SAPPHIRE HD6970 BFBC2: Vietnam Special Edition Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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SAPPHIRE HD6970 BFBC2: Vietnam Special Edition Review - The SAPPHIRE HD6970 BFBC2: Vietnam Special Edition will be competing with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 570 and NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580. We overclock the SAPPHIRE HD6970 BFBC2:V Special Edition using SAPPHIRE TriXX Tweak Utility and voltage tweaking to see how it can compare to the more expensive GTX 580.
 
nice review.. though these game edition card name schemes are getting pretty dumb..

just a note, the screenshots on the overclock page are broken..
 
Good review, just wondering how long have you had this card?? Seems like this card is a lot harder to get now then 3-5 months ago..
 
Man, with that 20W idle power, I could build a hybrid WHS\Gaming box, and only use very little extra power when not gaming. NICE!

Now, all I need is a low idle power CPU to go with that. :)
 
Good review. Page 7 images do not seem to work.

I'm impressed with what they can now do with a 6970 to be so close, and sometimes edging out a 580 is feat in itself considering the initial differences in the cards. I guess this is reflected with the limited availability now.
 
Kinda sick increase in BC2 fps with the overclock. Any idea if it was the memory or the GPU speed which made the huge difference?
 
Raap said:
Kinda sick increase in BC2 fps with the overclock. Any idea if it was the memory or the GPU speed which made the huge difference?
Click to expand...

with my experience it would be gpu since it effects the shader clocks. shader and gpu clocks seem to be the most important due to the fact that the game will try to use 100% of the gpu available to it.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
with my experience it would be gpu since it effects the shader clocks. shader and gpu clocks seem to be the most important due to the fact that the game will try to use 100% of the gpu available to it.
Click to expand...

There was quite obviously some kind of threshold/bottleneck conquered with the overclock. Perhaps resolving AA in this game is particularly bandwidth intensive for ATI cards?.
 
Another good 6970 but after reading sooooo many reviews for sooooo many 6970s I realize that 6950s unlocked is the way to go. My cards run 24/7 at the overclock in this article on the 6970 and I paid some $90 less per card. The only compelling 6970s IMHO are the uber high end such as the msi lightning range of cards from manufacturers. Those for the most part get you to over 1050mhz core 1450 memory ballpark and make a worthy adversary to a overclocked GTX 580 with a slight nod going to the GTX 580.

On brute force nvidia took this round performance and IQ wise, on value and enjoyability AMD took this round big.
 
Action_Parsnip said:
There was quite obviously some kind of threshold/bottleneck conquered with the overclock. Perhaps resolving AA in this game is particularly bandwidth intensive for ATI cards?.
Click to expand...

probably, i know its something in the last major patch that broke the fixes AMD came up with for BC2 but it really only effects the card in single player where as multiplayer ATI/AMD cards are just as good as they were prior to the patch. but its pretty much impossible to benchmark that to show the difference.
 
I am getting way better framerates in bc2 and fear 3 with my 570 no oc. I am oc'd to 4ghz on my i7 950 tho. Sadly i have no numbers to back this up immediately.
 
Thanks for the review... it still amazes me how much bang for buck you can get nowadays.

I found the reason why the GTX580 was slow though... On the Test Setup page it says the memory is at 6.14 MHz :D
 
Great review, I too found the OC results for BFBC2 interesting...that increase seems a little bit crazy.

Typo:
On page 8,
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 through
through should be threw?
 
but will they work in crossfire or is the sticker just for show lol!

suprised to see a BFBC2 version of this card when bfbc2 is broken with crossfire for alot of people
 
Videocard = Value matters~
Watercooling = Value matters~
Motherboard = Expensive is better~

Sigh.
 
Great review guys. I like your conclusion the best that you wouldn't pay $400+ for a 6970 as that is pretty much how I feel unless there was a compelling reason such as a kickass custom cooler. Despite your positive experiences, there are better deals from companies that also have better warranties(temporarily ignore that most of us either don't use the same video card for 2+years or immediately void the warranty anyway).

Maybe it is just me, but all of these articles after articles on 6000 and 500 series GPU's are really making me wish that the next gen ATI 7000/nVidia 600 series were closer than they appear to be.
 
OpStar said:
Videocard = Value matters~
Watercooling = Value matters~
Motherboard = Expensive is better~

Sigh.
Click to expand...

Recently Awarded Mobos at $200 or less:
http://hardocp.com/article/2011/04/13/msi_890fxagd65_am3_motherboard_review/
http://hardocp.com/article/2011/05/11/asus_p8z68v_pro_z68_chipset_motherboard_review/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=3891137&SID=194r0
http://hardocp.com/article/2011/06/14/asus_p8p67_motherboard_review/
http://hardocp.com/article/2011/07/28/gigabyte_z68xud3hb3_motherboard_review/

Now get off your soapbox and do not try to highjack or threadcrap our review threads with your personal issues. Should you take issue, please post YOUR OWN THREAD about it. This is the only time I will ask nicely.
 
Oh joy A card branded with a crapy console noob Battlefield game they try to pass off as a real PC Battlefield game...


No thanks Wake me when they get a card branded with a real PC game like Battlefield 3 ... none of that bad company console crap they try to make PC people think it was made with the pc in mind...


Seriously who thought of this crap branding idea why didn't they just make it a Battlefield 3 card?
 
Vietnam Edition? Most of this kind of thing is questionable but....

Thats really quite tasteless. Sorry.
 
Cube said:
Oh joy A card branded with a crapy console noob Battlefield game they try to pass off as a real PC Battlefield game...


No thanks Wake me when they get a card branded with a real PC game like Battlefield 3 ... none of that bad company console crap they try to make PC people think it was made with the pc in mind...


Seriously who thought of this crap branding idea why didn't they just make it a Battlefield 3 card?
Click to expand...

really dude? i'm pretty sure everyone of us that plays BFBC2 knows its a console ported game.. obviously you are the only one that has a problem with it.. this is by far the weakest arguement i've ever seen from some one.. if you don't like that its a game edition branded card then say it. but the whole its not a real pc game argument ended a long time ago..

and why didn't they make it a BF3 card? because this cards been out for a long time. its just a game edition branded reference 6970.


quikt said:
I am getting way better framerates in bc2 and fear 3 with my 570 no oc. I am oc'd to 4ghz on my i7 950 tho. Sadly i have no numbers to back this up immediately.
Click to expand...

is that single player or multiplayer? multiplayer BFBC2 vs singleplayer BFBC2 is about a 15-20fps(in some cases it can be higher) difference with the exact same settings in favor of multiplayer. most of the updates done in BC2 only effect the multiplayer. single player is pretty much exactly the same as it was the day it came out.
 
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mi1stormilst said:
Wish I could read the review, but the link is dead )-:
Click to expand...

Actually, it seems like all the links to [H] articles are dead. And all the review section links (GPU, Motherboards, CPU, etc.)

EDIT: All fixed. Reading review now.
 
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Good review, but .. what were they thinking with the naming scheme...

"Yea I got a new video card... its a HD6970 BFBC2: Vietnam Special Edition ...."


What a mouth fulll
 
daglesj said:
Vietnam Edition? Most of this kind of thing is questionable but....

Thats really quite tasteless. Sorry.
Click to expand...

I think this is indicative of how Sapphire's chinese(Hong Kong?) owners do not understand cultural differences. I agree with you as the naming of this card is VERY tasteless as people don't have very fond memories of the Vietnam war.
 
amdgamer said:
I think this is indicative of how Sapphire's chinese(Hong Kong?) owners do not understand cultural differences. I agree with you as the naming of this card is VERY tasteless as people don't have very fond memories of the Vietnam war.
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not sure how its really tasteless, if it wasnt advertising a game then i could you guys having a point. but the fact is it clearly advertises BFBC2: Vietnam DLC how else are they going to advertise the vietnam dlc without vietnam in the name?

obviously no one in the game industry cares about cultural differences or we wouldnt see ww2 games with nazis or vietnam era games.

pretty much any game rated T or higher is going to offend someone some where.
 
Typo on first paragraph of the last page:

F.E.A.R. 3 : The GeForce GTX 580 was not competitive in this game, while gameplay between the SAPPHIRE HD6970 BFBC2:V Special Edition and the GeForce GTX 580 was nearly identical at 2560x1600 and FXAA, just favoring SAPPHIRE's card by 1.5 average FPS. In our Apples-to-Apples test at 1920x1200 and 4X MSAA the SAPPHIRE HD6970 BFBC2:V Special Edition once again edged out the GeForce GTX 580, while the other Apples-to-Apples with FXAA favored the GTX 580. Our overclocked SAPPHIRE HD6970 BFBC2:V Special Edition gained a small performance furthering its lead over the GeForce GTX 580.
Click to expand...
Think you meant 570?
 
One of the strong points of the card is that you get a mini/dp by HDMI with it and it should of been called the BC2 Vietnam Eyefinity Edition.

I do play the game like so but with a mini/dp by DVI which cost me about $29 from newegg and the card really handles itself with that extar 1Gb of ram and is a better performer then even my old CX5850 in Eyefinity playing the same game.
 
Wildace said:
not sure how its really tasteless, if it wasnt advertising a game then i could you guys having a point. but the fact is it clearly advertises BFBC2: Vietnam DLC how else are they going to advertise the vietnam dlc without vietnam in the name?

obviously no one in the game industry cares about cultural differences or we wouldnt see ww2 games with nazis or vietnam era games.

pretty much any game rated T or higher is going to offend someone some where.
Click to expand...
seconded. I hope those people don't wear any mass produced clothing or Nike sneakers.. wouldn't want to support the commies! I guess they should rename the country too just in case someone reads a map and gets offended ;)
 
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