AMD Radeon HD 6790

[onethreehill]

http://www.nordichardware.com/news/71-graphics/42743-exclusive-radeon-hd-6790-based-on-barts-le-with-800-sps.html

AMD Radeon HD 6790 will use a graphics circuit called Barts LE and as we implied in our initial article on the new card the similarities with the more powerful Radeon HD 6800 series are quite striking.

Barts LE uses AMD's classic VLIW5 architecture and will get 10 SM units (Streaming Multiprocessor) with access to a total of 800 stream processors. This can be compared to 12 SM units and 960 stream processors in Radeon HD 6850 that is based on Barts Pro.

Radeon HD 6790 has beside fewer processing units the same bus width at 256-bit and relatively powerful clock frequencies. The GPU operates at 840 MHz while the memory shuffles data at 1050 MHz (4200 MHz effectively). All to put NVIDIA's newcomer GeForce GTX 550 Ti in its place and offer a more powerful alternative to Radeon HD 5770, at a lower price than Radeon HD 6850.

[spicypixel]

Nicely done, it's looking like a solid product but as usual - the price is key

[Lanek]

Strange power consumption rumored, but like NH i don't really see why it will be so high. less core speed of the 6870 but higher of the 6850 but with less SM...
should be around the 6850 level ...


Anyway, time will tell how performance turn, but it's clearly a good news they put something between 5770-6850..

[kaktus1907]

expecting slightly faster than a gtx 460 se.. as said the price is key..

[sutyi]

After going trough the specs I was thinking that this could be great gap filler between the HD5770 and the HD 6850 if priced around 129USD. Then reading the article further I was like 2x6-pin? GTFO.

[bamtan2]

this is the point in the product cycle where I start to get confused by the names.

[Lanek]

After going trough the specs I was thinking that this could be great gap filler between the HD5770 and the HD 6850 if priced around 129USD. Then reading the article further I was like 2x6-pin? GTFO.

it's where thing start to be interesting, even if it impossible to know if this is based on non referece cards or just an error .. 2x 6 pin can mean high overclocker.
the 6850 use 1x 6pin, this card is basically a lite 6850,
so 2 solutions: there will be high clocked non reference, or this is an error.


this is the point in the product cycle where I start to get confused by the names.

need agree .. 6970/6790

[DjKlax]

The Sapphire Radeon HD 6790... too bad they don't have a picture with the power connectors, 150W seems a bit high to me.

http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/First-Pictures-of-Sapphire-Radeon-HD-6790-Graphics-Card-Leaked-4.jpg

Source here (http://news.softpedia.com/news/First-Pictures-of-Sapphire-Radeon-HD-6790-Graphics-Card-Leaked-191941.shtml)

[Pantsu]

It's going to be a similar fail as the 5830. Draws too much power and is priced too high, so there's no point in buying one. At those reference clock speeds it won't even overclock very well. If they price it at current 5770 level it might stand a chance.

[eddieobscurant]

It's going to be a similar fail as the 5830. Draws too much power and is priced too high, so there's no point in buying one. At those reference clock speeds it won't even overclock very well. If they price it at current 5770 level it might stand a chance.


I don't think so. 5830 had 16 ROP's and not 32 as the rest of 5800 series. 6790 has 32 ROP's as the rest of 6800 series, so it's going to be more like a slightly slower 6850 rather than a slightly faster 5770.

[22JHP]

another 4730 situation.unnecessary card when 6850 available.

[Olivon]

PHK talked about that 3 days ago (http://bbs.expreview.com/thread-40643-1-1.html), seems he was well-informed again.

[Tha Last Meal]

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/6060/128303274.jpg
http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/931/sapphireradeonhd69701dh.jpg

[insurgent]

this is the point in the product cycle where I start to get confused by the names.

Same here, for a second there I thought they were releasing a new high end part. A 6770 would have been less confusing.

[RSC]

Strange power consumption rumored, but like NH i don't really see why it will be so high. less core speed of the 6870 but higher of the 6850 but with less SM...
should be around the 6850 level ...


(...)

My thoughts exactly. Let's hope it's not another 4730...

[halfwaythere]

Since they are recycling the 6870 PCBs and using defective Barts chips that might be one explanation for the 2 PCI connectors. Maybe some AIBs can get away with just one.

[eXa]

Looks very interesting, wonder if they can be unlocked like 6850.

You can unlock the 6850???

[cold2010]

lol 150 w ? two 6pin !

[PatRaceTin]

i don't like xx90 code except 6990 haha

[saaya]

It's going to be a similar fail as the 5830. Draws too much power and is priced too high, so there's no point in buying one. At those reference clock speeds it won't even overclock very well. If they price it at current 5770 level it might stand a chance.
Well its closer to a 6850 than the 5830 was to the 5850 it seems... but Idk... 560 is the slowest card is consider upgrading to... anything below that isn't worth taking my rig apart...

[clayton]

Sounds like a bad 6850. :P

[masterg]

does this have double FP precision?

[BababooeyHTJ]

:( Doesn't sound too good.


The last piece of the specification is a bit confusing. Radeon HD 6790 is expected to perform worse than Radeon HD 6850, but still consume more power. AMD has specified the power consumption to maximal 150 watt, which can be compared to 129 watt for Radeon HD 6850 or 151 watt for Radeon HD 6870. With relatively high GPU and memory frequencies this sounds a lot like the launch of Radeon HD 5830 where AMD managed to launch a card that despite worse performance consumed more power than the faster brother.

Considering GeForce GTX 550 Ti is rated at 116 watt we can't really find a way to justify how Radeon HD 6790 can consume 150 watt, but this is what our sources are telling us. On March 31st we will know exactly what the number will be, but AMD has not developed a new GPU for Radeon HD 6000 but instead uses the well established Barts architecture.

[spicypixel]

Probably end up in the OEM supply chain though

[cold2010]

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/9906/19815055.jpg
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Catalyst114earlypreview.aspx

[Dark-Energy]

My guess is the 150W means max board power. To speculate, typical consumption would be less than that of a 550 Ti if they are the same speed.

[spursindonesia]

A disabled (yet not power gated) chip with high clock to compensate the low execution unit number, coming from the thrash bin, we should expect it to have a high TDP just to make sure the yield would be high, accomodating even the worst characteristically chips out there.

[Mechromancer]

The 6790 specs mirror my old 4870's specs quite closely. As my car still has the chops to play these modern games in DX10.1 mode, the 6790 looks like a decent GPU for a cheap gaming build. TDP may be an issue but if the price is right this GPU could get the job done quite well.

[-Boris-]

The 6790 specs mirror my old 4870's specs quite closely. As my car still has the chops to play these modern games in DX10.1 mode, the 6790 looks like a decent GPU for a cheap gaming build. TDP may be an issue but if the price is right this GPU could get the job done quite well.

To bad it's almost three years since this kind of performance came with radeon 4800 series. And that you probably could get this performance at that price if you bought these cards when they were phased out in favour for Radeon 5800 series. :/

[Pantsu]

Yeah, prices haven't really gone down all that much in the past years. You could get a 4890/275 for ~150€ back before 5800 release. Nowadays you'll pay the same amount for a 460 that's only barely faster. Of course they consume less power and have DX11, but still.

RV770 truly was a great generation, unlike Evergreen or SI. Evergreen more than doubled everything and gave only +60% performance. Cayman mostly improved tessellation and AA performance so it was a bit of a lackluster, and in a way resembles R600 in that it's big and not all that efficient yet. Barts on the other hand is quite optimal. Hopefully the next generation is as good as rv770 was.

[generics_user]

Yeah, prices haven't really gone down all that much in the past years. You could get a 4890/275 for ~150€ back before 5800 release. Nowadays you'll pay the same amount for a 460 that's only barely faster. Of course they consume less power and have DX11, but still.

RV770 truly was a great generation, unlike Evergreen or SI. Evergreen more than doubled everything and gave only +60% performance. Cayman mostly improved tessellation and AA performance so it was a bit of a lackluster, and in a way resembles R600 in that it's big and not all that efficient yet. Barts on the other hand is quite optimal. Hopefully the next generation is as good as rv770 was.

evergreen series were the biggest leap in power/performance in a long long time

they were 60% faster and consumed less power than RV770; cypress is still the leader in terms of power/performance

Cayman is very efficient, especially 6950 which is on par with the already excellent 5850 (power/performance); comparing it to R600 is completely wrong because R600 sucked in terms of power; performance and pricing - cayman is good in all three of them ;)

[Pantsu]

evergreen series were the biggest leap in power/performance in a long long time

they were 60% faster and consumed less power than RV770; cypress is still the leader in terms of power/performance

Cayman is very efficient, especially 6950 which is on par with the already excellent 5850 (power/performance); comparing it to R600 is completely wrong because R600 sucked in terms of power; performance and pricing - cayman is good in all three of them ;)

Evergreen more than doubled transistor count and gave 60% more performance compared to rv770. rv770 on the other hand increased transistor count by ~43% and increased performance by ~56%. The only reason Evergreen succeeded was because of the TSMC 40 nm node and Nvidia's troubles with it. 5800 series had too much shaders, and this was fixed in Barts, increasing perf/mm^2 by ~30% (IIRC).

Cayman might not be as bad as R600 compared to the contemporary competition, but it's still a new architecture and a big chip at least in AMD's books, like the R600. It didn't really bring any efficiency gains beyond the AA and tessellation improvements which don't necessaraly show up easily. The extra shaders 6970 has compared to 6950 are mostly useless (reason why AMD left 6950's unlockable), as was the case with 5870 compared to 5850. Clock to clock the performance was almost identical. Personally I think the 6950 would have been closer to the sweet spot, but obviously AMD needed a faster chip than that, even if it is much less efficient.

If all goes well, with 28 nm they can again design a chip that's as good as the rv770 was. :)

[DarthShader]

Updated: TDP around 115W?

http://www.nordichardware.com/news/71-graphics/42759-pictures-hd-6790-postponed-to-april-5th-with-lower-tdp.html

This card almost starts to look too good to be true...

[FlanK3r]

first review?http://pctuning.tyden.cz/hardware/graficke-karty/20614-amd-radeon-hd-6790-test-hlavniho-rivala-gtx-550-ti?start=1
http://pctuning.tyden.cz/ilustrace3/Sulc/radeon_hd_6790/crysis_1680.png

http://pctuning.tyden.cz/ilustrace3/Sulc/radeon_hd_6790/crysis_1680_8aa.png

http://pctuning.tyden.cz/ilustrace3/Sulc/radeon_hd_6790/crysis_1920.png

http://pctuning.tyden.cz/ilustrace3/Sulc/radeon_hd_6790/crysis_1920_8aa.png

[cold2010]

:rolleyes: Price / performance ratio

AMD Radeon HD 6970 to 3100 Kč with DPH (149 USD x 17.5 x 20% DPH)

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/2728/cenavykon16804aa.png


Total Power


http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/3545/46297590.png

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/5620/31204194.png

[DarthShader]

8xAA perf and the presentation slides tell the story - only 16 ROPs... waiting for price drops of both this and GTX550.

[Macadamia]

8xAA perf and the presentation slides tell the story - only 16 ROPs... waiting for price drops of both this and GTX550.

Looks like the Ropchop is back in full force... sad.
Funny how it seems to make a statement though: You'd have to severely neuter a 230mm^2 ATI chip to put it under the same segment as a full-spec 230mm^2 nVidia chip, and it still manages to eke out most wins.

Even sadder?


And for gamers, ffs just go all the way and get a 6850. So cheap nowadays it's barely legal.

[Pantsu]

Guess what happens when you delay launch date by a few days? There's always some people who won't get the memo. :rolleyes:


It's going to be a similar fail as the 5830. Draws too much power and is priced too high, so there's no point in buying one. At those reference clock speeds it won't even overclock very well. If they price it at current 5770 level it might stand a chance.

I rest my case. :up:

[eXa]

And for gamers, ffs just go all the way and get a 6850. So cheap nowadays it's barely legal.

In Norway atleast, i would kinda argue getting 6870 even. Cheapest 6850 is 1175,- NOK and the cheapest 6870 is 1422,- NOK
Tho i dont know the price for the 6790 yet.

(5770 is 824,- NOK)

[dacosta89]

The power consumption is very strange... I guess that this VGA will be slower (or equal) than the HD6850, however, it has 150W TDP, the same of HD6870... :shrug:

hhhhmmmm........

EDIT: Didn't see the review in this page... AMD failed again?

[cold2010]

HD 6790 = HD 6870 unlocked

PCB

HD 6790


http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/7848/16087102.jpg


HD 6870


http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6870/images/front.jpg


HD 6790


http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/9027/12772211.jpg


HD 6870

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6870/images/back.jpg

[Gaul]

its only 1 x 6 pin

[onethreehill]

first review?http://pctuning.tyden.cz/hardware/graficke-karty/20614-amd-radeon-hd-6790-test-hlavniho-rivala-gtx-550-ti?start=1

If you missed the review

Backup: http://img69.imageshack.us/g/wic19204aa.png/
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1540946&postcount=7328

[SKYMTL]

The power consumption is very strange... I guess that this VGA will be slower (or equal) than the HD6850, however, it has 150W TDP, the same of HD6870... :shrug:

TDP does not equal power consumption.

[onethreehill]

MSI HD 6790
http://vr-zone.com/articles/exclusive-pictures-of-msi-s-radeon-hd-6790/11786.html

[andos]

XFX 6790
http://img858.imageshack.us/img858/8222/xfx67901.jpg

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/2074/xfx67902.jpg

Source: http://detail.zol.com.cn/279/278624/pic.shtml

[dacosta89]

TDP does not equal power consumption.

Yes, I know. But... who knows...

[BababooeyHTJ]

This really needs to be considerably cheaper than 6850.

[XRL8]

Its meant to go against GTX 550 which is priced at 149$ ,so dont get your hopes up ;-)

[BababooeyHTJ]

Its meant to go against GTX 550 which is priced at 149$ ,so dont get your hopes up ;-)

That needs to be considerably cheaper than a 6850 too.


But it isn't. :shakes:

[eddieobscurant]

the powercolor has only one pci-e power connector !!! (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ImageGallery.aspx?CurImage=14-131-397-Z03&ISList=14-131-397-Z01%2c14-131-397-Z02%2c14-131-397-Z03%2c14-131-397-Z04%2c14-131-397-Z05%2c14-131-397-Z06&S7ImageFlag=1&Item=N82E16814131397&Depa=0&WaterMark=1&Description=PowerColor%20AX6790%201GBD5-DH%20Radeon%20HD%206790%201GB%20256-bit%20GDDR5%20PCI%20Express%202.1%20x16%20HDCP%20R eady%20CrossFireX%20Support%20Video%20Card)

[Gaul]

the powercolor has only one pci-e power connector !!! (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ImageGallery.aspx?CurImage=14-131-397-Z03&ISList=14-131-397-Z01%2c14-131-397-Z02%2c14-131-397-Z03%2c14-131-397-Z04%2c14-131-397-Z05%2c14-131-397-Z06&S7ImageFlag=1&Item=N82E16814131397&Depa=0&WaterMark=1&Description=PowerColor%20AX6790%201GBD5-DH%20Radeon%20HD%206790%201GB%20256-bit%20GDDR5%20PCI%20Express%202.1%20x16%20HDCP%20R eady%20CrossFireX%20Support%20Video%20Card)

yup, here lokal review

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=270533