AMD 6850 and 6870 released, October 18

Lorien said:
The NDA for performance tests expires on Friday the 22nd so if you're not interested in specs there won't be much for you to look at.
The Asia-Pacific event is currently underway as you read this. Here is the schedule for today:
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Apparently the specs are still under NDA as well, with sites like Anand saying they are not allowed to tell us anything so it is back to watching leaks.
http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-6800-specifications-leaked/10101.html


The Radeon HD 6800 cards are based on Barts, with 1.7 billion transistors an a die size of 255 mm2. It features a tweaked architecture with a reconfigured core (details are not given), improved tessellation and IQ features. The refined architecture provides over 35% better performance/mm2. The HD 6870, based on Barts XT, features all 14 SIMD engines enabled with 1120 SP and 56 TMU, 32 ROP, clocked at 900 MHz. 4.2 GHz 1GB GDDR5 over 256-bit leads to a memory bandwidth of 134 GB/s. Dual-6 pin PCI-e connectors power the card, with a TDP of 151W. The idle power is an impressive 19W. The HD 6870 is aimed at the GTX 460 1 GB, which it comfortably outperforms by an average of 20%-30% according to AMD's internal testing.

The Radeon HD 6850 is Barts PRO. It features 12 SIMD engines - 960 SP and 48 TMU. It retains the full 32 ROPs and 256-bit memory, but is clocked at 775 MHz. Featuring a single PCIe power connector, the TDP is a reasonable 127W, and idle power is 19W. The HD 6850 is targeted at the GTX 460 768 MB and handily wipes the floor with it with an average improvement of over 30%. Of course, these are AMD's internal testing, and the real world numbers could be different, especially in lower resolutions/IQ where the GTX 460's 768 MB buffer is not a bottleneck. Still, these are huge deltas.
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Some slides. Look how busy the PR monkeys have been making it look like you get 3X the performance... :p LOL! :D

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source
 
Lol! Those marketing slides almost makes it tempting to exchange my 5870 for one of those until I look at the numbers and realize the bars doesn't mean 3X the speed. :D
 
Tamlin_WSGF said:
Lol! Those marketing slides almost makes it tempting to exchange my 5870 for one of those until I look at the numbers and realize the bars doesn't mean 3X the speed. :D
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I looks like AMD is moving it's branding price points around with the 6800 series replacing the 5830 and 5850 series and even cutting into the 5770 price range while the 6900 series will replace the 5870 and 5970
 
Sollord said:
I looks like AMD is moving it's branding price points around with the 6800 series replacing the 5830 and 5850 series and even cutting into the 5770 price range while the 6900 series will replace the 5870 and 5970
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So it seems. They are aiming directly towards the GTX 460 as was speculated. :)

If Neliz's (from B3D) numbers that he posted is correct (usually that guy is "in the know"), then the pricing are as following:

Barts Pro (6850) $179
Barts XT (6870) $239
 
Those results are beautiful. Far exceeded my expectations (particularly in 6850' case). *Cough*
 
heflys20 said:
Those results are beautiful. Far exceeded my expectations (particularly in 6850' case). *Cough*
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True, but they are marketing slides, so we should take them with a pinch/bucket of salt. :) Looking good though! Now it will be even more interesting to see how Cayman/6900 series will perform! Here's more:

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170350omjooue8uvbwbu99.jpg

source
 
True, but they are marketing slides, so we should take them with a pinch/bucket of salt.
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I was kinda being sarcastic, particularly after noticing how they rated scale. Good to see they improved tessellation.
 
heflys20 said:
I was kinda being sarcastic, particularly after noticing how they rated scale. Good to see they improved tessellation.
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Sorry, didn't catch that. :) They are above my expectations for something that was expected to replace 5770. Especially considering that they are on the same 40nm process!
 
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Tamlin_WSGF said:
Sorry, didn't catch that. :) They are above my expectations for something that was expected to replace 5770.
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Don't get me wrong, these cards are excellent, particularly for their "speculated" asking price. I'd say AMD has succeeded in their objective.
 
Tamlin_WSGF said:
Sorry, didn't catch that. :) They are above my expectations for something that was expected to replace 5770. Especially considering that they are on the same 40nm process!
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I agree it is nice improvement in performance/mm in a cycle with no process shrink. But it isn't there to replace the 5770 (which continues), Instead 58xx is splitting as I surmised before:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1036303816&postcount=358
Hence the 68xx naming, and a small move downmarket for the 68xx half of the split, to fill the large gap between 5770 and 58xx.

AMDs slide for the split:
174824quv1cwhwcszvt7ov.jpg
 
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Snowdog said:
Except it isn't there to replace the 5770 (which continues) but a small move downmarket to fill the large gap between 5770 and 58xx. I agree it is nice improvement in performance/mm in a cycle with no process shrink.
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Thats true. But, isn't Turks (I think it was) rumored to replace the 5770's in Q1 2011 (and Caycos for the lowend)? :)
 
SicKlown42012 said:
I though Turks was to replace Redwood and Caicos was to replace Cederwood.
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Thats what I think too.
Cypress (5870) gets replaced by Cayman (6970).
Juniper (5770) gets replaced by Bart (6870)
Redwood (5600/5500) gets replaced by Turks (6770)
Cedar (5400) gets replaced by Caicos (6600/6500)

But, 5770 will not be EOL this year and Turks are rumored not to be available this year. Hence Turks will take over when Juniper disappear. :)
 
What's the current expected release date for AMD's new high-end cards? I'm debating jumping on a 68xx card if they're as good as they look, but holding off until the 69xx cards come out sounds like it could pay off bigtime in terms of performance.
 
Atragon said:
What's the current expected release date for AMD's new high-end cards? I'm debating jumping on a 68xx card if they're as good as they look, but holding off until the 69xx cards come out sounds like it could pay off bigtime in terms of performance.
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Rumor says next month. :)
 
The biggest is mystery is how they can possibly do a dual Cayman card under the power budget.
 
Snowdog said:
The biggest is mystery is how they can possibly do a dual Cayman card under the power budget.
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Expect similar power savings relative to transistor count on Cayman as you see from Barts.
 
it's the 19th, a day after the amd 6850 and 6870 release, who bought these cards and where are the benchmarks?
 
Lorien said:
Expect similar power savings relative to transistor count on Cayman as you see from Barts.
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There has been no power savings vs transistor count. Simply a reduction in transistor count.

Barts is still 150watts. You can see in this slide that there has been reduction of 450 million transistors:
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/7094/170436687h6rke7o96z9h6.jpg

Even with just 50% more transistors (Evergreen had ~100% more between lines), Cayman will chow down on more than 200 watts.

So unless Cayman is only a minor 20-30% transistor and performance increase over Barts (and even less over Cypress) I don't see a dual Cayman.

In fact this may be an early indicator that Cayman will only be a minor improvement over Cypress.
 
Hulk said:
it's the 19th, a day after the amd 6850 and 6870 release, who bought these cards and where are the benchmarks?
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They "launched" pictures of the cards today. So I guess you can print them out on paper and see how they would look in your computer.
 
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I'm liking that teh 6850 only has 1 6pin PCIe power connector- looks to be nice power savings for the performance! Perf/watt and Perf/$$ are looking like they'll be up a good bit.
 
Snowdog said:
There has been no power savings vs transistor count. Simply a reduction in transistor count.
...
Even with just 50% more transistors (Evergreen had ~100% more between lines), Cayman will chow down on more than 200 watts.

So unless Cayman is only a minor 20-30% transistor and performance increase over Barts (and even less over Cypress) I don't see a dual Cayman.

In fact this may be an early indicator that Cayman will only be a minor improvement over Cypress.
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Sigh, you would make a perfect salesman for the jump to conclusions mat.

Don't forget that core clocks are higher relative to Cypress across the board, and that the quoted figures are for total board power. You should also be looking at 6850 power consumption relative to the 5870 and also at the transistor density of the chip. Also consider the fact that they blew any power savings gains in the high clock of the 6870. The 6990 will be 2x Cayman, they will hand pick the best chips and underclock them just like they did with Hemlock 5970.
Oh and prices are hitting bargain levels http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127500&cm_re=hd_5850-_-14-127-500-_-Product 5850 for less $195 after rebate

Here's a few more pictures:
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60003.jpg
 
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Thanks for the slides Lorien and Tamlin WSGF

All I can say is that those scheduler front end architectural improvements mean one thing...

AMD is going to kick some ass BIG TIME

They have more rasterization power out of less shaders and less silicon. NVIDIA just cannot compete.

My poor 5870 feels like a dinosaur compared to Barts XT and Cayman has not even come out yet!

Roll on AMD!
 
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Lorien said:
Sigh, you would make a perfect salesman for the jump to conclusions mat.

Don't forget that core clocks are higher relative to Cypress across the board, and that the

Here's a few more pictures:
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So care to place any bets on Cayman transistor count? I am betting they will only have about a 30% increase moving them back to a similar to Cypress size die around 2.2Billion.

Also that was relatively large batch of useless images. You could have posted them as just links. I found them earlier on Beyond3d and didn't even think they were worth linking, let alone posting as full size images.
 
Snowdog said:
So care to place any bets on Cayman transistor count? I am betting they will only have about a 30% increase moving them back to a similar to Cypress size die around 2.2Billion.

Also that was relatively large batch of useless images. You could have posted them as just links. I found them earlier on Beyond3d and didn't even think they were worth linking, let alone posting as full size images.
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gtfo
 
Looks like 5750/5770 will slide to < $150 market, the 6850/6870 will take the $150-250 market, and the 6950/6970/6990 market to take the > $250 market. The naming makes a lot more sense now since they arent rebranding the 5750/5770

PRIME1 said:
Seems these cards should have been called 5835 and 5845.
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PRIME1 said:
They "launched" pictures of the cards today. So I guess you can print them out on paper and see how they would look in your computer.
Click to expand...

Seems someone needs to quit trolling :rolleyes:

Let's see: multiple websites preview the 6850/6870 and say they launch this week, the AMD CEO goes in front of share holders and says the cards are launching this week, but PRIME1 knows it must be a paper launch :rolleyes:


Snowdog said:
So care to place any bets on Cayman transistor count? I am betting they will only have about a 30% increase moving them back to a similar to Cypress size die around 2.2Billion.

Also that was relatively large batch of useless images. You could have posted them as just links. I found them earlier on Beyond3d and didn't even think they were worth linking, let alone posting as full size images.
Click to expand...

Why would Cayman be only 30% more than Barts? Its already well known that Cayman is LARGER than Cypress, and seeing as how AMD got as much out of a much smaller Barts, it stands to reason that Cayman should be even more powerful
 
ZerazaX said:
Why would Cayman be only 30% more than Barts? Its already well known that Cayman is LARGER than Cypress, and seeing as how AMD got as much out of a much smaller Barts, it stands to reason that Cayman should be even more powerful
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Well known? Pretty much nothing is known about Cayman.

My reasoning is simple. 1.7Billion (Barts) + 30% = 2.2 Billion. This puts the transistor/power budget back in the Cypress realm. They will need to limit to that if they want to do a Dual Cayman card. They already had to underclock Cypress to do a dual GPU card. If they do a much bigger GPU, they will just have to underclock even more for the power budget (defeating the purpose).

So I am placing my bet that Cayman will be a modest Barts + 30%.
 
Cayman will be competing against GTX580(Fixed Fermi) so it will need to be faster that BArts+30%
 
ZerazaX said:
Looks like 5750/5770 will slide to < $150 market, the 6850/6870 will take the $150-250 market, and the 6950/6970/6990 market to take the > $250 market. The naming makes a lot more sense now since they arent rebranding the 5750/5770





Seems someone needs to quit trolling :rolleyes:

Let's see: multiple websites preview the 6850/6870 and say they launch this week, the AMD CEO goes in front of share holders and says the cards are launching this week, but PRIME1 knows it must be a paper launch :rolleyes:




Why would Cayman be only 30% more than Barts? Its already well known that Cayman is LARGER than Cypress, and seeing as how AMD got as much out of a much smaller Barts, it stands to reason that Cayman should be even more powerful
Click to expand...

Snowdog said:
Well known? Pretty much nothing is known about Cayman.

My reasoning is simple. 1.7Billion (Barts) + 30% = 2.2 Billion. This puts the transistor/power budget back in the Cypress realm. They will need to limit to that if they want to do a Dual Cayman card. They already had to underclock Cypress to do a dual GPU card. If they do a much bigger GPU, they will just have to underclock even more for the power budget (defeating the purpose).

So I am placing my bet that Cayman will be a modest Barts + 30%.
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This sounds like the makings of a friendly wager with real money. Only a month to find out about Cayman's architecture, maybe a little less.
 
""http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/6666/capture3pl.jpg
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/3834/zumsi.jpg
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/9096/0capture4.jpg
...http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/7785/capture2pl.jpg

HD6870's idle and load temps are around 44*C and 78*C respectively.

HD6870 scores 16000 GPU points in 3DMark Vantage (Performance preset).

For comparison (with less CPU power) GTX460 1GBin my rig, OC'ed to 900mhz scores 15900 GPU points too at the same test. (I have seen that guys who have more powerful CPUs than me has scored over 16500 with GTX460 1GB @900mhz. sub.ed.)

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/4360/vanfinal.jpg

And the latest gossip is that the HD6870 has 2.0 Teraflop processing power.""



So slighty slower than a GTX 460 1GB and 900MHz not bad...
 
Scottig said:
http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/6666/capture3pl.jpg
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/3834/zumsi.jpg
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/9096/0capture4.jpg
...http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/7785/capture2pl.jpg

HD6870's idle and load temps are around 44*C and 78*C respectively.

HD6870 scores 16000 GPU points in 3DMark Vantage (Performance preset).

For comparison (with less CPU power) GTX460 1GBin my rig, OC'ed to 900mhz scores 15900 GPU points too at the same test. (I have seen that guys who have more powerful CPUs than me has scored over 16500 with GTX460 1GB @900mhz. sub.ed.)

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/4360/vanfinal.jpg

And the latest gossip is that the HD6870 has 2.0 Teraflop processing power.

So slighty slower than a GTX 460 1GB and 900MHz not bad...
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if you really want to use Futuremark as the benchmark(some real gaming would be nice), since this will be performing on par with a 5850, the 6870 should be be considerably faster then the GTX460, and if the tessellation performance really is improved as much as they say it is, we will see an even larger gap where the 58xx was previously being held back by tessellation.(AKA heaven benchmark :p)
 
My post is from some dudes facebook page that has a 6870 on hand... plus I said it was slightly slower than a GTX 460 1gb at 900Mhz, not a stock GTX 460 1gb
 
you see I look at this and weep that F@H still doesn't have an AMD/ATI optimized GPU client.

All that power ready to fold....
 
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