AMD Radeon HD6950/6970(Cayman) Reviews

**Mad Pistol** · 12-14-2010, 09:37 PM

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.

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.

**SKYMTL** · 12-14-2010, 09:39 PM

Originally Posted by kuroikenshi

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

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...

**kadozer** · 12-14-2010, 09:39 PM

Originally Posted by tdream

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

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)

**kuroikenshi** · 12-14-2010, 09:40 PM

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.

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

**Xope_Poquar** · 12-14-2010, 09:48 PM

Are there ANY reviews with the Catalyst 10.12 drivers??

**chuchnit** · 12-14-2010, 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by Xope_Poquar

Are there ANY reviews with the Catalyst 10.12 drivers??

Hardware Canucks.

**kite7** · 12-14-2010, 09:49 PM

Hardwarecanucks has one with 10.12

**Dark-Energy** · 12-14-2010, 09:49 PM

So does Anandtech.

**slaveondope** · 12-14-2010, 09:50 PM

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

**Oberon** · 12-14-2010, 09:50 PM

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.

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.

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?

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.

**onethreehill** · 12-14-2010, 09:52 PM

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

**Johnny87au** · 12-14-2010, 09:55 PM

Originally Posted by Dark-Energy

So does Anandtech.

Actually anand use 10.11

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.

**Xope_Poquar** · 12-14-2010, 09:56 PM

Originally Posted by chuchnit

Hardware Canucks.

Originally Posted by kite7

Hardwarecanucks has one with 10.12

Thanks!

**Dainas** · 12-14-2010, 09:56 PM

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.

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.

**zerazax** · 12-14-2010, 10:07 PM

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

**tdream** · 12-14-2010, 10:10 PM

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

**Etihtsarom** · 12-14-2010, 10:11 PM

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

**Johnny87au** · 12-14-2010, 10:12 PM

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..