AMD Radeon HD6870/HD6850 Reviews Thread

[HumblePie]

Still holding on to my 5870's in CF. Now I just need a release date for the 6900 series.

 

[crislevin]

I will wait and see.

My 5770 is powerful enough for me, only thing about 6850 that attracts me is the 3D.

PS. 6850 is selling out at newegg real fast.

 

[dangerman1337]

Still holding on to my 5870's in CF. Now I just need a release date for the 6900 series.

You're probably better off waiting for the 7*** series though (unless you have like triple mointor setup).

 

[Termie]

Both are great cards, but they do have competition. 6850 is fantastic due to its low power use, but an OC'd GTX460 appears to beat it in most reviews, so for the tweakers out there unconcerned about power, the GTX460 may be the better card if it's the same price.

The 6870 comes in between 5850 and 5870, but doesn't overclock as well, so in my estimation only matches the 5850 when both are overclocked, and cannot touch a stock 5870, let alone an overclocked 5870. Surprisingly, not all reviews show it using less power at load than a 5850, either. In my opinion, it's really just equivalent to a 5850 for a few bucks less than the 5850 was selling for recently. GTX470 will beat it when overclocked, and they're already down to $220 after rebate.

Actually, what I think is most amazing is the 6850 crossfire pair. The reviews that have looked at it show it equal to or greater than a 5970, at incredibly low power (less than a single GTX470): http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-crossfirex-review/4
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1445/17/

 

[Madcatatlas]

That isnt what I said.

Ah, im sorry for misinterpreting your post Genx87, i interpreted it as you saying the 5850 was a tough sell and the HD6870 would be a tougher sale

So you see, thats what i interpreted from what you wrote and my response was thereafter.

You are indeed correct that this time around, AMD is releasing an architecture (tweaked, new, whatever) that comes at the heels of Nvidias best offering this round, the GF104.

This spells trouble for Nvidia since its much easier to claim that the HD6xxx is the real release for the GTX4xx series and just look at how the direct competitor to GTX460, beats it at almost every benchmark besides the odd one here and there (usually Nvidia favored and Nvidia reviewers guidelines imposed benchmarks)

If game developers opt to go for a moderate application of tesselation in upcoming games this and next year, the HD6xxx series seems to fit the bill perfectly. Afterall, you cant play Unengine extreme tesselation benchmark.

That said. My GTX460 still provides a better experiance on Civ5 and i have the game

 

[Idontcare]

posted in the other thread - http://www.hardware.fr/articles/804-1/dossier-amd-radeon-hd-6870-6850.html

 

[Madcatatlas]

Both are great cards, but they do have competition. 6850 is fantastic due to its low power use, but an OC'd GTX460 appears to beat it in most reviews, so for the tweakers out there unconcerned about power, the GTX460 may be the better card if it's the same price.

The 6870 comes in between 5850 and 5870, but doesn't overclock as well, so in my estimation only matches the 5850 when both are overclocked, and cannot touch a stock 5870, let alone an overclocked 5870.

I personally would hold of judgement on overclocking capability til reviewers actually have time to review that bit. Anandtech and Hardocp had no OC testing in their reviews and i like to think that a mix of these two reviews is all thats needed for any GPU review.

 

[Termie]

I personally would hold of judgement on overclocking capability til reviewers actually have time to review that bit. Anandtech and Hardocp had no OC testing in their reviews and i like to think that a mix of these two reviews is all thats needed for any GPU review.

Agreed - I'd like to see more overclocking results as well. I was surprised some of the big name reviewers didn't try overclocking.

 

[crislevin]

GTX470 will beat it when overclocked, and they're already down to $220 after rebate.

cheapest I found at newegg is $230.

also consider it draws extra 150w/hr than 6870, its gonna be extra $150 after a year, even if you only play total 100 hrs a year (assuming 1c/kwh)

 

[Idontcare]

cheapest I found at newegg is $230.

also consider it draws extra 150w/hr than 6870, its gonna be extra $150 after a year, even if you only play total 100 hrs a year (assuming 1c/kwh)

Your math seems suspect at first glance. Can you please break down your calculation (including idle/load assumptions) into a little more detail?

 

[Slaimus]

I really don't get why AMD couldn't just call it a 6770 and 6750, which fits in with everything else they were doing, but name aside it looks like a great card. The wealth of connection options on the cards put Nvidia to shame.

I see s few reasons:

- At 255mm^2, it is about the same size as the 4870/4850 (the 5870 is unusually large at 334mm^2) which brings back the norm for the segment, and allow the price to drop under $150 in the future
- They will discontinue the 58xx line soon (too big to drop price below $200) so there will not be any naming confusion
- They will keep the 5770 (it is competitive with the GTS 450 already, no need to change anything)

 

[crislevin]

Your math seems suspect at first glance. Can you please break down your calculation (including idle/load assumptions) into a little more detail?

yes indeed, let me redo the math

If a user fully load their card 100 hrs per year, that 1 hr every 3.6 days. with lowest electricity price of 12-50c

I obtained the power draw difference from toms review of 6870, which shows 470 draw 310w compare to 6870's 160w.

so the price is 12*100*150/(1000) to 50*100*150/(1000), $2 to $8.

I guess I forgot the 100*w=kw....

 

[Elixer]

Your math seems suspect at first glance. Can you please break down your calculation (including idle/load assumptions) into a little more detail?

100 hours @ 400w with a cost of $1/kw-hr is around $40.
At least, according to http://www.handymath.com/cgi-bin/electric.cgi

 

[GaiaHunter]

It is german but I think everyone likes these graphs with the percentages and we can always use google translate.

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2010/test-amd-radeon-hd-6870-und-hd-6850-update/

 

[thilanliyan]

100 hours @ 400w with a cost of $1/kw-hr is around $40.
At least, according to http://www.handymath.com/cgi-bin/electric.cgi

$1/KWh is REALLY expensive. Where did you get that number? At least in North America I don't think it is that expensive anywhere.

 

[crislevin]

$1/KWh is REALLY expensive. Where did you get that number? At least in North America I don't think it is that expensive anywhere.

yeah, US's price is from 12 to 50c.

I imagine other countries will have higher price for elec. Just like gas.... lol

 

[yepp]

http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_hd_6870,1.html

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=1022

http://www.techspot.com/review/325-amd-radeon-6870/

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3601/amd_radeon_hd_6870_1gb_video_card/index.html

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3600/sapphire_radeon_hd_6850_1gb_video_card/index.html

 

[Elixer]

$1/KWh is REALLY expensive. Where did you get that number? At least in North America I don't think it is that expensive anywhere.

That was just a example, actual rates around here are around 3 cents/KWh for the first X hours, then 5 cents for the next Y hours .. and so on.

 

[exar333]

I just can't see the 6870 being as good with OC as the 5850 because the default speed is already set at 900mhz. On the other hand, the CF scaling was VERY impressive in the G3D review. A single 6870 was ~10% slower vs. the 5870 in a lot of tests, but then a CF 6870 was either the same or FASTER than a CF 5870 in others. That was very impressive.

Bang for the buck, it's tough to pass-up the 6850 CF solution for cheap speed. To be honest, I would still opt for a 5850 CF over a 6870 CF, unless I really needed 3D. The 5850's just offer so much OC ability, it's tough to pass up.

 

[Martimus]

I guess I forgot the 100*w=kw....

100 Watts is 0.1kW. 1,000 Watts is 1.0 kW.

 

[Idontcare]

yes indeed, let me redo the math

If a user fully load their card 100 hrs per year, that 1 hr every 3.6 days. with lowest electricity price of 12-50c

I obtained the power draw difference from toms review of 6870, which shows 470 draw 310w compare to 6870's 160w.

so the price is 12*100*150/(1000) to 50*100*150/(1000), $2 to $8.

I guess I forgot the 100*w=kw....

Yeah that is more in the right ballpark.

100 hours @ 400w with a cost of $1/kw-hr is around $40.
At least, according to http://www.handymath.com/cgi-bin/electric.cgi

That was just a example, actual rates around here are around 3 cents/KWh for the first X hours, then 5 cents for the next Y hours .. and so on.

I think maybe you misunderstood the reason I posed the question. I know how to do the math (I've contributed many posts on the topic over the years) but for the life of me I could not figure out what manner of rational assumptions the poster was making to arrive at his specific values.

Unless you are triple-GTX480 like Adam and you game 12hrs a day the added expense to your electricity bill should be well under $100 tops, and more typical usage scenarios peg it at around $30/year.

 

[Kenmitch]

Lotta reviews to look at and numbers to crunch still....But looks like the first of the 6xxx series have some impressive performance!

Hmm....Thinking Caymen is gonna be a Monster chip

 

[T2k]

Well, the 6850 is only ~$10 more and appears to be faster...

Exactly.

 

[toyota]

Exactly.

overclock them both and they are even because the 460 has way more headroom.

 

[Idontcare]

Hmm....Thinking Caymen is gonna be a Monster chip

That's what I walked away with too.

Barts is pretty impressive for performance/dollar but absolute performance is still 2009'ish. (sucks for NV that so too is fermi)

I'm waiting for the real 2010 performance bump to stand-up. Caymen has to be it, how could it not?