Graphic Cards 6850 and 6870 reviews

H

hatter

Skilled
It's been ages since I have been this excited about some hardware launch... (and feeling needs for some reps)

So here is your review... from Guru3D. The actual review was pulled back but all the meat is here: 2156 pictures by madmaxnl - Photobucket

Summary: 6870 beats the crap out of GTX 470 and 6850 buries GTX460.... time for price cuts folks :eek:hyeah:
 
it will surely be prised higher than 460, so why compairing them.( a lot)

as i see they are on par with theier current gen counterparts. wha tabout that. and in SLI, still nvidia rules.
 
.... and the cat is out of the bag, officially... :)

AMD Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 CrossFire Video Card Review - AMD's 2nd Generation DX11 Video Card - Radeon 6800 - Legit Reviews

Legit Reviews said:
The AMD Radeon HD 6870 and Radeon HD 6850 proved to be two very solid performing mainstream video cards from what we saw in our initial testing with them. These cards are officially AMD's second generation DirectX 11 video card series, which is impressive as NVIDIA still has not released all of their first generation cards yet. When AMD designed the Radeon HD 6800 'Barts' series of GPUs they wanted to have Radeon HD 5800-class performance, but optimize the GPU to lower power use and the price tag. The cards do in fact have Radeon HD 5800-class performance in general and we saw much better power efficiency from the cards. This was done by lower the transistor count from 2.15 billion to 1.7 billion and as a result the die size went from 334mm2 to just 255mm2. Since both the Radeon HD 5800 and 6800 series are built by TSMC on the 40nm process we can see that AMD really cleaned things up inside the core and tuned this GPU for efficiency.
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Introduction - AMD Radeon HD 6870 & HD 6850 Video Card Review | [H]ard|OCP

[H said:
ard|OCP]We have shown the AMD Radeon HD 6850 to be the true competition for the 1GB GeForce GTX 460. On a pure performance and gameplay experience comparison the AMD Radeon HD 6850 overall allowed a better gameplay experience. There were a couple of games that resulted in an exception, but even then, the video cards were still close. In Civilization V we did find the GeForce GTX 460 1GB video card to produce higher framerates than the Radeon HD 6850, and in turn allowing a higher gameplay setting. In Battlefield: Bad Company 2 both video cards were playable at the same settings and the performance so close it could not be identified without analysis. In the other games though, the AMD Radeon HD 6850 produced higher framerates and a better gameplay experience. These two video cards are clearly battling it out for performance, and an OC card from either one may tip the balance.

The AMD Radeon HD 6870 is another story, AMD positioned this video card against the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, however, in our testing it blew it away. In fact, the AMD Radeon HD 6870 was faster than the Radeon HD 5850 in every game. The AMD Radeon HD 6870 is not as fast as the Radeon HD 5870, and it was never meant to be. The Radeon HD 6870 comes in-between the 5850 and 5870 in performance, but the kicker is that it is much cheaper, runs cooler, and uses less power doing it.
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Now I've to sit and keep refreshing Anandtech.com till the HD6800 review pops up. :)

UPDATE:

Here we go... AT review is also up : http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/amds-radeon-6870-6850-renewing-competition-in-the-midrange-market
 
Big Question

what's the PCIe connector requirements for HD6850 and HD6870?(does it require 2 or 1 connector)

what's the Size of the cards(ability to fit inside a budget gamer's cabby)

the load temperatures of AMD cards are still higher than their Nvidia counterparts, though the AMD cards are much less power hungry

Now the Price and Availability in India will decide the card's fate
 
^^ It would be 2 PCIE connectors for most of the cards which have been redesigned from the reference card. The cooling especially of 6850 should improve with 3rd party designs (I think almost all manufacturers will have 3rd party designs for 6850, while following reference design for 6870)
 
pwer consumption is lower than the older series, so if the card is using the amd reference design, the 1 pcie connector for 6850 and 2 for 6870..sadly no 3 way and 4 way CF for these cards,but who needs that anyway?
 
It's amazing how in Guru3d review all the cards except 6850,6870 perform exactly same as they did 4 months back.. in July 12th gtx460 review.

6850/70 Crossfire review numbers match with as old as some April month's Crossfire/SLI reviews.

Even though we've had at least 3-4 driver iterations from both nvidia & AMD in past 4 months, performance remains just the same. :)

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

for example

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_Rta6d1Qi3po/TMCz6qiB7uI/AAAAAAAAAsQ/B2tVs9efDUE/Guru3d%20wtf.jpg
 
^^^

HD5850 is faster than HD6850

it was never meant to replace the HD58XX series,

and Give a better answer for GTX460 at sub 200$ price level

rather Barts is an evolution for HD57XX ,there will be no HD67XX series, rather the HD57XX will continue

Guru3D said:
The cards deriving from it will in fact be segmented into mid-range, not high-end as many people expected. So yeah, the best has still to come. The reason? AMD needed to clean up some numbering as next year a lot of new products in the fusion line will eat away the lower segment of the numbering scheme.

The Radeon HD 6800 will segment itself in the mid-range market, whereas the Radeon HD 5800 series will be updated with the Radeon HD 6900 (Caymen) series, with a dual-GPU part named Radeon HD 6900 (Antilles), I can't say it often enough to make this clear I guess.

So that is certainly something to think about, as the naming scheme has changed. Also, why did AMD start with the Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 and not 6900 you might ask. Well, obviously it's easier for AMD to release a slightly lower spec GPU but more importantly, currently the only product that really bothers AMD is NVIDIA's lovely GeForce GTX 460 (GF104). This is a very successful product for which AMD does not have a good answer, as such there's a gap in their product line-up that gap needs to be filled up first.

So with Christmas nearing AMD really needs something out there to, and excuse the language here, cock-block NVIDIA, hence the Radeon HD 6800 series is released first.

Within it's own lineup the Radeon HD 6850 will be faster than the Radeon HD 5830 and the Radeon HD 6870 will be faster than the Radeon HD 5850, but not faster than the 5870. The Radeon HD 6870 will be a pure reference product, while the Radeon HD 6850 will see many custom designs and boards. In the end it will be all about pricing of course.
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the HD6XXX series will only replace the upper high end cards

i.e.only 58xx,59XX will be replaced

HD69XX will come mid November

p.s.

the HD6850 has the potential to become immensely successful in India if priced conveniently below 10k IMO
 
6850 is slower than a 5850 , not much less than 10% or really as you say you wont notice the difference in real life ( i mean thats less then 6fps diff in 60fps and if fps is a fair bit more than that it doesnt really matter :p)

Xfire scaling of these 2 cards are damn impressive , its finally working how it should , 2 6870's are gonna be a killer setup.

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

btw it seems a few of the 6850's we are seeing the reviews are really 6870's at 6850 clocks. Techpowerup is one to have recieved such a card. Shady stuff from amd.
 
so 6850 is for 3D ....any idea about temp rates? 6850 is hotter than its predecessor ..

I think gtx 460 is better ...low load temp and nvidia drivers :)
 
neojjjk said:
so 6850 is for 3D ....any idea about temp rates? 6850 is hotter than its predecessor ..
I think gtx 460 is better ...low load temp and nvidia drivers :)
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Do you mean 3D as in 'stereoscopic-3D'...Do HD 6000 series support 3D gaming like nvidia?

EDI:Just ggled it..It appears ATI is using passive polarized instead of shutter glass.I wonder if this makes it cheaper than nvidia?
 
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