AMD Radeon HD6950/6970(Cayman) Reviews

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Originally Posted by nerfed08

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6950/
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6970/

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finally some opengl benchmarks

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The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a first person shooter game set in a far future. You are Riddick, a notorious space criminal played by Vin Diesel in the movies. Dark Athena continues where Escape from Butcher Bay ended. A major aspect of the game is its tactical use of shadows and stealth so that enemies can't detect you. Vin Diesel's voice acting also adds greatly to the game experience.
The 0.0 FPS scores for NVIDIA cards at 2560x1600 are caused by driver crashes which seem to be related to card with 512 MB memory and below. Since it works fine on ATI this is not a game problem but an NVIDIA driver issue.

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Originally Posted by Mad Pistol

They disabled some of the SP's.

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Huh? :confused:

Gigabyte HD6970//HD6950 review at Lab501.ro

Anandtech review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...radeon-hd-6950

why are there only 7 reviews at launch? :confused:
is this a preview of things to come, as in bad availability? :/

it has less shaders than a 5870????
what the h3ll amd??? :( :shrug:

EDIT: 73W blue ray playback power consumtpion??? thats almost double that of a 5870?
EDIT2: same performance as a GTX570/GTX480???
EDIT3: only overclocks around 5% on gpu and 5% on memory????????

WHAT THE H3LL AMD????
this is the worst POS you guys have launched since R600! :(
399$ for this???
cause its faster in unigine? WHO THE H3LL CARES ABOUT UNIGINE!!!!!!!!!!
god im so soooo dissapointed...

the only advantage amd has is that their chip is smaller, which doesnt make a difference in chip costs as 40nm yields should be pretty damn mature right now... *facepalm*
and even if its cheaper to make, they are trying to sell it for more than a 570? FU AMD!
if it would at least cost less than a 570...
boy what a disappointment...

Wow just wow. Apples to apples paints a much better picture from Hardocp vs the other reviews. Interesting.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/...eo_card_review
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews.php?reviewid=1084
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/g...0-und-hd-6950/

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Huh? :confused:

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The original model from AMD's press conference said the 6970 was supposed to be a 1920 SP card. The 6970 we have now is a 1536 SP card.

What it was supposed to be:

6970: 1920 SP
6950: 1536 SP



What actually happened:

6970: 1536 SP
6950: 1408 SP




It looks like they moved everything down a level. This might confirm the yield issues that were rumored to be happening. It also leaves the door open to a 6990 in the future.

me doin good?^^

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Originally Posted by Mad Pistol

The original model from AMD's press conference said the 6970 was supposed to be a 1920 SP card. The 6970 we have now is a 1536 SP card.

What it was supposed to be:

6970: 1920 SP
6950: 1536 SP



What actually happened:

6970: 1536 SP
6950: 1408 SP




It looks like they moved everything down a level. This might confirm the yield issues that were rumored to be happening. It also leaves the door open to a 6990 in the future.

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I may be completely off my rocker but AMD stated that there are no disabled SMD engines.

AMD and NVIDIA seed false info to certain press outlets to narrow down where leaks are coming from.


You never know though but at 30 SIMDs, this would be one hell of a hot and power hungry chip.

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Originally Posted by safan80

finally some opengl benchmarks

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The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a first person shooter game set in a far future. You are Riddick, a notorious space criminal played by Vin Diesel in the movies. Dark Athena continues where Escape from Butcher Bay ended. A major aspect of the game is its tactical use of shadows and stealth so that enemies can't detect you. Vin Diesel's voice acting also adds greatly to the game experience.
The 0.0 FPS scores for NVIDIA cards at 2560x1600 are caused by driver crashes which seem to be related to card with 512 MB memory and below. Since it works fine on ATI this is not a game problem but an NVIDIA driver issue.

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I don't see no zeros lol did they recycle text from 2009

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/3...na25601600.gif

Hmmm that techpowerup paints a somewhat disappoint picture. About the same speed as a gtx 570(the 6970 has a slight edge) but it is a little more expensive. It's a lot cheaper than the $450 I had expected, but its now wonder, it priced appropriately compared to the gtx 570 which is more or less same speed. Both are better values compared to the gtx 580, but waiting for the 69xx has really brought nothing to the pricing landscape. It competes price wise and performance wise with an existing product.

Thank goodness we have competition though. I imagine this card would have been significantly more expensive if NV didn't release the gtx 570 and 580.

Although it is a good step in the right direction with the increase power tesselation power, it appears to take a couple steps back with power consumption and heat.

I do expect driver's to increase performance, its no wonder there was a delay though. AMD needed as much performance out of their drivers as they can get. I expect improvements out of drivers(more than usual) because I can't imagine AMD disappointing this much. For that much change in the arch and to get 25% better than the 5870, it is rather disappointing. I don't think it close to being worthy of the 6970 moniker though. I expect good driver's to bring out alot more performance.

This is a so so product so far.

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Originally Posted by saaya

why are there only 7 reviews at launch? :confused:
is this a preview of things to come, as in bad availability? :/

it has less shaders than a 5870????
what the h3ll amd??? :( :shrug:

EDIT: 73W blue ray playback power consumtpion??? thats almost double that of a 5870?

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Plenty around....

General 6970/6950 Reviews:
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-R...-Enter-Cayman/
http://pcper.com/article.php?aid=1051
http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rade...html?doc=10474
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...radeon-hd-6950
http://www.fudzilla.com/reviews/item...hd-6950-tested
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/...eo_card_review
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...50-review.html
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...roduction.html
http://www.hardwarezone.com/features/view/109424
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=27983
http://www.pureoverclock.com/article1164.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...yman,2818.html

6970 Specific:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...=605&Itemid=72
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...=606&Itemid=72
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/gra...-6970-review/1
http://www.legionhardware.com/articl...970_2gb,1.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6970/
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/373...ard/index.html

6950 Specific:
http://www.modders-inc.com/modules.p...Story&reid=340
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6950/
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/373...ard/index.html

I don't know what to make of this 6970 release... seems half the games it's WAY slower in (especially min FPS) than a GTX 580, some it's neck-in-neck.... much less expensive @ $370 vs. 510ish but the thing is so inconsistent it's unbelievable :(. I'm glad I opted against listing my 580 on the 'bay for the time being. Still, if they had managed to even out the performance across the board... this would have been an unbelievably good release.

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

I may be completely off my rocker but AMD stated that there are no disabled SMD engines.

AMD and NVIDIA seed false info to certain press outlets to narrow down where leaks are coming from.

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Seeing as you've reviewed these cards, I have a feeling you're probably right.

This is rather disappointing to be honest.

However, since it only uses 250-watts at max, that leaves some room for a dual-GPU card. If that's the case, AMD may yet claim the prize of top dog.

6950/GTX570 = pound for pound champ this round.

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Originally Posted by Mad Pistol

I just noticed this:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...1&limitstart=3

The 6970 only has 1536 Stream Processors, and yet it's beating the 5870 (1600 SP) by a healthy margin. What happened to the 1920 SP monster we were hearing about???


I don't believe it. They disabled some of the SP's.


The HD 6970 is AMD's version of the GTX 480! :shocked:

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read mate

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What does it do? Easy enough, it swaps the shader count. The 'normal' count is 1920 for a 205W 6970 card, and the switch opens up the full force of all 2520 shaders. The reason this switch is set to 'low' is that between the clock speed advances, 730MHz/1920 shaders to 920MHz/2520 shaders, it blows the card through the 300W cap for PCIe cards.

This switch is an elegant way of going from sub-GTX570 performance to way way way over GTX580 performance, and still getting PCIe certification. Very slick guys, well done. If you don't have the right drivers though, the switch does basically nothing, which is why those who bough the card retail haven't seen the results they think they should get.

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Originally Posted by kadozer

6950/GTX570 = pound for pound champ this round.

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That doesn't sound right, makes it sound like the best. I prefer price/performance ratio.

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Originally Posted by Johnny87au

read mate

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I think it's you who needs to re-examine that article's intent

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Originally Posted by Johnny87au

read mate

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That's BS. The switch is a simply BIOS swap that is loaded with two default BIOS images. One of the BIOS images can be over-written with custom data for the overclockers out there who are willing to venture into that area.

could still be that cayman has 1920sps, and the yield problem isnt about them being broken, but all the sps running too hot, which is why they had to disable sps...
less sps at higher clocks seem to be faster than more sps at lower clocks... so this would make sense, especially if you factor in that mem bw isnt infinitive...

so what, after amd doing 40nm right, they somehow "forgot" how to design a chip for that node? :confused:
this doesnt make any sense whatsoever... wth is going on at amd???

semiaccurate is a gag article always read the end :ROTF:

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Editor's note: This article heavily uses the new HTML6.2 <sarcasm> and <bullsh*t> tags. If your browser does not support them, please upgrade to a version that does. Thank you.

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semiaccurate.com

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Originally Posted by saaya

could still be that cayman has 1920sps, and the yield problem isnt about them being broken, but all the sps running too hot, which is why they had to disable sps...
less sps at higher clocks seem to be faster than more sps at lower clocks... so this would make sense, especially if you factor in that mem bw isnt infinitive...

so what, after amd doing 40nm right, they somehow "forgot" how to design a chip for that node? :confused:
this doesnt make any sense whatsoever... wth is going on at amd???

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1920 was likely for the 32nm Ibiza card. On 40nm that number would have pushed the HD 6970 well beyond the 300W mark if AMD had any hope of retaining nominal clock speeds.

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

That's BS. The switch is a simply BIOS swap that is loaded with two default BIOS images. One of the BIOS images can be over-written with custom data for the overclockers out there who are willing to venture into that area.

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Yeah thats what i was thinking, the switch for bios protection, 3 sites ive been too are BS.. i swear what is this world coming to :shrug:

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

1920 was likely for the 32nm Ibiza card. On 40nm that number would have pushed the HD 6970 well beyond the 300W mark if AMD had any hope of retaining nominal clock speeds.

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thats what I thought as well, wasn't this architecture intended more for a smaller process? that being 32nm

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

1920 was likely for the 32nm Ibiza card. On 40nm that number would have pushed the HD 6970 well beyond the 300W mark if AMD had any hope of retaining nominal clock speeds.

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That sounds right, and that would explain why the SP count is actually lower than it is on the 5870. The 6970 is still about 10% faster (without driver optimizations). The only way I can see that as viable is that the core clock is slightly higher and that the architecture was slightly revised.

Other than that, everything else checks out. It's just... weird. I know we didn't have a node reduction this time, but for Nvidia to produce a huge architectural improvement and AMD not has me trying to guess what happened. From what I can figure out, Cypress came out exactly the way it was supposed to and GF100 didn't. Enter GF110, and suddenly everything is wonderful in Nvidia's camp, while AMD is trying to bleed Cayman for every ounce of performance that it can.

In other words...




GF110 is the bee's knees.

Cypress is the bee's knees.

Cayman is trying really hard to make honey from tired bees. :p:

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Originally Posted by kuroikenshi

thats what I thought as well, wasn't this architecture intended more for a smaller process? that being 32nm

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Yes. Cayman is a direct port of Ibiza. Maybe the high-end Ibiza was left out in the cold after TSMC cancelled 32nm. We will likely never know...

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Originally Posted by tdream

That doesn't sound right, makes it sound like the best. I prefer price/performance ratio.

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Its boxing terms its the closest term to price/performance. pound for pound /= best

if Muhammad Ali = best heavyweight all time (would beat every boxer in any weight class)
Sugar Ray Robinson middleweight = pound for pound greatest (varying qualities factored in relative to weight class)

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Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Yes. Cayman is a direct port of Ibiza. Maybe the high-end Ibiza was left out in the cold after TSMC cancelled 32nm.

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and my chick still loves your logo... apparently rodents is where its at

Are there ANY reviews with the Catalyst 10.12 drivers??

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Originally Posted by Xope_Poquar

Are there ANY reviews with the Catalyst 10.12 drivers??

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Hardware Canucks. :up:

Hardwarecanucks has one with 10.12

So does Anandtech.

Well, waiting for 28nm after reading Canucks review and scanning others.

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Originally Posted by Mad Pistol

I know we didn't have a node reduction this time, but for Nvidia to produce a huge architectural improvement and AMD not has me trying to guess what happened.

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NVIDIA didn't make any huge architectural changes...

If you clock the GTX480 and GTX580 at the same speeds, the performance difference is nearly exactly in line with the increase in SPs. GF110 is just GF100 with all of the shaders enabled and tweaked to lower the god-awful power consumption.

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Originally Posted by GoldenTiger

How can you say hot at normal noise fan is ok when it would be noisy to oc when a 580 is not?

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Why would the 6970 be noisy when overclocking but the 580 wouldn't be? By all accounts, the 6970 is quieter than the 570 at stock, so that gives it a lot of headroom in the noise department.

ASUS Radeon HD 6950 CrossFire Review
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...950_CrossFire/

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Originally Posted by Dark-Energy

So does Anandtech.

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Actually anand use 10.11

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For the launch of the Radeon HD 6900 series, AMD supplied us with a 6900-enabled version of the Catalyst 10.11 driver, version 8.79.6.2RC2. This is older than the Catalyst 10.12 preview released Monday, which was 8.8xx.

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Originally Posted by chuchnit

Hardware Canucks. :up:

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Originally Posted by kite7

Hardwarecanucks has one with 10.12

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Thanks! :up:

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Originally Posted by Chrono Detector

The 6970 card runs slower than the GTX 580 and runs hotter than the GTX 580? WTF?

ATI really messed up here.

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Not really, but it is a slap to the face of those who were barking the 6970 would rape the 580 by every measure. Not enough that they would ever admit it though. Seems to me everyone here is content.

Looks like the cards mostly shine when playing at 1920x1200 w/ AA or 2560x1600, since that's where most of the performance improvements are coming from.

As far as "inconsistent" performance - like I wrote many posts earlier in the other thread, it performs a lot more consistently than the 5870 does compared to the 480/570. That is, the 6970 is consistently closer to the 480/570 than the 5870, where it fluctuates up and down from within 10% to out 50%.

It's a sign of being readjusted for DX11

The 6950 CF is looking like the 460 SLi of 3 months ago.

Wow, was looking pretty good earlier with the pricing, this explains it. WTF now?

yeh totally agree, from the HW Canucks review it only really wins in like 2 tests, Sits pretty much on par with the 570 like 5% better give or take.. 2560x1600 and higher resolutions is where its at though, 2gb ram does come in handy for something.. After being hyped up for a whole week waiting for reviews i might skip cayman and go with SLI 570s, seems like a better deal..

6950 CF is where it's at ;)

What, who did 6950CF ? Can't find it.

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Originally Posted by Etihtsarom

What, who did 6950CF ? Can't find it.

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http://techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/...950_CrossFire/

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Originally Posted by Etihtsarom

What, who did 6950CF ? Can't find it.

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Techpowerup. :p:

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Originally Posted by Etihtsarom

What, who did 6950CF ? Can't find it.

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First page will help u... CF :)

Is there a head to head chart/graph of the 5870 2gb vs. either 6950 or 6970?

they do scale very well compare to 570's SLI and cheaper too.. for comparison

6950 1920x1200
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ASUS/Radeo..._1920_1200.gif

And 570 SLI
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforc...0-sli-review/6

smart move to produce little stock of 2gb 5850/5870's at high price so they can put it in 69x0's :p:

most reviewers even act as if the 2gb versions never existed.. hmm.. need to grab another 5850 2gb card :)

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Originally Posted by Johnny87au

yeh totally agree, from the HW Canucks review it only really wins in like 2 tests, Sits pretty much on par with the 570 like 5% better give or take.. 2560x1600 and higher resolutions is where its at though, 2gb ram does come in handy for something.. After being hyped up for a whole week waiting for reviews i might skip cayman and go with SLI 570s, seems like a better deal..

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That depends on what reviews you want to read. HardOCP, anand, tcpup, cayman looks pretty good.

Aim for 580 for much less. So it's like a 570 with OC.

I was realistically pessimistic about performance and after reading, techpowerup, anandtech and hwcanucks, I don't want to get any of these cards and I am still disappointed in performance. It really is disappointing considering some of the hype of this product. I don't know how the users that hyped this up to be r300 and genuinely thought it was going to be such a product are feeling, I pity their disappointment because I felt the same about fermi and cypress.

Nonetheless, this has got to be the smallest performance increase from AMD ever, even when recycling and modifying old technology. Its not as disastrous, but the only time AMD had such a small increase between generations was between 1950xt and 2900xt. This is not worthy of the 69xx name. The bad naming combined with the disappointing performance really makes this more disappointing than usual.

If the gtx 580 and cayman has taught us anything, until we switch to a new node with big chips, you can't expect miracles to happen with performance.

The one to blame should be TSMC at the end for this "new generations".

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Originally Posted by tajoh111

I was realistically pessimistic about performance and after reading, techpowerup, anandtech and hwcanucks, I don't want to get any of these cards and I am still disappointed in performance. It really is disappointing considering some of the hype of this product. I don't know how the users that hyped this up to be r300 and genuinely thought it was going to be such a product are feeling, I pity their disappointment because I felt the same about fermi and cypress.

Nonetheless, this has got to be the smallest performance increase from AMD ever, even when recycling and modifying old technology. Its not as disastrous, but the only time AMD had such a small increase between generations was between 1950xt and 2900xt. This is not worthy of the 69xx name. The bad naming combined with the disappointing performance really makes this more disappointing than usual.

If the gtx 580 and cayman has taught us anything, until we switch to a new node with big chips, you can't expect miracles to happen with performance.

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its somewhat true what your saying but think about the 6990, im guessing since AMD didnt give us the full shader count this time round the 6990 should have it all! Besides look at the CF 6950s it seems these cards rock in CROSSFIRE, amd always has.. in some of the benches i looked at it even beats some of the 580 SLI scores.. i think we have a winner!

6950 is a real winner but 6970 looks like a letdown, amd could've done better
power numbers are disappointing, while nvidia improved on their last cards amd got worse


looks like nvidia won this round

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Originally Posted by Johnny87au

its somewhat true what your saying but think about the 6990, im guessing since AMD didnt give us the full shader count this time round the 6990 should have it all! Besides look at the CF 6950s it seems these cards rock in CROSSFIRE, amd always has.. in some of the benches i looked at it even beats some of the 580 SLI scores.. i think we have a winner!

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the 6950 in CF is fantastic it beats the 570 in SLI in most of the tests. Now, the 6990 speculation will begin!

As for the cards I don't know which to buy yet " I need to buy the 30" monitor first "

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Originally Posted by Johnny87au

its somewhat true what your saying but think about the 6990, im guessing since AMD didnt give us the full shader count this time round the 6990 should have it all! Besides look at the CF 6950s it seems these cards rock in CROSSFIRE, amd always has.. in some of the benches i looked at it even beats some of the 580 SLI scores.. i think we have a winner!

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The CF performance is kind of nice but for a new 6xxx series don't you expect more. I mean, if we compare it to any of the past generations, you simply got alot more performance. Everytime we jumped from one high end generation to the next, we got a bigger jump from AMD. This jump was so small in comparison. As I imagine, alot of people here have 5870's and 5850's. For those people, there has never been so little incentive to upgrade from one generation to the next. It would be far better for them to just get another card and CF the last generation.

hope there will be no reviews in 10 hours xD wanna sleep xD

GTX 570 = King of the Ring = 350$

HD 6970 = fail = 370$

AMD WTF :shakes:

Seems some people look at averages where they include 1024x768/1280x1024 and the like. Seriously, would you buy a card of this level for those resolutions?

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon...rfrel_1920.gif

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon...rfrel_2560.gif

Places at the right position with an awesome price. Is that not a win?


And this average includes FC2/Hawx wich are known as being Nvidia's pets. And the once nvidia's users favorite metro 2033 now gets the AMD love.


HardOCP conclusion (mostly what I think):
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/..._card_review/9

Well really all depends what resolution you play and the budget you have to spend, I agree with AMD only taking a small leap forward but atleast we have there latest card to look forward too! Nvidia has released its high end cards which are 580/570/480 AMD hasnt, seems to me amd is playing it smart look at the price/performance on the 6950 compare to the 570, the 570 is pretty much on par with the 6970 yet the 6950 smashes it when doubling up, Cant always expect a card to be released which is gonna take the crown yet yield the best temps/power consumption and prices! I say wait for the 6990 with full shaders!! Thats what this thread should of been about, so many peeps expecting high end performance what a shame though... @breezy i'd go CF 6950s for sure.. Cant beat the price to performance ratio..

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Originally Posted by Nintendork

Places at the right position with an awesome price. Is that not a win?

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Its definitely priced nice relative to performance but fails to live up to the pre-release hype, we where expecting a Jedi but we got a Padawan.

I think the HD 6970 and HD 6950 is good for high end.

The HD 6970 with the performance -5% less or similar to GTX 580 in 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 (full AA, AF) and 140$ less

The HD 6950 with the performacne same to GTX 570 in 1920x1200 and 2560x1600( full AA, AF) and 50$ less.

Especially in 8xMSAA and the first 8.9 beta driver.

I Think we can see the true increase for new architecture in the next driver 11.1 :)

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Originally Posted by Nintendork

Seems some people look at averages where they include 1024x768/1280x1024 and the like. Seriously, would you buy a card of this level for this resolutions?

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon...rfrel_1920.gif

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon...rfrel_2560.gif

Places at the right position with an awesome price. Is that not a win?

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The reason it is not win for alot of people is there was such a small performance jump from this generation. If you look at alot of the sig of people that wanted to get this card, they have a 5870.

People were expecting more performance from a new generation from AMD. Considering what AMD did with Barts on the same technology, on a smaller die, it was only right for people to expect alot more from a chip that is more than 50% bigger and using completely new technology.

The price to performance is good but it just matches the gtx 570 in this regard. Alot of people expected AMD to crush NV in this regard and it really doesn't. The only really positive review was HARDOCP and thats about it. Some people are positive like hardwarecanucks, but most are on the fence or disappointed, particularly with the 6970. The 6950 is good too, but it is not really a knockout. Especially when compared to AMD past products.

I can't believe alot of you guys were slamming SKYMTL last week for trying to control your expectations and not to expect so much. He was probably the closest to giving accurate performance for the 6970 and he had an NDA.

Well there's always next year.:ROTF: Looking forward to the next huge thread and checking in several times a day for the latest chiphell rumor.

I blame TSMC or GlobalFoundries or whoever supplies both AMD/ATI and NVIDIA those wafer chips for scrapping 32nm and going to 28nm causing delays, if 6xxx was on 32nm it would have been better. Bad move. Being stuck on 40nm obviously had limitations and now I see that why ATI had to cut the shader count in order to reduce power consumption and heat output.

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Originally Posted by tajoh111

The only really positive review was HARDOCP and thats about it

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Well hardocp has a different method of testing, two different brands get tested with different settings, not what you would call apples to apples but thats their thing I guess.

In canada the price of the gtx 570 is much better because of the bundles.

Here are the 6970's.

http://www.ncix.com/search/?categoryid=0&q=6970

Look at what this gtx 570 comes with and other are like it too.

http://www.ncix.com/search/?categoryid=0&q=gtx+570

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=57...=MSI/MicroStar

1. Just Cause 2 (PC Game) Coupon for Digital Download *NVIDIA Promo Only* (a $59.99 value!)
1. StarCraft II Free Trial Coupon for Digital Download *NVIDIA Promo Only* (a $14.99 value!)
1. Metro 2033 Free PC Game Coupon for Digital Download *MSI Promo Only* (a $49.99 value!)
1. Mafia 2 (PC Game) Coupon for Digital Download *NVIDIA Promo Only* (a $49.99 value!)
1. Ubisoft Tom CLANCY''''S H.A.W.X 2 (PC Game) Coupon for Digital Download *NVIDIA Promo Only* (a $49.99 value!)

This gtx is priced like a normal one but comes with 4 games. The 6970's and AMD card's in general sparely come with anything. With a bundle of 4 games, it's a crazy value compared to anything out from either side. Its things like this that make me not even want a 6970 or 6950(note I am not buying a gtx 570).

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Originally Posted by highoctane

Its definitely priced nice relative to performance but fails to live up to the pre-release hype, we where expecting a Jedi but we got a Padawan.

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They're not priced at $400+. So they stay with their 4000/5000 motto, more sales and marketshare.

Yes, a Padawan with Anakin skills.

Well, considering that in most of reviews they used 10.10 or 10.11 drivers, don't you think that the real performances will be clear when AMD releases 10.12? I mean, the Big Cayman could run nearly as fast as Gtx580 with some (5+10%) driver encrease!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nintendork

They're not priced at $400+. So they stay with their 4000/5000 motto, more sales and marketshare.

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They are priced to stay competitive, nothing more, nothing less.

We've already seen, that they can take advantage of the situation and hike the prices...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nintendork

They're not priced at $400+. So they stay with their 4000/5000 motto, more sales and marketshare.

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They seem priced more relative to performance/price of the competition, which is why we like competition.

Quote:

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Yes, a Padawan with Anakin skills.

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You know anakin may of had allot of potential but he got burned ugly. :)

Maybe it should be we expected a wookie fight and got an ewok.

The difference between 570 and 580 is tiny. So talking about 6970 is talking about both of them, is not like the 580 is a hell lot faster than his little brother. On average we can call 6970 a "575" with reasons to improve with drivers cause of the new arc(and fix some games with bizarre numbers). Fermi just waits to Kepler.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nintendork

Places at the right position with an awesome price. Is that not a win?

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barely faster than a 470 and notably more expensive
same speed as a 570 and costs more...
by what definition is that a "win"?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nintendork

HardOCP conclusion (mostly what I think):
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/..._card_review/9

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you mean this:

Quote:

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If the GeForce GTX 580 had not just shown up, the Radeon HD 6970 would have blown the doors off of the GeForce GTX 480.

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lol what?
thats ridiculous, even if the 580 had not shown up the 6970 would have been a let down... 5870 rocked, people expected a 580 but got the 480 which was a dissapointment cause it was only around 15% faster

then the 5870 successor comes out and... is barely faster than the 480... how would the 6970 have been an awesome card if the 580 had not come out?

i couldnt disagree more...

Quote:

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The least expensive GeForce GTX 580 as of writing this is $509.99. Compare that price with the MSRP that AMD is asking for the Radeon HD 6970 at $369. That is a difference of $140!

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whoop dee friggin doo, close to 400$ or 500$, if your spending 400$ you might as well throw in another 100$ and get the real deal, not to mention the 580 actually overclocks while the 6970 pretty much doesnt. 5% ocerclocks, pf, what a joke! the rumors about amd reworking the specs were obviously true, theres no way they planned to launch the part so close to its clockspeed limits...

Quote:

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The Radeon HD 6970 is an upgrade to the Radeon HD 5870

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my 4ss...

Quote:

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AMD came to this party to win

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...and got their 4ss handed to them with a cherry on a tooth-pick

i agree that the 6950 is a nice card, its barely slower than the 6970 and costs 100$ less, most importantly, 50$ less than the 570...
so the 6950 is a nice card, not great, but good...

but the 6970... amd should have launched the 6950 only in my opinion, cause what they are trying to sell as a 6970 now, and at 380$ thats definitely what hey are trying to do, this is just a joke and they are embarrassing themselves in front of the world... the 6970 should be called the 6950 XTX or whatever, but not 6970 lol...

and not because it sucks compared to the 570 and 580, but because it sucks compared to the 6950.....
570 and 580 are already close with 15%, the 6900s are only 10% apart and the price difference between them is the same as between then 500 cards. say what?

oh man... who would have thought... ati/amd were in the perfect spot, they had all they needed... and they once again stumbled over their own feet and fell flat on their face...
how, HOW i ask you, could you possibly expect a part that barely beats your competitors last gen product, to perform well one year later?
and who in their right minds would aim for such a small chip on a mature node, when what you actually want is a highend performance chip? :shakes:

cayman looks really nice on paper and is a great engineering feat, but when it comes to actually using it, making it, and selling it, ati has failed...
great perf/transistor efficiency!
great die size!

but in the end, who cares?
customers was >X performance for <Y price...

interesting end to the vrzone review: "When our Radeon HD 6970 was overclocked to 950MHz core and 1450MHz memory, we threw Furmark at it again. Interestingly enough, our power meter recorded an increase of just 2W. That's not quite possible, isn't it? Your thoughts?"

also note the power draw differences of the 580's in some reviews. In HardOCP's they have the GTX580 drawing just shy of 100w more than the 6970 while in vrzone the difference is only about 10w or something.

Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 CrossFire Review
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/813-...ossfire-x.html
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1488/1/

This is why it is better to moderate your expectations. All the bitterness is more about broken dreams than anything.

A 6970 is competitive with a 570. That is in line with the recent strategy of their top single GPU competing with Nvidia's second tier.

High resolution and/or high AA performance looks promising. As does CF scaling. I'm looking forward to Antilles performance at 2560x1600.

Wow. Just, wow. Now we're back to the waiting board. The only upside to this is 5970 has been going down pretty fast AND there's not any game out there taxing enough.

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/20126
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha..._hd6950/5.html
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2010/amd_rad...0_cayman_test/
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=22610
http://www.techspot.com/review/348-amd-radeon-6970/
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...yman,2818.html
http://hitechlegion.com/reviews/vide...hd-6950-review
http://hitechlegion.com/reviews/vide...eo-card-review
http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...hd6950_review/
http://tbreak.com/tech/2010/12/amd-hd-6970-review/
http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/...launch_review/
http://www.vortez.co.uk/articles_pag...gb_review.html
http://www.pureoverclock.com/article1164.html
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,80...fikkarte/Test/
http://www.overclockers.com/amd-hd69...s-card-review/
http://www.hartware.net/review_1209.html
http://lanoc.org/review/hardware/vid...ietnam-edition
http://www.ninjalane.com/reviews/video/sapphire-6950
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/g...d6950_review/1
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/373...ard/index.html
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/373...ard/index.html
http://www.eteknix.com/graphics/his-...rd-review-471/
http://www.modders-inc.com/modules.p...Story&reid=340

6970 is barely faster than the 570 and yet costs a little more which deducts from the power consumption which makes price and power of both cards even. The 570 overclocks better and that is the difference factor. It looks like AMD backfired on this one, and here I was waiting in hopes the 570 would have the price reduced in a week or 2. No waiting anymore, here I go 570 from 460 :sick:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sniper_sung

I... I am... dis... disappointed...

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They needed to be $50 less. Would have been nice to see better overclocking results too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saaya

barely faster than a 470 and notably more expensive
same speed as a 570 and costs more...
by what definition is that a "win"?

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Then factor in the 30% overclock from a 470. :confused:

It eats up more power, but goes for $100 less, and performs the same. :shakes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saaya

barely faster than a 470 and notably more expensive
same speed as a 570 and costs more...
by what definition is that a "win"?

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You're yelling to the wind Saaya. All the blow hards here who were spewing that the 580 was going to be stomped into the ground and are now calling the 6870 the king of kings will feel vindicated from any amount of success the card has, no matter how predicable and pathetically typical..


Its no failure, but by that measure alone its a success to those vested in it.

I think I am still going to go 6970 once the factory OC editions come out (hoping that means the yields are strong) and maybe price drops a tad?

I am betting on drivers greatly improving once the AMD team learns how to efficiently work with VLIW4. Seeing as how the AMD team hasn't always been the best with drivers, I don't expect the release ones to be any where near full fruition. I see the potential here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dainas

You're yelling to the wind Saaya. All the blow hards here who were spewing that the 580 was going to be stomped into the ground and are now calling the 6870 the king of kings will feel vindicated from any amount of success the card has, no matter how predicable and pathetically typical..


Its no failure, but by that measure alone its a success to those vested in it.

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Not sure how any one ever thought the 6970 would be a 580 destroyer :shrug:

This is coming from some one who highly anticipated the 69xx series...and will likely get one.

Just kinda ignorant based off AMD's tactics clearly drawn with the 5 series. Not to mention AMD themselves drawing conclusions of where they want the 6970 to lay performance wise and price wise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Metroid

6970 is barely faster than the 570 and yet costs a little more which deducts from the power consumption which makes price and power of both cards even. The 570 overclocks better and that is the difference factor. It looks like AMD backfired on this one, and here I was waiting in hopes the 570 would have the price reduced in a week or 2. No waiting anymore, here I go 570 from 460 :sick:

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In higher resolutions than 1680x1050 the 6970 is rated above GTX 570 and in places where more AA is used.

http://translate.googleusercontent.c...ting_ohne_aaaf

The fact of the matter is that 6970 has more memory "2GB to 1.2GB" and a much higher Memory Bandwidth than the GTX 570 "176 000 MB / s to 152 000 MB / s".

6850 on the other hand seems to be similar to 5870 2GB like GTX 570 is to GTX 480 in performance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fl0w3n

Not sure how any one ever thought the 6970 would be a 580 destroyer :shrug:

This is coming from some one who highly anticipated the 69xx series...and will likely get one.

Just kinda ignorant based off AMD's tactics clearly drawn with the 5 series. Not to mention AMD themselves drawing conclusions of where they want the 6970 to lay performance wise and price wise.

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people got excited because of the 5 series.. Nvidia's incompetence made many people think AMD was breaking canon already established by the 3 and 4 series.

this card hd 6970 disappointed !!! hd 6970 come with the same performance GTX 570 so What's New about this card :shakes:
The biggest problem price of this card
hd 6970=370$
gtx 570=350$

ohhhh Jesus! amd hd 6970 epic fail :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ajaidev

...

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It helps in some cases and lose on others.

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon...es/perfrel.gif

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon...rfrel_2560.gif

My judgement is still valid :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fl0w3n

I think I am still going to go 6970 once the factory OC editions come out (hoping that means the yields are strong) and maybe price drops a tad?

I am betting on drivers greatly improving once the AMD team learns how to efficiently work with VLIW4. Seeing as how the AMD team hasn't always been the best with drivers, I don't expect the release ones to be any where near full fruition. I see the potential here.

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I keep reading that prices will be raised in 2011 Q1?

1x, 2x, 3x and 4x HD 6970 Crossfire X test:

http://lab501.ro/placi-video/his-hd-...tii-multi-card | English translation

No wonder why the 580/570 didn't appear on AMD's slides.

Massive disappointment. Oh well blessed are the losers for they determine the winners.

any review that use the newest driver?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tha Last Meal

this card hd 6970 disappointed !!! hd 6970 come with the same performance GTX 570 so What's New about this card :shakes:
The biggest problem price of this card
hd 6970=370$
gtx 570=350$

ohhhh Jesus! amd hd 6970 epic fail :(

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$20 is epic? If so, I have an epic amount of cash in my wallet. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Solus Corvus

$20 is epic? If so, I have an epic amount of cash in my wallet. :D

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It's only epic for an epic troll.:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dainas

people got excited because of the 5 series.. Nvidia's incompetence made many people think AMD was breaking canon already established by the 3 and 4 series.

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I suppose, but that was a very different case (like you allude too).

However, I suppose a case can be built here too that IF AMD had been able to go with the 32nm process like they originally planned, things may have turned out differently.
But that is kind of a moot point because 32nm being canceled was pretty widely known.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CedricFP

I keep reading that prices will be raised in 2011 Q1?

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:shocked: :down:

What reasonings? Got any source for this? If so, I may have to jump on my card choice sooner...that would suck (price wise, not getting the card sooner :p:)

Quote:

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$20 is epic? If so, I have an epic amount of cash in my wallet.

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Give me one reason to pay 20$ in addition to the 350$ ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tha Last Meal

Give me one reason to pay 20$ ( 350$) ?

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If you need only one reason than 0.7GB of RAM.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sergiojr

If you need only one reason than 0.7GB of RAM.

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:yepp:

Quote:

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If you need only one reason than 0.7GB of RAM.

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Really!!:rolleyes:
i play on resolution 1920x1200 so Again Give me one reason to pay 20$ in addition to the 350$ :D Do not forget that gtx 570 (350$) have the same performance hd 6970 (370$) :)