HD 6870 on Bloodrage

[CobraXP]

I started at 900/1050 @ 4.0GHz and ended at 1030/1180 @ 4.2. 1040/1180 crashed on vantage. Enjoy.

[ScottALot]

Damn! This is kinda like what I'm doing, but I'm going to wait until 6900 so I can see if they're worth it/price lowered on 6800 possibly.

[CobraXP]

OK CrossfireX Vantage

[PiLsY]

Heres my 470 sli for a compare. Just compare gpu score as I have HT disabled so overall score isnt compatible with yours. Im really disappointed with these new ati cards seeing as they cost more than the 470 and are considerably slower. Good post .

[CobraXP]

Heres my 470 sli for a compare. Just compare gpu score as I have HT disabled so overall score isnt compatible with yours. Im really disappointed with these new ati cards seeing as they cost more than the 470 and are considerably slower. Good post .]

Yes but you're comparing the 2nd most expensive card of that generation to the new budget generation. The 6870 is the replacement for the 5770. This card was more to be compared to the 460. The upcoming 6950 will be more of the comparison and would fall in the market/class the 470/570 are in.

The 470 scores look similar to my quad SLI GTX 295s. Damn good score.

[PiLsY]

Yeah im very happy with the 470s .

Problem is with comparing the 6870 to the 5770 - cost. A 6870 is more than double a 5770. You have to compare against like priced cards - never mind whether theyre supposed to be budget, mid or high end cards. At £175 each I'd say the gtx470 was getting close to mid range. I can't see the 6870 halving in price really - therefore you cant compare it to the 5770. You should be comparing it to the 5850 really (£200 at launch, £180 now).

Like I said above i've no problem with the technology, i'm just outraged at the price. As you have said the 6870 should be a budget/mid range card - at £200 each they definitely arent! I dread to think what the 6950 and 6970 will cost - certainly cant be priced to compete with the gtx470! They offer no new features over the current nvidia offerings with the 6870, coupled with slower speed and a premium price. I just dont get it? I expected GTS450 and GTX460 1gb pricing, not gtx 460 1gb and gtx470 given the performance. Course if its significantly cheaper on the sunny side of the sea where you are my comments are only valid for people in Europe.


Also we're only comparing 3dmark here. Sadly im short on games that can be benched so we cant get a good compare there i dont think. I'd expect the gap to be closer real world . Wonder how much more there is to be had from driver tweaks too? I reckon fermi is pretty much maxed by now so the 6870 can only catch up there.

Dunno, as I suggested in my first post though, Im distinctly underwhelmed as of right now .

[CobraXP]

Yeah im very happy with the 470s .

Problem is with comparing the 6870 to the 5770 - cost. A 6870 is more than double a 5770. You have to compare against like priced cards - never mind whether theyre supposed to be budget, mid or high end cards. At £175 each I'd say the gtx470 was getting close to mid range. I can't see the 6870 halving in price really - therefore you cant compare it to the 5770. You should be comparing it to the 5850 really (£200 at launch, £180 now).

Like I said above i've no problem with the technology, i'm just outraged at the price. As you have said the 6870 should be a budget/mid range card - at £200 each they definitely arent! I dread to think what the 6950 and 6970 will cost - certainly cant be priced to compete with the gtx470! They offer no new features over the current nvidia offerings with the 6870, coupled with slower speed and a premium price. I just dont get it? I expected GTS450 and GTX460 1gb pricing, not gtx 460 1gb and gtx470 given the performance. Course if its significantly cheaper on the sunny side of the sea where you are my comments are only valid for people in Europe.


Also we're only comparing 3dmark here. Sadly im short on games that can be benched so we cant get a good compare there i dont think. I'd expect the gap to be closer real world . Wonder how much more there is to be had from driver tweaks too? I reckon fermi is pretty much maxed by now so the 6870 can only catch up there.

Dunno, as I suggested in my first post though, Im distinctly underwhelmed as of right now .

I follow what you are saying and it makes sense that the GTX 470 is a better bang for the buck but it's at the crossroad of changes. I know at this time I paid a premium price for the HD6870s but we sell custom gaming systems so I must know what the mid range card does. It also consumes half the power the GTX 470 does even though that isn't a factor I really care for.

There are some benchmarks that the 6870 beats the 470. In fact we have an i7 system that was brought in for a psu swap that ran 71.0 frames on heaven with stock clocked GTX 480s (cpu @ 4.2GHz). I am just going by the original price class of the product. Nvidia is dropping all there prices due to the new series AMD came out/is coming out with and the new series Nvidia is coming out with. By Christmas time this card will be well under $190 and early 2011 it will cost $160.

I do follow what you are saying. During the crossroads time between series is the best time to buy the previous generation card.

[saaya]

hey cobra, you can adjust the spacing between icons on the desktop and remove the link icons... thought you might wanna try that
i like having lots of a stuff on my desktop as well and those tweaks really help to make thinks looks more organized and have more free space

[CobraXP]

Its an organized mess I know

[PiLsY]

Definitely don't take my post as questioning your purchase Cobra - not my intent at all . I fully accept that some people have vendor loyalty or other reasons for choosing their hardware. I tend to stick to Nvidia as I kill ATI cards - god knows why but any red team product in my hands has sealed its doom . I came very close to going the 4890 route (and couldve saved myself a lot of money doing so) instead of SLi 260s. I would never turn round and say you are foolish to buy something - its your money, you have your reasons and they are good enough for you - thats what counts in a purchase. As I said earlier the real world difference between the cards is far less than 3dmark would indicate. My only point of contension is that the 6870 is replacing a card in the ATI range thats half its price. I would also have to question your predicted price drops - ATI historically never been that good at dropping prices til stuff gets replaced. The 5770, 5830, 5850 and 5870 are all within 10% of their launch price as of today. The 4890 went to half price after the 5870 launch. I dont think youll see the 6870 drop to half price until its replaced in the line up.

I think another valid point is that we cant view the gtx 4 series as previous generation, that should only the case when new features are brought in to a gpu. 6000 series are just a clock speed bump, could just as easily be called 5775 instead of 6870 (except nobody would pay twice as much for it ). Likewise the upcoming gtx580 doesnt add new features (although the gf110 die is new), so to my mind not a new generation of GPUs. Generations only tend to change with DirectX updates.

I have to say I havent seen a 6870 come out ahead of a 470 yet in any benchmarks. Ive seen between -3% and -40% performance across various review sites.

I don't think this pricing model can do us any good at all as consumers. Newer products being way more expensive simply because they're new and not because they're better is a very bad thing in terms of driving prices down. Nvidia neednt have bothered dropping the prices as from what ive seen a GTX460 1gb can all but match a 6870 in the performance stakes with no difference in comparitive featureset between them. The only difference as you said is power draw. If anything Nvidia could now up their prices.


Will have to see what 6950 and 6970 bring, but as I stated before what pricepoints do they have? £280-£300 and £350-£400? At that price the 6950 sure as hell better leave the gtx470 for dead and the 6970 better convincingly beat 470 sli. I can't see that being the case based on efficiency and clock speed tweaks.
The last round in the gfx wars went to ATI because of the fermi farce, this time I'd have to say Nvidia all the way (and without even launching a product) as ATI have priced themselves out of the competition.


Sorry for another blah blah blah post, but im really struggling with getting my head round their pricing model. I also wouldn't be able to say this without opening the thread up to fanboys and arguments on both sides if it was posted in another forum. Its way OT compared to our normal conversations on here .

[saaya]

things really have changed... it used to be that both ati and nvidia had awesome price perf options and competed with each other, no matter who was dominating...
but in recent years, whoever is on top is milking profits in every price segment...
and only nvidia has had good price perf offers, and only temporarily when they wanted to boost their market share or adjusted prices :/
i wonder if it has to do with the supply constraints that tsmc supposedly has...
if thats the case, then GF doing gpus would be awesome as it would result in more price drops... im keeping my fingers crossed