AMD Radeon HD6950/6970(Cayman) Reviews

[BababooeyHTJ]

I've been pretty happy with my 6870 but I'm pretty tempted to pick up a 6950 now.

[96redformula]

Stock 6950


Overclocked 6950 840/1325



Unlocked Stock 6950(Well 6970 now )

[Silver Bullet]

I picked up two 6970s for $339 (boxing day special) ... so I'm pretty happy. But seeing this (the unlocking) does kind of sting; but I guess those chips were made into 6950's for a reason ... so I'll just stick with the real thing for now

[LostHawk]

Anyone tried two unlocked 6950s in crossfire ?

[zpaf]

deleted

[dsaraolu]

3DMark Vantage test: HD6950 default, HD6950@880/1375 MHz, 1408 shaders and HD6950 with bios HD6970 .

[Pantsu]

I picked up two 6970s for $339 (boxing day special) ... so I'm pretty happy. But seeing this (the unlocking) does kind of sting; but I guess those chips were made into 6950's for a reason ... so I'll just stick with the real thing for now

The clocks won't go as high, the 6950 only has 6+6 pin power and the memory chips are specced slower, so even if you can unlock the shaders, it won't be quite as good as a purebred 6970. Still pretty damn good value for money.

[STEvil]

still hardware mods to do, memory could react better to voltage and/or added caps

[kuroikenshi]

still hardware mods to do, memory could react better to voltage and/or added caps

already have my accelero xtreme 5970 up for sale so that I may play with these

[Heinz68]

TechGage AMD Radeon HD 6950 & HD 6970 CrossFireX, December 27, 2010

Another review confirming the great CrossFireX scaling.

Few selected points from the "Final Thoughts"

AMD's Radeon HD 6900 cards might just have been released, but it's clear that the CrossFireX component is working just fine. Sometimes, it takes a little while for drivers to be refined to the point that CrossFireX is a real option, but that's not the case here. The performance we saw throughout the article is incredible, and hard to beat.

One thing I regret not having is more comparisons to NVIDIA's cards in the same dual-GPU configuration, but that's something I'm working on remedying in the near-future. It's only fair, as it's rather difficult to compare dual-GPUs from one company to single-GPUs from another.

There are a couple of ways we can look at this, though. Both AMD and NVIDIA will offer a near 100% theoretical performance boost when combining two identical cards, and as the GeForce GTX 580 is faster than AMD's HD 5970 by about 7~10%, putting two together in SLI mode would no doubt beat two HD 6970s in CrossFireX mode. At the same time, though, two GTX 580s retail for around $1,000, compared to $740 for dual HD 5970s.

For those seeking out killer performance, but don't want to "break the bank", picking up two Radeon HD 6950s seems like a no-brainer. Simply put, the performance is incredible. It's not a great example, but compared to NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580, dual HD 6950s cost a mere 20% more, but can deliver 40~80% more performance - depending on the game title or benchmark.

[Chewbenator]

Anyone know if the 2GB on the 6950 will help with MMO's like World of Warcraft where you might be in situations with 100s of characters? Would the capability of drawing all the textures on many characters put performance past the 570?


I don't want this to become a "what video card is best for me" so I'll put more information specific to my situation in this paragraph down here:

Reason I ask is that WoW is the only game I am playing right now that is choking under my system. I also play Bad Company a lot, but wouldn't put graphics settings above medium even if I had a 580 because I am really competitive when I play that game. Those are the only two games I play because I recently started a full time job so don't have the time to branch out. I also have a $100 gift card to EVGA, so I could get a 570 for $250, but I'm in good financial circumstances right now so $50 for less lag in crowd situations might be worth it to me. I play at 1080p and won't be doing Eyefinity or Xfire/SLI so don't need to worry about those factors.

[zalbard]

Get GTX570, then... Fermi seems to do better in WoW, but really, it will be barely loaded either way, your bottleneck is your CPU.

[Chickenfeed]

I went from a 5870 and the difference was noticeable in WoW. As far as extra VRAM, won't help much. An SSD will better bring the change your seeking in this game. That said, to those insistent on running the game with the dynamic shadows on Ultra, they are asking for poor performance. There are sections on Ultra that took my 5870 below 20 in the beta ( Twilight Highlands in Cataclysm was / is quite nasty with full dynamic ) WoWs Dx11 renderer (although buggy, it has a tendency to revert to the DX9 renderer on restarts ) boosts performance a good bit to but again could be done on either of the cards you are considering.

Both cards will do good in BC2, but if you spend any serious amount of time with WoW do yourself a favor with the 570. I played BC2 with a competitive config on my 5870 and it purred along just great (120fps constant ) at 1680x1050 ( I play in DX9 with reduced folliage / shadows )

[Eastcoasthandle]

TechGage AMD Radeon HD 6950 & HD 6970 CrossFireX, December 27, 2010

Another review confirming the great CrossFireX scaling.

Few selected points from the "Final Thoughts"

...the GeForce GTX 580 is faster than AMD's HD 5970 by about 7~10%...

This is where I stop reading. His own review, yes his very own review, shows the 5970 beating the 580 the majority of the time (looking at all 3 resolutions benched per game) in the games tested. The only bench that the 580 won in all 3 resolutions was using Heavens Benchmark and that didn't use AA.

[Elfear]

This is where I stop reading. His own review, yes his very own review, shows the 5970 beating the 580 the majority of the time (looking at all 3 resolutions benched per game) in the games tested. The only bench that the 580 won in all 3 resolutions was using Heavens Benchmark and that didn't use AA.

Looks like it was a typo and he meant to say 6970.

[bamtan2]

GeForce GTX 580 is faster than AMD's HD 5970 by about 7~10%

that was an unfortunate brain fart typo for that author to make. stupid amd model names

[Zloyd]

CHEWBENATOR just oc the CPU to 4ghz get a 570 and woiw should play just fine.

[Neova]

Anyone know if the 2GB on the 6950 will help with MMO's like World of Warcraft where you might be in situations with 100s of characters? Would the capability of drawing all the textures on many characters put performance past the 570?

2GB should help graphically on a per scene basis.

But I would hold off and do a bit more research from gamers who play your games for more appropriate feedback.

[JH_man]

Found the first 1GB 6950 priced in a webshop in Norway just now. Muct be crazy to buy it since the 2GB version only costs about 100 nkr or 17$ more...

jarle

[Particle]

that was an unfortunate brain fart typo for that author to make. stupid amd model names

Yes, it's AMD's fault the author made a typo. Come on.

[StimulatedBoy]

Found the first 1GB 6950 priced in a webshop in Norway just now. Muct be crazy to buy it since the 2GB version only costs about 100 nkr or 17$ more...

jarle

In store with immediate delivery or to be announced? The 1 GB versions will to the best of my knowledge come with a price tag of 50-75$ less as compared to the 2 GB versions…

[tajoh111]

Yes, it's AMD's fault the author made a typo. Come on.

Not AMD fault but a somewhat understandable mistake. I think alot of people have called cayman 6870 at one point or another and called the dual part 6970. It hard to completely shift to the new numbering system.

[Sly Fox]

I have a topic in the Intel support forum with this question asked as part, but I figure it couldn't hurt to ask in here real quick too.

Is there any reason to buy a 6970 or 6950 over the GTX 570 other than "supporting the underdog?"

Because in this case, I couldn't really care less about the underdog when he's grinding down parts to make heatsinks fit and delivering 3% performance gains.

Don't mean to incite flames or anything, anyone who knows me can tell you that I'm NOT an NV fanboy, and I typically take ATI's side. But I was pretty disappointed with the 6000 series, at least the stuff I've read thus far.

[jeremyshaw]

Well, in my opinion, the 500 series kinda caught AMD a wee bit more off guard than expected, so the HD6900 series is more reactive than not. The HD6800 series were right on the dime, however. If you want a GTX570, go get one. I have no qualms for buying from either one (laptops are a different case, for me). Though I typically buy nVidia used, since I hated looking at their 8800 prices when I first started out.

[xBanzai89]

I have a topic in the Intel support forum with this question asked as part, but I figure it couldn't hurt to ask in here real quick too.

Is there any reason to buy a 6970 or 6950 over the GTX 570 other than "supporting the underdog?"

Because in this case, I couldn't really care less about the underdog when he's grinding down parts to make heatsinks fit and delivering 3% performance gains.

Don't mean to incite flames or anything, anyone who knows me can tell you that I'm NOT an NV fanboy, and I typically take ATI's side. But I was pretty disappointed with the 6000 series, at least the stuff I've read thus far.

For multi monitor the 6900 series are above the GTX 570. The 1280 MB of ram puts a major limitation on the GTX 570 SLI when attempting to do multi monitor. The 2GB of ram on the 6900 series allows a crossfire setup with those cards to easily over come the GTX 570 SLI in multi monitor. This was shown just a few days ago by Kyle @ Hard OCP.

Even if it came down to a single monitor I would still choose a 6950 over a GTX 570. The card is with in spitting distance of a 570. It is $50 cheaper. Hell it is even with a 6970. IMO The 6970 is more of a outcast then any other card atm.