tests.
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Not hard to figure out, 1 5870 is as fast as 2 4870's

So if you have 2 4850's you will be slower then 1 5870.
 
@PooprScooper - If you read the various reviews, and there are a lot, the GTX470 only slightly beats the HD6870 (both at stock). Yes, the GTX470 does overclock well, but at the cost of heat and power. The HD6870 was not meant to compete with the GTX470, but rather the GTX460 1GB. Up until today, the GTX470 was on average around the $300 marker, putting it above the price point of the HD6870. It's nice that Nvidia dropped the price to $259 and while you might find a deal here or there, I would imagine that in the coming weeks you will see deals on the HD6870. Even still, these two cards still are close enough in the majority of games that it's a tie. So then it comes down to performance per dollar, which the HD6870 does win currently. Out of the box the HD6870 offers more features, although both offer something unique to themselves such as Physx. But if these features are not important to you or you do not take advantage of them, then why pay for them? It's like Eyefinity, if you don't have three monitors then that's not a feature that you want to pay for. As far as power usage goes, to some it does matter. I am switching from two GTX470's to two HD6870's because I do not like the excessive power usage that two GTX470's require. Many reviews show the difference to be close to 100 watts, and Guru3d actually did a CFX versus SLI comparison. The HD6870 in CF was ahead of the GTX470 in 5 out of 8 games and Vantage going to the HD6870 CF also. So you get better performance at stock speeds from the HD6870 CF than the GTX470SLI configuration and less power use to boot.

Now as far as video editing, the only program that uses Nvidia and not ATI for GPU acceleration is Badaboomit and guess what, it currently does not support the GTX4xx series. They actually have an explanation about this in their support forums and based on what they stated back in April, I doubt we will see anything this year from them, especially since they do not update the program very often.

Don't get me wrong, the GTX470 is a great card, as I said I have two (actually three but cannot get Tri-SLI to work properly), but the fact is Nvidia had to drop prices on their cards to be able to compete head to head with the new ATI cards. Once the new HD69xx series comes out next month we will probably see more price movements from both camps.

In the end, it really comes down to what you are looking for and if the features you want are Physx and 3D Vision then Nvidia is the choice for you and there are some good choices for you. But if you want multi-monitors on one card, lower heat and lower power usage, then ATI is the better choice.
 
Sorry amd I went with two GTX460s that just went on sale. Yes in case you're wondering your stupid ADP adapter still annoys me.
 
I did a little test for curiosity sake, 6870 is faster in Unigine compared to gtx 460 1gb and 5850. I was curious about tessellation performance in the 6xxx series compared to the previous gen, the Unigine performance compared to previous gen was encouraging. There.
 
utnorris said:
Yes, the GTX470 does overclock well, but at the cost of heat and power.

Now as far as video editing, the only program that uses Nvidia and not ATI for GPU acceleration is Badaboom.

if you want multi-monitors on one card ATI is the better choice.
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I don't understand how people can come on an enthusiast site and argue against overclocking. That's what [H] is for. The extra 40 Watts of electricity is pennies. It's a 470 not a 480; huge difference.

Badaboom is just for transcoding existing files. I use Adobe CS4(Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere). Vegas, Nero, TMPGenc, Cyberlink, Folding and decryption that all make use of CUDA.

I can still run two monitors perfectly fine on a 470. But if I'm going to run 3+ monitors, I'd definitely want SLI to power the 5760x1200 resolution anyways.
 
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Well, just pulled the trigger on a 6870. It should be a decent upgrade from my 4870 512MB. Was saving my pennies for a 5870, but price is still $100 more. Also, performance-wise, saving $100 for a smaller performance decrease is well worth it. Especially now that I can justify that Savage Mark IIF .22 rifle I've had my eye on.

I know I'm paying an "early-adopters" price (though is not as high as those launches have gone in the past). With the reported crossfire scaling, down the road when these things have dropped in price, I'll prolly pick up another one.
 
Harry1969 said:
Atleast Sonda5 is happy about the 6870.
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Happy with the HD6850 as well.

I think once these cards get out to us there will be many of us who will be able to over clock the cores to 1GHZ+ like the other HD5000 cards can do.

I hope the deals on these new 6000 series cards last. When the HD5000 series came out there was a period of time that the prices were right at MSRP then they started to sky rocket.

I like to keep an eye at hwbot for video card performance information, no 6000 series information yet.
 
"Efficiency is the name of the game"

When you say less transistors and less power etc is kind of misleading when you consider 68x0 isn't any more efficient than the 5x00 series. Some improvements sure but nothing like 4x00 jump from 3x00 series. From 320SP to 800SP with very similar power emblem.

When you factor in the clock, shader and memory clocks and the performance fall where it's supposed to fall over 5x00 series.

Now if you want to compare to modern Nvidia GPU then yeah Radeon is far more efficient than Nvidia's furnace.
 
MrXROK said:
"Efficiency is the name of the game"

When you say less transistors and less power etc is kind of misleading when you consider 68x0 isn't any more efficient than the 5x00 series. Some improvements sure but nothing like 4x00 jump from 3x00 series. From 320SP to 800SP with very similar power emblem.

When you factor in the clock, shader and memory clocks and the performance fall where it's supposed to fall over 5x00 series.

Now if you want to compare to modern Nvidia GPU then yeah Radeon is far more efficient than Nvidia's furnace.
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its also efficiency in cost as well.. keeping the same performance while costing much less to produce is a big deal as well.. using less transistors, less shaders to get better performance then the 5850, while yes it may use almost the same amount of power.. the design is pretty dang efficient for the cost to produce it..
 
I read here exactly what i expected: a troll war in an enthusiast site over mid-range cards.

No one expected the 470 to fall that much, and at $259, going for $235 in SLI combos or even $220 on sale IS really atractive, expecially for those that already own a SLI capable mobo.

What i do not get is the rush of enthusiast when we are less than a month away from seeing the real deal: the 69xx series, that WILL dominate for months.

I concede that SLI has fewer problems that CF, i concede that on mid range the 470 are great, as were the 460 before. But the performance battle must change to 2560x1600 and triple monitors setups, as $180 cards handle 1920x1080 monitors without much sacrifice.

As a side note: what dou you guys expect from the 69xx? Will it finally be a worthy upgrade for my 4870x2?
 
pff. wake me up when we actually NEED these super fast graphics card for games because as of now. a good old dx9/10 card STILL does the job. im yet to see many dx10 games LET ALONE dx11.

fucking console ports
 
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jonneymendoza said:
pff. wake me up when we actually NEED these super fast graphics card for games because as of now. a good old dx9 card STILL does the job. im yet to see many dx10 games LET ALONE dx11.

fucking console ports
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show me a good old DX9 card that can play Just Cause 2, Metro 2033, and Alien vs Predator at 1920x1080 on decent settings.
 
I agree with geok1ng, lets just wait till the real cards appear. As I too like many have a 4870x2 and am looking for a proper upgrade. Perhaps only the new dual gpu card will do it and that may be pricey but it is only a couple of months away I believe, perhaps less for the single gpu cards.
 
Does anyone have any idea what sort of video cards they will be using in the next-gen consoles? I know they design the cards specifically for the console, but any estimate to what performance level we're talking about? I think that's what's going to be really interesting, seeing as it's likely to be our next 'graphics bottleneck' in games.
 
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