AMD Radeon HD 6970 already benchmarked? Enough to beat GTX480 in Tesselation?

[blastingcap]

Tesselation shows it's real strenghts when applied in a larger scale, on terrain and such.

I know that when I play flight sims, my focus is on the terrain below instead of incoming missiles and fighter jets.

All kidding aside, I'd like to see more tessellation in games, but we all know that consoles rule the roost right now, so I'm not holding my breath. 2012 is the realistic earliest time for a new console generation to begin.

There are other reasons why most game devs won't use much DX11 tessellation, if any: sliding sales of games, and small DX11 market size. Steam survey shows that ~12-13% of Steam gamers have DX11, and among those, a minority have strong cards that can handle heavy-duty tessellation and shading. So why write a game for such a tiny minority? You will likely just write a game in DX9 and tack on a few DX11 effects if they are cheap to implement. Otherwise, forget it. It's probably not worth committing lots of resources to spruce up graphics that a tiny fraction of your target market can see.

In other words, by the time heavy tessellation is the norm, the GTX580 will be obsolete.

That said, games like Crysis 2 may push the envelope. But I wouldn't spend on a monster card just for one game. Heck, I tend to lag behind by a year or two in games I buy anyway, so by the time I get around to Crysis 2, I'll probably have a Maxwell.

 

[PingviN]

I know that when I play flight sims, my focus is on the terrain below instead of that the incoming missiles and fighter jets.

I was aiming for the "tesselation can improve game performance without sacrificing IQ"-thing, but hey.

 

[Lonbjerg]

You are a funny guy Talk about being close minded. You do realise that the tesselation in Metro is barely noticable, right? It's on character models. That's it. We get a minor (reeeeeealy tiny) improvement of character models. That's not using tesselation properly. Tesselation shows it's real strenghts when applied in a larger scale, on terrain and such.

I don't even know where I mentioned the performance hit in my post, but you're probably so far up your own ass you can't read properly anyway. Please, do prove me wrong and I wont have to treat you like an uneducated ass-dweller

Find me one post where I like the tessellation level in Metro2033?
I have dismissed that game as a gauge repeatatly.

But you do realize that the big scale is where the 57xx/58xx/68xx series falls flat on it nose compared to performance, right?
Where tessellation actually matters
And that when AMD was the only tessellation player in town the pushed/promote like crazy bats.
Untill "Fermi" came and made their performance look subpar.

It will be fun to revisit this topic in 6-12 months...*bookmarked and placed into calender*

 

[Skurge]

Find me one post where I like the tessellation level in Metro2033?
I have dismissed that game as a gauge repeatatly.

But you do realize that the big scale is where the 57xx/58xx/68xx series falls flat on it nose compared to performance, right?
Where tessellation actually matters
And that when AMD was the only tessellation player in town the pushed/promote like crazy bats.
Untill "Fermi" came and made their performance look subpar.

It will be fun to revisit this topic in 6-12 months...*bookmarked and placed into calender*

He talks about how tess should be used and you start talking AMD?

Yeah, you are very unbiased. Do you even play games?

 

[PingviN]

Find me one post where I like the tessellation level in Metro2033?

But you do realize that the big scale is where the 57xx/58xx/68xx series falls flat on it nose compared to performance, right?
Where tessellation actually matters
And that when AMD was the only tessellation player in town the pushed/promote like crazy bats.
Untill "Fermi" came and made their performance look subpar.

It will be fun to revisit this topic in 6-12 months...*bookmarked and placed into calender*

Yes, amds tesselation performance wont be enough to drive tesselation home properly. What are you trying to say?

 

[Lonbjerg]

Yes, amds tesselation performance wont be enough to drive tesselation home properly. What are you trying to say?

Before "fermi":
AMD fanboys where like "Yeah...tessellation...it's the future!!!"

After "fermi":
AMD fanboys are like "Tesseallation...well...it might matter....in the future..."

It's not like AMD tesselllation performance suddenly tanked.
It's just subpar in compared to NVIDIA's performance.

And that is why we have this debate.
NVIDIA out-engineered AMD in the tesselllation implementation.

 

[MrK6]

Before "fermi":
AMD fanboys where like "Yeah...tessellation...it's the future!!!"

After "fermi":
AMD fanboys are like "Tesseallation...well...it might matter....in the future..."

It's not like AMD tesselllation performance suddenly tanked.
It's just subpar in compared to NVIDIA's performance.

And that is why we have this debate.
NVIDIA out-engineered AMD in the tesselllation implementation.

*yawn*

 

[PingviN]

Before "fermi":
AMD fanboys where like "Yeah...tessellation...it's the future!!!"

After "fermi":
AMD fanboys are like "Tesseallation...well...it might matter....in the future..."

It's not like AMD tesselllation performance suddenly tanked.
It's just subpar in compared to NVIDIA's performance.

And that is why we have this debate.
NVIDIA out-engineered AMD in the tesselllation implementation.

I have absolutely no idea what you are going for here
How is your post, in any way, related to my earlier statements? You're just gonna keep on throwing stuff like that out and hope Im gonna drop dead or go away? READ my earlier posts, UNDERSTAND them and then reply.

 

[Dekasa]

Before "fermi":
AMD fanboys where like "Yeah...tessellation...it's the future!!!"

After "fermi":
AMD fanboys are like "Tesseallation...well...it might matter....in the future..."

It's not like AMD tesselllation performance suddenly tanked.
It's just subpar in compared to NVIDIA's performance.

And that is why we have this debate.
NVIDIA out-engineered AMD in the tesselllation implementation.

Honestly, there's no difference in those two statements. Tesselation is still in the future. Current cards handle what we've seen just fine, and next Gen is using a stronger implementation.

 

[esquared]

Again, I repeat. Stop with the insults. Now


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[biostud]

Anyone got any price estimates on the 5xx and 69xx series?

Something like this?:
$649 6990
$499 580
$399 6970
$319 6950

 

[ArchAngel777]

Anyone got any price estimates on the 5xx and 69xx series?

Something like this?:
$649 6990
$499 580
$399 6970
$319 6950

The only way the 580 is going to be $499 is if the 6970 doesn't perform as well, or if the 6970 is also priced at $499. Both are certainly possible. But at this point, all signs are pointing to the 6970 and the 580 being neck and neck, so I would expect similar price points.

 

[AtenRa]

Someone at B3D sais Cayman XT has 1536 Shaders with 24SMIDs and 4-way VLIW and 96 TMUs. Cayman Pro 1408 Shaders with 22 SIMDs and 88 TMUs

Could they change to a more tessellating (Parallel) architecture with 4 Rasterizers and 2 tessellator units ??

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=55313&page=181

 

[vshin]

My guess:

$499 580
$479 6970
$349 570
$299 6950
$249 5870
$229 560
$199 6870
$149 6850

I think nVidia will simply discontinue the 480 and 470 and let the current stock run out. These cards are too expensive to manufacture relative to where they would have to be priced. I think they'd rather use TSMC's limited resources to put out more 5xx chips instead. As for AMD, I think the 5870 will cruise along but I wouldn't be surprised if they let it fade away as they aggressively price their 69xx cards.

 

[Arkadrel]

Anyone got any price estimates on the 5xx and 69xx series?

Something like this?:
$649 6990
$499 580
$399 6970
$319 6950

The 580 and the 6970 are going to perform equally (rumors), if their NOT priced equally (say in nvidias being 100$ more) then they wont be selling many of them.

 

[Skurge]

So, what ever happened to the "Cayman will be the largest GPU AMD has ever made" article?

 

[blastingcap]

Before "fermi" (during the six-month delay, on a financial conference call):
JHH was like "DX11 doesn't matter, hardly any games are out for it"

After "fermi":
Certain people are like "DX11, especially tessellation, suddenly matters!"

Fixed it for ya.

Problem is that JHH was right: DX11 has slow adoption. And heavy tessellation levels has even slower adoption. Someone who chooses to stay with a GTX285 or HD4890 will be just fine in the vast majority of games all the way to HD7xxx or Kepler at minimum. You can thank consoles for that: DX9 titles that don't stress LAST gen cards, let alone current-gen cards, and which have no DX11, so ports to PC get a few DX11 effects slapped on and gamedevs call it a day. Unless they are one of the very, very few like Crytek.

P.S. I just read in the news that 14% of Americans are on food stamps. That's one out of seven. Just in case you forgot that we are mired in one of the largest and longest recessions in the last 100 years. The economy is probably slowing down adoption of DX11 because financially distressed people usually don't buy high-end graphics cards with whatever money they have left.

Then look at financials for game companies (THQ... ouch). They are under pressure just like everyone else. Unless they were paid $2MM by NV, I doubt most game companies would heavily tessellate anything, knowing that few people would see the effects, unless the process of adding such tessellation were very inexpensive.

Also, the economy is one of the reasons why MicroSonyTendo haven't released next-gen consoles yet--they are milking current-gen consoles rather than rushing out a new console that few people are in the mood to buy and thus won't be as profitable.

 

[RussianSensation]

My guess:

$499 580
$479 6970
$349 570
$299 6950
$249 5870
$229 560
$199 6870
$149 6850

1. GTX560/570 aren't even out. Why would AMD drop prices on HD6870 and HD6850 already?

2. 6950 is supposed to be as fast as a GTX480. Why would they price it at $299 only when HD6870 is $239? If HD6950 is nearly as fast as a GTX480 with lower power consumption and noise levels, AMD could just as easily charge $349 or $379 for it.

3. For some reason all the cards in your lineup are never priced directly against one another. Why not? Why would GTX570 cost $50 more than the 6950 for example, or why would HD6970 cost less than the 580?

It's too hard to predict pricing right now.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Yep, too hard to predict, but it is fun. I am excited for both the GTX 580 and the 6970. But, I think the days of me personally buying a $500 video card are over...

I hope nVidia can turn the GTX 580 into 20%-30% faster performing GTX 480 while staying within the same power envelope. I think they are more than capable of it, too.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Someone who chooses to stay with a GTX285 or HD4890 will be just fine in the vast majority of games all the way to HD7xxx or Kepler at minimum. You can thank consoles for that: DX9 titles that don't stress LAST gen cards, let alone current-gen cards, and which have no DX11, so ports to PC get a few DX11 effects slapped on and gamedevs call it a day. Unless they are one of the very, very few like Crytek.

This post is very accurate and I agree with it completely. The consoles are indeed the reason that our GTX 200 series and HD 4XXX series are more than enough for the next couple of years. Since a good majority of games released for the PC are direct, crappy ports (or decent ports at best) we are not going to be stressing these cards. There are, of course, going to be games that do stress current and future hardware, but those will probably be in the minority, and also most likely just affect users that run at very high resolutions.

Whatever the case, I plan on keeping my GTX 280 for a while. Until the economy picks up, I'd rather keep an extra $500 on hand if times get tough...

 

[vshin]

1. GTX560/570 aren't even out. Why would AMD drop prices on HD6870 and HD6850 already?

2. 6950 is supposed to be as fast as a GTX480. Why would they price it at $299 only when HD6870 is $239? If HD6950 is nearly as fast as a GTX480 with lower power consumption and noise levels, AMD could just as easily charge $349 or $379 for it.

3. For some reason all the cards in your lineup are never priced directly against one another. Why not? Why would GTX570 cost $50 more than the 6950 for example, or why would HD6970 cost less than the 580?

It's too hard to predict pricing right now.

My guesses are based on when the cards actually do come out. I think the 570 and 6950 is a toss-up. The lineup isn't priced directly against one another because that's been the recent trend lately. Who know what will happen however. In any case, my guesses are simply for entertainment value just to see who comes the closest when the cards are officially released. Just having some fun.

 

[Arkadrel]

So, what ever happened to the "Cayman will be the largest GPU AMD has ever made" article?

Was it a Fudzilla artical?
I believe current rumors are 360-380mm^2.

Im not sure if that is the biggest ever (size in mm^2) GPU.
Will it be the most used transistors in a gpu ever designed by amd? maybe.

 

[RussianSensation]

I love new videocard launches. A month ago the HD5870 still hovered at $350 and now you can pick up an HD5970 for $430.

 

[Arkadrel]

The question is... what is the 580 gonna be benchmarked against?

if the 580 costs more at launch, than a 5970... will it be benched against that? The step down to a 5870 compaired to a 580 is huge, not only in performance but also in price.

So Im kinda hopeing we ll see a 580 vs 5970 in reviews... otherwise not really much point to doing reviews until the 6970s are out.

 

[Keysplayr]

The question is... what is the 580 gonna be benchmarked against?

if the 580 costs more at launch, than a 5970... will it be benched against that? The step down to a 5870 compaired to a 580 is huge, not only in performance but also in price.

So Im kinda hopeing we ll see a 580 vs 5970 in reviews... otherwise not really much point to doing reviews until the 6970s are out.

Pricing will most likely reflect the products performance. If the 580 is faster than the 6970, then I'd expect it to cost more. Vice Versa.