AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 confirmed to be launched on 22.10.2010

[Manicdan]

personally, i favor highly technical reviews. i like having multiple images and comparing pixel by pixel to see the differences in sampling patterns, weighting, blending, etc. you'll learn so much more that way.

ditto. i love a review thats 10 pages about one feature pushed to the test in every which way possible.

[kaktus1907]

personally, i favor highly technical reviews. i like having multiple images and comparing pixel by pixel to see the differences in sampling patterns, weighting, blending, etc. you'll learn so much more that way.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/804-...6870-6850.html

[Nikolasz]

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/804-...6870-6850.html

Here you go..
http://translate.google.si/translate...6870-6850.html

[Gaul]

6870 def

[SamHughe]

[IMG]http:.net/images/articles/amd-68x0-slide-6.PNG[/IMG]

Zoomed in

Lol When did we start calling Gaussian blur morphological AA?

[Florinmocanu]

Well, in CG any AA filter like Lanczos, Mitchel-Netravali, Catmull-Rom etc. applies some kind of blur or sharpen to the image.

But i mean in 3d CG, not photoshop. But a blur can be used as an AA filter, that's what all filter do, provide a blur or sharpen effect on edges (or both even).

[madcho]

In the slide, they said, the post effect detect high level of contract and apply some blur to AA.

It's very low cost, and if quality is here, i think this is the ultimate AA. And I think you can add MSAA and MLAA to improve quality.

[Das Capitolin]

I feel compelled to add my two cents, especially after wasting six hour of test time and scrapping my entire Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 and CrossFire reviews because of sample 'doping'.

1120-Core "Fixed" Radeon HD 6850 Review Samples Shipped to Media

I'm not going to say it was intentional, but the mere fact that nobody at Sapphire or AMD said anything despite being told of the problem a week before launch is rather alarming.

[madcho]

you got a nice bios for evrybody bought a 68xx, i think this is not a bad thing ...

And the % should be very low.

[Gaul]

CF

[zerazax]

CF scaling looks great

[RSC]

I feel compelled to add my two cents, especially after wasting six hour of test time and scrapping my entire Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 and CrossFire reviews because of sample 'doping'.

1120-Core "Fixed" Radeon HD 6850 Review Samples Shipped to Media

I'm not going to say it was intentional, but the mere fact that nobody at Sapphire or AMD said anything despite being told of the problem a week before launch is rather alarming.

This is starting to stink big time...

[slaveondope]

I feel compelled to add my two cents, especially after wasting six hour of test time and scrapping my entire Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 and CrossFire reviews because of sample 'doping'.

1120-Core "Fixed" Radeon HD 6850 Review Samples Shipped to Media

I'm not going to say it was intentional, but the mere fact that nobody at Sapphire or AMD said anything despite being told of the problem a week before launch is rather alarming.

Its looking like they aren't laser cutting the die.

http://www.guru3d.com/news/radeon-68...ith-6870-bios/

[Lanek]

Lol Hardware.fr ... seriously i like how they comment the things .. too bad not all understand french there ...

[RSC]

Its looking like they aren't laser cutting the die.

http://www.guru3d.com/news/radeon-68...ith-6870-bios/

That makes six sites reporting that they got 6850 samples with 1120 shaders. Make that seven sites... Hardware Heaven got one too.

Sorry, make that eight sites. Tweak Town got it too.

Nope, not done yet... make that nine sites. Inside HW got one as well.

[Manicdan]

soon were going to need a "i unlocked my 6850" thread

[Eagleclaw]

Some info about how the cards got out and about unlocking the shaders

"For those of you excited about the possibility of 'unlocking' your HD 6850, it's not going to happen; the disabling is done at an ASIC level, not BIOS."

http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/...view_addendum/

soon were going to need a "i unlocked my 6850" thread

[RSC]

Twelve sites so far:

- techPowerUp! -> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6850/
- ComputerBase.de -> http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/g...6850-update-2/
- diit.cz -> http://www.diit.cz/clanek/test-radeo...ry/37205/35011
- Extra Hardware -> http://extrahardware.cnews.cz/test-r...otreba-teploty
- Benchmark Reviews -> http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...2388&Itemid=47
- Guru3D -> http://www.guru3d.com/news/radeon-68...ith-6870-bios/
- Hardware Heaven -> http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...deon-6850.html
- Tweak Town -> http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/360...rd/index2.html
- Inside HW -> http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/Grap...ds/Page-4.html
- Think Computers -> http://www.thinkcomputers.org/sapphi...card-review/3/
- HT4U -> http://ht4u.net/reviews/2010/amd_rad..._hd_6870_test/
- Rage3D -> http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/...view_addendum/

[TheVaLVe]

Twelve sites so far:

- techPowerUp! -> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6850/
- ComputerBase.de -> http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/g...d-6850-update/
- diit.cz -> http://www.diit.cz/clanek/test-radeo...ry/37205/35011
- Extra Hardware -> http://extrahardware.cnews.cz/test-r...otreba-teploty
- Benchmark Reviews -> http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...2388&Itemid=47
- Guru3D -> http://www.guru3d.com/news/radeon-68...ith-6870-bios/
- Hardware Heaven -> http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...deon-6850.html
- Tweak Town -> http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/360...rd/index2.html
- Inside HW -> http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/Grap...ds/Page-4.html
- Think Computers -> http://www.thinkcomputers.org/sapphi...card-review/3/
- HT4U -> http://ht4u.net/reviews/2010/amd_rad..._hd_6870_test/
- Rage3D -> http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/...view_addendum/

404 Error - Page Not Found

[RSC]

404 Error - Page Not Found

Sorry mate. All corrected now.

[SKYMTL]

There's a lot of misinformation going around. Here's the way it is:

This issue so far has affected ONE SKU. I say "one" because HIS's cards have always been made by PCPartner - hence their HD 6850's similarity to Sapphire's. Both of these have had problems with the 1120 shader count.

From my understanding, there was a mix-up at the factory level whereby a batch of incorrect cores was mistakenly installed onto the non-reference PCB which PCPartner uses. This happened with early sample cards sent to reviewers and was corrected prior to mass retail production. This comes direct from my sources at Sapphire.

That being said, there was a screw up so who knows; there very well may be some cards that have slipped into the retail channel as well.

Are the BIOSes compatible with other cards? NO. To begin with, the PCPartner cards use a slightly customized BIOS with controls for their non-reference PWM layout and fan controller. Next of all, the cores themselves are laser locked at the production level. I've now tried flashing SIX different cards with the BIOS and none have worked.

There is no controversy here people....even though some are making it out to be one.

[Manicdan]

yeah it sucks, we were all hoping for unlockable gpus, but this isnt 2003 anymore

[RSC]

There's a lot of misinformation going around. Here's the way it is:

This issue so far has affected ONE SKU. I say "one" because HIS's cards have always been made by PCPartner - hence their HD 6850's similarity to Sapphire's. Both of these have had problems with the 1120 shader count.

From my understanding, there was a mix-up at the factory level whereby a batch of incorrect cores was mistakenly installed onto the non-reference PCB which PCPartner uses. This happened with early sample cards sent to reviewers and was corrected prior to mass retail production. This comes direct from my sources at Sapphire.

That being said, there was a screw up so who knows; there very well may be some cards that have slipped into the retail channel as well.

Are the BIOSes compatible with other cards? NO. To begin with, the PCPartner cards use a slightly customized BIOS with controls for their non-reference PWM layout and fan controller. Next of all, the cores themselves are laser locked at the production level. I've now tried flashing SIX different cards with the BIOS and none have worked.

There is no controversy here people....even though some are making it out to be one.

The "issue" may have adulterated an unknown number of reviews... And quoting Das Capitolin:

"I'm not going to say it was intentional, but the mere fact that nobody at Sapphire or AMD said anything despite being told of the problem a week before launch is rather alarming."

[ajaidev]

The "issue" may have adulterated an unknown number of reviews... And quoting Das Capitolin:

"I'm not going to say it was intentional, but the mere fact that nobody at Sapphire or AMD said anything despite being told of the problem a week before launch is rather alarming."

Official AMD Response:

Apparently a small number of the AMD Radeon HD 6850 press samples shipped from AIB partners have a higher-than-expected number of stream processors enabled.

This is because some AIBs used early engineering ASICs intended for board validation on their press samples. The use of these ASICs results in the incorrect number of stream processors. If you have an HD 6850 board sample from an AIB, please test using a utility such as GPU-z to determine the number of active stream processors. If that number is greater than 960, please contact us and we will work to have your board replaced with a production-level sample.

All boards available in the market, as well as AMD-supplied media samples, have production-level GPUs with the correct 960 stream processors.


http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...2388&Itemid=47

ammm ya they did...

[Eagleclaw]

Great post, thanks for taking the time to share it.

There's a lot of misinformation going around. Here's the way it is:

This issue so far has affected ONE SKU. I say "one" because HIS's cards have always been made by PCPartner - hence their HD 6850's similarity to Sapphire's. Both of these have had problems with the 1120 shader count.

From my understanding, there was a mix-up at the factory level whereby a batch of incorrect cores was mistakenly installed onto the non-reference PCB which PCPartner uses. This happened with early sample cards sent to reviewers and was corrected prior to mass retail production. This comes direct from my sources at Sapphire.

That being said, there was a screw up so who knows; there very well may be some cards that have slipped into the retail channel as well.

Are the BIOSes compatible with other cards? NO. To begin with, the PCPartner cards use a slightly customized BIOS with controls for their non-reference PWM layout and fan controller. Next of all, the cores themselves are laser locked at the production level. I've now tried flashing SIX different cards with the BIOS and none have worked.

There is no controversy here people....even though some are making it out to be one.