AMD Radeon HD6950/6970(Cayman) Reviews

[zalbard]

Depends on the resolution you play at.

[[XC] hipno650]

so the question is is it worth upgrading from a 5870 to 6970? ( i am starting to read the reviews now lol )

for $370 absolutely not IMO, in certain games MAYBE but for the most part it is only a faction ahead in older games... if you got one for free well then of course. if you could sell your 5870 for a decent price then sure, but i doubt you will get much over $200 for it now...

[Dimitriman]

I would never recommend the 5870 over 6950 simply because AF is broken on the former and apparently fixed on the later.

[Dimitriman]

Holy . What were you guys expecting AMD to do being stuck on 40nm? They clearly weren't going to create a 300w monster as that would go against what they've been doing since the HD3870. The HD6970 looks to me like a test of the architecture while they wait for the 28nm node to mature for mass production. On top of everything it isn't like the HD6970 is a GTX 480. It is a minor improvement on the HD5870 and it paves the way for a killer 28nm core.

Also, it is slightly faster than the GTX570 with a little over half a gig more memory and priced slightly higher in what I feel is the proper performance/price slot. What do you want, AMD to bleed money so you can get your high-end GPUs for $200?

I'm so disappointed in you guys, not AMD. AMD kept their lips sealed, you guys worked yourselves into a frenzy, and then turn on AMD when they don't deliver what you had hyped yourselves into expecting.

Just so we are ready for the HD6990.. "omg it comes with 2560SP, 128TMUs, two men/women(depending on the bundle you purchase) to wait on hand and foot and it consumes negative 400 watts!."

I will agree though that this naming scheme is horrible. What a trainwreck that is.

No matter how much people say, AMD could have done a lot better with Cayman. They chose not to because of one simple assumption: That Antilles will be the only dual gpu in the market like 5970 was previously.
If they assumed nvidia would have a faster counter to antilles I garantee you AMD would have put more shaders into Cayman so not to lose on every front.

Things are very different this time and AMD is losing on both its high end cards from day one. There is no six month grace and the reality is that nvidia is simply better right now. There is not even a significant power consumption difference. Count on it that in the next six months nvidia will take back most of the dx11 market share it lost in 2010.

[LostHawk]

Those new cards make it so tempting to switch to multiple gpus for high resolutions... I know many will.

Playing at 2560x1600, I will have difficulties not to click on the 'order' button for two 6950s (or 6970s if I go mad not sure it's worth the extra $ and not sure about noise differences as I would prefer not to use water-blocks this time).

[Scorpio[pt]]

i have an eyefinity setup 3 monitors 5760*1080

[Glow9]

Things are very different this time and AMD is losing on both its high end cards from day one. There is no six month grace and the reality is that nvidia is simply better right now. There is not even a significant power consumption difference. Count on it that in the next six months nvidia will take back most of the dx11 market share it lost in 2010.

You can't underplay the fact that AMD was able to keep their cards at the same price and even higher than release for like 9 months. If you've been watching these 2 duke it out over the past 10 years I can tell you that pricepoint determines who wins marketshare. The midrange is where they make their cash not the battle over the high end. Vast majority of users love to talk up their companies high end cards but their pocketbooks let them settle elsewhere. So all in all I like seeing these high end cards cause its a look into the near future but in reality eh, who cares when you can get a very good experience with a $160 card.

[Dimitriman]

You can't underplay the fact that AMD was able to keep their cards at the same price and even higher than release for like 9 months. If you've been watching these 2 duke it out over the past 10 years I can tell you that pricepoint determines who wins marketshare. The midrange is where they make their cash not the battle over the high end. Vast majority of users love to talk up their companies high end cards but their pocketbooks let them settle elsewhere. So all in all I like seeing these high end cards cause its a look into the near future but in reality eh, who cares when you can get a very good experience with a $160 card.

valid point and I will give credit to Amd on the mid range for the 6800 is a much more competitive product in its segment than Cayman is in its.

[Arkangyl]

Are the 69xx capped at 5% overclock? More importantly how do the 69xx and GTX 5x0 scale with overclocking?

It seems that the 6870 and GTX 570 are pretty damn similar. To that end, it seems that if the AMD offering is capped at 5% OC then nVidia has a huge chance to be the 'better choice' (at least in these parts).

/anxiously waits for watercooled overclocking results in a few weeks!

Also, am I making things up or did AMD say 'no more ub3r cards, scale instead' a few years ago?

$180 6850
$220 6870
*$260 6950 1gb
$300 6950 2gb
$370 6970
$440 CFX 6870
*$520 CFX 6950 1gb
$600 CFX 6950 2gb
$740 CFX 6970 2gb

seems to scale along the price & performance range pretty well...

[Pantsu]

Are the 69xx capped at 5% overclock? More importantly how do the 69xx and GTX 5x0 scale with overclocking?

Guru3D has proper OC in its review. IIRC the OC results were about +10% for both, so nothing special. Hopefully we'll see some voltage OC reviews soon.

[Motiv]

quick question. Why does the 6970 do so bad at lower resolutions, compared to higher (when compared to the 570). Just seems odd, as I wouldn't expect memory limitations to come into affect until very high resolutions. It's late here, so I'm probably just missing the obvious.

Also, there seems to be some weird fluctuations between AA and no AA. Would these be driver issues?

[zalbard]

quick question. Why does the 6970 do so bad at lower resolutions, compared to higher (when compared to the 570). Just seems odd, as I wouldn't expect memory limitations to come into affect until very high resolutions. It's late here, so I'm probably just missing the obvious.

Nah, it's just GTX570 that does considerably worse with resolution increase.

[herderien]

Anyway the driver argument is an argument I will never understand. People... Have we NOT learned our lesson here about "potential increases via driver performance?" Better yet, ask those people with HD 2900XT's if they ever saw that potential unleashed. Yes, drivers will increase performance somewhat, but increases occur for both sides.

it's always possible that some bad algorithm in the rush would have drawn back performance...

but i agree it will not be the miracle we were waiting for about this card...
such a disapointment compared to the promises the 6800 series brought to us...

[Dezmen]

// Made decent-looking update. Hope u will like it Feel free to send new review links in PM.

[Johnny87au]

This is something that's become increasingly apparent as time goes on. I have a feeling it'll only get worse. How someone can have that much of an alliance to a hardware company who literally wouldn't even let them walk past the front desk will forever remain a mystery to me.



You know.... I remember when hardocp's reviews pretty much always showed NVidia winning, and in fact showed quite a bit of bad light on ATi. This site was ready to boycott them entirely, automatically dismissing anything [H] had to post.... My, how peoples minds change when a website pumps up their side instead.



Yep, 10.12 was sure the miracle driver, wasn't it guys?

Anyway the driver argument is an argument I will never understand. People... Have we NOT learned our lesson here about "potential increases via driver performance?" Better yet, ask those people with HD 2900XT's if they ever saw that potential unleashed. Yes, drivers will increase performance somewhat, but increases occur for both sides.

Looking at what we are presented with today, things become pretty clear. NVidia surprised AMD with the GTX580 and GTX570, there's really no arguing against that when you look at the last minute price cuts of the 69xx series.

Now, what I really want to know is...how will AMD manage a dual gpu out of cayman? That's going to take a rather strong feat to pull off. If they manage it without stripping it down too much, I will surely tip my hat to them.

p.s. SkyMTL, can we expect a overclocked vs overclocked review of the 6970 vs GTX 570 from you in the near future?

If they can get their right with tsmc and global foundaries and actually make a 28nm chip then we might be talking... Thats what the long delay was because of tmsc joke if u ask me..

[tajoh111]

This is something that's become increasingly apparent as time goes on. I have a feeling it'll only get worse. How someone can have that much of an alliance to a hardware company who literally wouldn't even let them walk past the front desk will forever remain a mystery to me.



You know.... I remember when hardocp's reviews pretty much always showed NVidia winning, and in fact showed quite a bit of bad light on ATi. This site was ready to boycott them entirely, automatically dismissing anything [H] had to post.... My, how peoples minds change when a website pumps up their side instead.



Yep, 10.12 was sure the miracle driver, wasn't it guys?

Anyway the driver argument is an argument I will never understand. People... Have we NOT learned our lesson here about "potential increases via driver performance?" Better yet, ask those people with HD 2900XT's if they ever saw that potential unleashed. Yes, drivers will increase performance somewhat, but increases occur for both sides.

Looking at what we are presented with today, things become pretty clear. NVidia surprised AMD with the GTX580 and GTX570, there's really no arguing against that when you look at the last minute price cuts of the 69xx series.

Now, what I really want to know is...how will AMD manage a dual gpu out of cayman? That's going to take a rather strong feat to pull off. If they manage it without stripping it down too much, I will surely tip my hat to them.

p.s. SkyMTL, can we expect a overclocked vs overclocked review of the 6970 vs GTX 570 from you in the near future?

Man diltech. Me and you are thinking on exactly the same wavelength. I remember those times too, when Hardocp was considered biased against ATI. How the time and attitude has changed on this board.

[migunani]

Looking at what we are presented with today, things become pretty clear. NVidia surprised AMD with the GTX580 and GTX570, there's really no arguing against that when you look at the last minute price cuts of the 69xx series.

a surprise?

like this one?



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Johnny87au]

oh man u made my day lol, beeeeeeeaannn

[zerazax]

Where does this 30% come from? According to the TPU review 6970 is 13,6% faster than 5870 at 1920x1200. The die size increased ~16% at the same time. Epic indeed.

TPU has the 5870 up the most BY FAR on the 480/580. Look at HWC and other reviews - 5870 isn't as fast as TPU says

And as I wrote elsewhere, games where the 5870 will be close to the 69xx's are where they're heavily shader based and where there isnt much tesselation/compute/DX11. 69xx's pull ahead in the DX11 heavy titles like Stalker COP and Metro

No matter how much people say, AMD could have done a lot better with Cayman. They chose not to because of one simple assumption: That Antilles will be the only dual gpu in the market like 5970 was previously.
If they assumed nvidia would have a faster counter to antilles I garantee you AMD would have put more shaders into Cayman so not to lose on every front.

And you know this assumption... how?

More shaders != more performance all the time. Look at how Barts does compared to Cypress with far lower shader count.

Things are very different this time and AMD is losing on both its high end cards from day one. There is no six month grace and the reality is that nvidia is simply better right now. There is not even a significant power consumption difference. Count on it that in the next six months nvidia will take back most of the dx11 market share it lost in 2010.

You keep posting this ridiculous BS over and over. Doom and gloom oh no's.

Why don't you read what I wrote in reply earlier:

ding ding ding ding that is the CORRECT answer sir!

Its not that these cards suck, it's cause Amd's small chips lower power strategy failed this time around.

If this card were on 32nm with all the features Anand hinted at, would people still complain?

The most likely issue is that 32nm was cancelled and AMD wanted to recuperate its R&D cost, so the best thing to do is sell it at 40nm (which they're quite familiar with) and hope for the best until TSMC gets its act together for 28nm. The fact this supposedly all happened in less than a year's time clearly caught AMD by surprise so it's amazing they even managed to get cards out that fast, given that most cards are planned out far earlier

These cards are shader starved and thing are worst off this round then they were last round. At least the 5870 had clear performance and power advantage over the 470.
Also I am not too pleased with the 6950, its basically 10%% faster than Barts in most cases and that is barely relevant. They could just as well given 6870 2gb and more clock and called it a day.

10% faster than Barts? What reviews are you looking at? The vast majority has the 6950 awfully close if not right at the 570 - the card that's dissapointing is the 6970, which is just 10% faster than the 6950

Of course, that's just proof that the 69xx's are a forward looking architecture - in older games they don't beat the 5870 by much, but in newer engines they do by a good amount - look at Stalker and Metro.

Amd should be praying there won't be a dual fermi in the works cause that will destroy their strategy on all levels then.

More ridiculous-ness. When the:

GTX 295 > 4870 X2
GTX 285 > 4890
GTX 275 > 4870
GTX 260-216 > 4850

Did AMD's destruction across every single card matter? Of course not, the 4800's brought AMD back in market share and everything.

Now that Cayman is closer but not quite that the performer of the 580, its doom and gloom? Seriously?

How's this also for perspective:

Look at where the 5870 performed at release - it lost to the 4870X2 in a lot of things and the GTX 295 as well. Look at where AMD's drivers and game optimizations + game development has gone - the 5870 is clearly ahead, and it's even creeping up on the GTX 480 in performance (at release, the GTX 480 was a good 15-20% faster, now we have situations where the 5870 can close within 10%).

Let me ask this: who's more likely to get a boost over the next year, the 580 based on the 480 or the 69xx based on nothing prior?

And to say nothing of the fact that if 28nm really did get delayed by TSMC to 2012, as some rumors are swirling now, who will be in the better position to deliver another 40nm card? The company with a 530mm^2 GPU flagship or the one with a 389mm^2 GPU flagship?

Sheesh, some people need to seriously calm down and look at perspective here outside of JUST raw performance #'s

God people have such a short term memory

[CedricFP]

// Made decent-looking update. Hope u will like it Feel free to send new review links in PM.

Great stuff, Dezmen. A very worthy review thread.

[takamishanoku]

// Made decent-looking update. Hope u will like it Feel free to send new review links in PM.

Awesome work mate. Don't think this means you can sleep now. I or should i say 'we' expect a further 3 sleepless nights.

[KoHaN69]

The problem is the price.

Seeing 6850s at $190 and 5870s and $220, there's no effing way a 6970 should be above $300

[CedricFP]

The problem is the price.

Seeing 6850s at $190 and 5870s and $220, there's no effing way a 6970 should be above $300

A 6970 at 300 would absolutely dominate.

[eric66]

There is no six month grace and the reality is that nvidia is simply better right now. There is not even a significant power consumption difference. Count on it that in the next six months nvidia will take back most of the dx11 market share it lost in 2010.

nah not gonna happen prices of amd cards are much more competitive especially where the majority ms is aka 68xx series, currently nvidia isn't that competitve in that front with only 460 on their hand all they can do is to lower prices, and 6950 doesn't have competitor either which also looks like a decent card to me

[KoHaN69]

A 6970 at 300 would absolutely dominate.

Agreed. But at current price is too close to a used 5970.