AMD Radeon HD6950/6970(Cayman) Reviews

[Sly Fox]

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.

Yup, this is pretty much how I'm feeling too.

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.

Well, I'm part of the lowly 1680x1050 group of peasants. So I'm not TOO worried about vmem.

As for price, I'll have to look at a few more benchmarks in that case. Because while I knew the 6950 was cheaper, from what I've seen it didn't appear to be all that close to the 570. Like I said, you've at least motivated me to double-check though.

[xBanzai89]

Well, I'm part of the lowly 1680x1050 group of peasants. So I'm not TOO worried about vmem.

My point was towards multi monitor. Quite obviously you don't need 10TB of vram for 1680x1050. I am still on that resolution myself. A 5770 is still going good since I got it a year ago.

As for price, I'll have to look at a few more benchmarks in that case. Because while I knew the 6950 was cheaper, from what I've seen it didn't appear to be all that close to the 570. Like I said, you've at least motivated me to double-check though.

TechPowerUp found the GTX 570 to be 10% faster then the 6950. HardOCP found little to no difference in gameplay differences between the 6950. That in it self saves you $50. If you're not obsessed with VRAM you can probably save yourself even more money with the 6950 1GB comes out. As you said VRAM will have little impact at your resolution.

^^^

[DarthShader]

Well, I'm part of the lowly 1680x1050 group of peasants. So I'm not TOO worried about vmem.

In that case, get a GTX460 or HD6850 and buy booze for the rest of money.

[kuroikenshi]

Anyone tried two unlocked 6950s in crossfire ?

that's what I have, works like a charm

[JH_man]

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…

It is in the pricelist, and in stock in about one week.

jarle

[JH_man]

The MSI Radeon HD 6950 2GB GDDR5PCI-Express 2.0, "Twin Frozr II" is now in pricelist for Norwegian webshop, in stores in about 5 days. Only about 35$higher price then the standard models. And actually a bit lower priced then HIS 'Turbo' model. Going to get this one, if not better custom cooled is released very soon.

Short review:
http://tbreak.com/tech/2010/12/msi-r...ozr-ii-review/

jarle

[Particle]

The 500 series might have been unexpected, but that doesn't transform already already planned products into "reactionary".

[Lokinhow]

AMD Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix Update Driver Leaked

Performance improvements for the AMD Radeon HD 6800 & HD 6900 series include but not limited to:

AMD Radeon HD 6900 and AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series:

* 3DMark Vantage improves ~7%
* 3DMark06 improves ~3%
* Call of Duty Black Ops improves ~20% at 4xMSAA and up to 35% at 8xMSAA
* Riddick Assault on Dark Athena SSAO performance improves ~20%
* Unigine Heaven OpenGL performance improves ~10% at moderate, 30% at normal and 100% at extreme tessellation levels

AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series:

* Aliens vs. Predators improves ~9% at 2xMSAA and up to 20% at 4xMSAA
* Batman Arkham Asylum improves ~4%
* Crysis Warhead improves ~2-4%
* Metro 2033 improves ~28% at 4xMSAA

AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series:

* Battleforge DirectX 11 performance improves as much as 6%

http://www.techpowerup.com/138742/AM...er-Leaked.html

[Manicdan]

gonna want to see some screenshots of those 100% tessellation improvements...

[kam03]

AMD Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix Update Driver Leaked

Performance improvements for the AMD Radeon HD 6800 & HD 6900 series include but not limited to:

AMD Radeon HD 6900 and AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series:

* 3DMark Vantage improves ~7%
* 3DMark06 improves ~3%
* Call of Duty Black Ops improves ~20% at 4xMSAA and up to 35% at 8xMSAA
* Riddick Assault on Dark Athena SSAO performance improves ~20%
* Unigine Heaven OpenGL performance improves ~10% at moderate, 30% at normal and 100% at extreme tessellation levels

AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series:

* Aliens vs. Predators improves ~9% at 2xMSAA and up to 20% at 4xMSAA
* Batman Arkham Asylum improves ~4%
* Crysis Warhead improves ~2-4%
* Metro 2033 improves ~28% at 4xMSAA

AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series:

* Battleforge DirectX 11 performance improves as much as 6%

http://www.techpowerup.com/138742/AM...er-Leaked.html

Thanks for the link, will have to try these out after work.

[zalbard]

That's just for OpenGL, though. Almost nobody really uses that in Unigine Heaven.

[cold2010]

* Unigine Heaven OpenGL performance improves ~10% at moderate, 30% at normal and 100% at extreme tessellation levels

gonna want to see some screenshots of those 100% tessellation improvements...

Here

[Tested] AMD Catalyst 11.1a: OpenGL Tessellation Support is Slightly… Broken

http://www.geeks3d.com/20110119/test...ightly-broken/

[Manicdan]

if i read the ATI thread right, this is with the 6950 and not the 6970?

[zalbard]

But is it 100% faster? I wouldn't be surprised.

[[XC] hipno650]

AMD Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix Update Driver Leaked

Performance improvements for the AMD Radeon HD 6800 & HD 6900 series include but not limited to:

AMD Radeon HD 6900 and AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series:

* 3DMark Vantage improves ~7%
* 3DMark06 improves ~3%
* Call of Duty Black Ops improves ~20% at 4xMSAA and up to 35% at 8xMSAA
* Riddick Assault on Dark Athena SSAO performance improves ~20%
* Unigine Heaven OpenGL performance improves ~10% at moderate, 30% at normal and 100% at extreme tessellation levels

AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series:

* Aliens vs. Predators improves ~9% at 2xMSAA and up to 20% at 4xMSAA
* Batman Arkham Asylum improves ~4%
* Crysis Warhead improves ~2-4%
* Metro 2033 improves ~28% at 4xMSAA

AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series:

* Battleforge DirectX 11 performance improves as much as 6%

http://www.techpowerup.com/138742/AM...er-Leaked.html

opengl eh... well two things:
1: Nobody uses OpenGL for the heaven bench
2: I'm pretty sure OpenGL does not support tessellation anyways... (someone correct me if I'm wrong)

these improvements are always good don't get me wrong but the newest Nvidia drivers have the same story for performance improvements (if not more) so it's hard to see this as something to make people consider AMD cards more over Nvidia considering both make driver gains...

[Eastcoasthandle]

Looks like the 5000/6000 series will be able to control the amount of tessellation with Cat 11's. Just like AA and AF. If I recall correctly this maybe related to AMD fixing the tessellation issue with Hawx 2 from the drivers.

[cold2010]

AMD fixing the tessellation issue with Hawx 2 from the drivers

bad news bad news

lower tessellation

[Manicdan]

bad news bad news

lower tessellation

giving control to the user is bad?

[Eastcoasthandle]

bad news bad news

lower tessellation

I wouldn't call user control tessellation a bad thing. It just another feature AMD is providing with it's video card drivers:
-MLAA
-EQAA
-Tessellation control
-Cat A.I. texture quality control
-Surface Format Optimization
-etc
These are all new features that wasn't selectable or adjustable in earlier driver releases. Besides, people would love the idea of controlling stuff like that.

[Gilgamesh]

With Unigine 2.1 Extreme - Opengl is bugged with 11.1a. And also with Tessmark and Shadermarktoy.

With Unigine 2.1 Extreme Direct11 and Amd Optimized/USe application settings, little improvement.
But forcing tessellation on level 2x or 4x make HUGE improvement on score

[DarthShader]

2: I'm pretty sure OpenGL does not support tessellation anyways... (someone correct me if I'm wrong)

Wrong: http://arstechnica.com/software/news...ure-parity.ars

Let's see if they can fix the issues till the release at 26th...

[Eastcoasthandle]

Hmm, I found more information about the tessellation settings from Rage3D. In addition, it is mentioned that they are adjusting mipmapping quality to indistinguishable from the High Quality setting.

[zalbard]

I wouldn't call user control tessellation a bad thing. It just another feature AMD is providing with it's video card drivers:
-MLAA
-EQAA
-Tessellation control
-Cat A.I. texture quality control
-Surface Format Optimization
-etc
These are all new features that wasn't selectable or adjustable in earlier driver releases. Besides, people would love the idea of controlling stuff like that.

I agree.
All these kind of small tweaks might not affect the image quality but will add extra FPS. Which is cool in my book.

[Pantsu]

Even though available controls are a good thing, most people won't touch them. Even less with AMD not having user adjustable application profiles.

[[XC] hipno650]

Wrong: http://arstechnica.com/software/news...ure-parity.ars

Let's see if they can fix the issues till the release at 26th...

well cool never knew... Im still wondering why anyone would possibly use OpenGL for tessellation...