First retail 6870 photo; now includes full Chinese leaks and Guru3D review discussion

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MrK6

Diamond Member
Aug 9, 2004
4,458
4
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I don't care so much that he was wrong about specs but flat out lying by saying he has a 6870 overclocked by 200mhz with no voltage adjustment is ridiculous. even if we argue about stuff around here lying like that is a bit over the top.
Throwing it out there, but maybe he got mixed up info or confused and it was the 6850? I dunno, it just seems a little harsh (almost like a personal backlash) for someone who did provide a lot of good info that turned out to be accurate, and well before any other sites did. I personally would like to see him stick around.
Yeah I know it's weird but in a way it's an upgrade for my central vision and downgrade for my peripheral vision. Look at it this way: a highly oc'd HD5850 (I was running mine at ~940MHz) handling 5040x1050 will give a lower average framerate than a highly oc'd GTX460-768 handling 1680x1050. I lose the immersion and peripheral vision (the better to spot spies attempting to backstab me), but ever since I got the G35 Surround headset, I noticed that my audio did a good job of detecting enemies to the sides/behind me, anyway. So I will be fine without Eyefinity. I still like it and want it, and it's good for outside-of-game productivity, but I'll live--and pocket the free HAWX and $55 in savings, which can go towards Kepler or HD7xxx next year.
I don't understand why you didn't get a 6850 then. It's the same performance and price as the GTX 460 1GB, but you could have kept the Eyefinity anyway. Good luck with your new hardware, but that decision makes no sense to me.
 

SlowSpyder

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
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Yea, he could have heard wrong about which card was overclocking that well. Maybe wherever he works had an engineering board that had a higher voltage. Maybe the GPU he was reporting on just happened to be a crazy overclocker? Maybe he's a flat out liar. I don't know what the answer is. I'd say his information was rumor-site-accurate. That is, some of it was right, some of it was wrong. So with Cayman's release coming up, we all have our own opinion of his posts, buy in to what he says accordingly.
 

blastingcap

Diamond Member
Sep 16, 2010
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I don't understand why you didn't get a 6850 then. It's the same performance and price as the GTX 460 1GB, but you could have kept the Eyefinity anyway. Good luck with your new hardware, but that decision makes no sense to me.

Eyefinity is nice but only works in a handful of games--it so happens that I play at least 3 of them (L4D, L4D2, TF2). But other than that, the only other game that effectively works with Eyefinity that I would play would be BFBC2, and I'd need something more like a Cayman or Antilles card to play BFBC2 in Eyefinity. The thing I am most likely to miss is not Eyefinity gaming but 3-screen websurfing.

Also, I haven't permanently ditched Eyefinity/Surround. Let me put it this way: if someone came up to me and asked "how much would I have to pay you to take away one of your monitors on your primary rig for a year," I would have said a number less than $50 for sure. Maybe less than $40.

Including tax, shipping, special discounts, limited time offers, etc. (I get a limited time effective discount on stuff on Amazon), my effective prices are:

$197 - cheapest HD6850 that's in stock (I'd expect 15-20% oc @ stock volts); add in my hatred of paying Tiger's price-gouger prices to the bill and it's well over $200
$188 - cheapest HD6850 (out of stock w/o even an expected shipping date, and I remember how long people had to wait on their amazon DirectCU orders for GTX460s so I am not optimistic that I'd see anything from Amazon for at least a month; at least it's the ASUS 6850 DirectCU version, but then again, I read a review that showed good but not stellar performance out of it)
$167AR - cheapest GTX460-1GB (MSI Cyclone OC; I'd expect a 20-25% oc @ stock volts)
$135AR - EVGA GTX460-768 (I'd expect ~25% oc @ stock volts) + free HAWX2

There's a $62 difference between the cheapest 6850 and the card I bought. $62 that will go towards a Kepler/HD7xxx rather than yet another 40nm GPU with 1GB VRAM.

I guess the GTX460-1GB is viable but it's 24% more expensive and won't give me 24% more performance at 16x10, plus it's overkill for most games at 16x10 anyway. (In other words, if I'm going to step down from Eyefinity, I may as well go all the way to the bang-for-buck leader, i.e. the GTX460-768, rather than half-arse it with a GTX460-1GB that is geared more for 19x12 than 16x10.) Also, EVGA has a better reputation than MSI in case I need to RMA or something. I also remember how it took FOUR MONTHS for MSI's rebate to get back to me, last time I bought from them. Grr.

P.S. I looked at every review on overclocking that I could find, and discovered that a) GTX460's average overclock is ~20% (1GB) or ~25% (768MB) without voltage adjustment, vs. b) ~15-20% for the HD6850 (EDIT: actually the updated average is 16% overclock). So if you compare max oc (uncherrypicked GTX460) vs max oc (uncherrypicked HD6850), the GTX460-1GB is fairly close to the HD6850. If Amazon/Tiger didn't price gouge then it's a no-brainer to retain Eyefinity and get the HD6850, but at these prices, and with my 7 weeks of IGP weariness, I don't want to wait any longer or to pay extra. I want to punish price gouging by voting with my wallet.
 
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Madcatatlas

Golden Member
Feb 22, 2010
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I was about to say you bought a great card, but then i read it was the 768 MB version :D

Have fun with it in any case!
 

blastingcap

Diamond Member
Sep 16, 2010
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I was about to say you bought a great card, but then i read it was the 768 MB version :D

Have fun with it in any case!

I'm going to quote myself: "(In other words, if I'm going to step down from Eyefinity, I may as well go all the way to the bang-for-buck leader, i.e. the GTX460-768, rather than half-arse it with a GTX460-1GB that is geared more for 19x12 than 16x10.)"

I'd agree with you if I were to hang onto the card for 2+ years, but I plan on getting rid of it in ~11 months. I think I know what I'm doing. I did after all, manage to buy low and sell high so that my 5850 only cost me ~$10 total. And it's easier to sell a $100 card than a $130 card or $150 card. Old NV cards retain value better than old AMD cards, anyway, since some people like to SLI or have dedicated PhysX.

Every dollar I save now means another dollar (plus interest) to spend on a Kepler/HD7xxx. :D
 

tviceman

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2008
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Every dollar I save now means another dollar (plus interest) to spend on a Kepler/HD7xxx. :D

I hope that Kepler derivations aimed at the consumer market are going to be more in-line with gf104 and less of an all-in-one do it all GPU like GF100 is. I don't think Nvidia can sustain these kinds of price wars long term if their consumer dies have so much extra gpgpu space and having a more able price competitive Nvidia means bigger price wars. We'll see!
 

blastingcap

Diamond Member
Sep 16, 2010
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I hope that Kepler derivations aimed at the consumer market are going to be more in-line with gf104 and less of an all-in-one do it all GPU like GF100 is. I don't think Nvidia can sustain these kinds of price wars long term if their consumer dies have so much extra gpgpu space and having a more able price competitive Nvidia means bigger price wars. We'll see!

28nm = almost certainly better price/perf than 40nm GPUs.

P.S. I hope NV has a single-GPU Surround solution next year. I hate being basically vendor-locked for multi-monitor gaming. (Yes I know NV has Surround so technically I am not vendor-locked, but I refuse to go multi-GPU unless it's an offer I can't refuse. Power draw, thermals, and potential for micro-stutter are such turnoffs to me. I know others disagree and love their SLI/CF though.)
 
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razr21

Junior Member
Oct 23, 2010
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I just noticed that the XFX 6870 is about $30 more on New Egg then all of the other brands.. My brother is thinking about purchasing this card for his rig, and it would be a nice upgrade for him. I want to recommend it to him, but I'm not sure if it's worth the extra money.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150506

Can I expect this card to overclock better or is it not even worth the money?
 

tviceman

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2008
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I just noticed that the XFX 6870 is about $30 more on New Egg then all of the other brands.. My brother is thinking about purchasing this card for his rig, and it would be a nice upgrade for him. I want to recommend it to him, but I'm not sure if it's worth the extra money.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150506

Can I expect this card to overclock better or is it not even worth the money?

If you want to overclock and are concerned about how they might do, you should wait on buying it until more sites like Anandtech have analyzed the early batches that are for sale. Reports so far are showing the hd6870 to generally be a poor overclocking card, unlike the hd6850 which can overclock very well and nearly match hd6870 speeds.
 

AnandThenMan

Diamond Member
Nov 11, 2004
3,979
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It won't overclock any better. It's worth the money if you value the customer service that XFX offers, and the lifetime warranty.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
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Also, RS, you indirectly helped to argue AGAINST 6850... :)

Congrats on the new card! Don't you just love the fact that NV throws in free games with so many of their cards? Sneaky bastards.

Well for $135, HD6850 can't really compete for bang for the buck. I am sure you can get a healthy 850mhz+ overclock. Now you have $60+ to put away towards your next $400 upgrade involving HD7970 or Kepler :awe:
 
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Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
21,110
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I personally think Silverforce11 should be banned. clearly he flat out lied saying "I've got Barts XT to OC by 200mhz on the core with no vcore mod". even times when he was not lying he was just guessing and passing off everything as fact.

he said "I've got Barts XT to OC by 200mhz on the core with no vcore mod and it was still running cool and quiet" and that is BS.

you are right. it is okay to come in here and just flat out lie with no consequences. call somebody a troll though and you get an infraction...

toyota the issue here is "intent".

Was there intent to knowingly mislead? Can it be proved?

What can be proved is that the statements don't reflect the reality of what was released. That does make silverforce's prior posts factual inaccurate.

But we don't infract people, let alone ban them, for posting factually inaccurate information unless they are intentionally doing it as a means of trolling or violating basic rule #1 of the TOS:

1)...purposefully causing trouble with no motive other than to upset the crowd is not allowed

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=60552

Lying can happen by accident, ignorance can result in a lie. So an extra layer of burden of proof is required before the posts become actionable.

Calling someone a troll doesn't happen by accident. Hence the clear-cut "go straight to jail" infractionability of such posts.

ye... aint life a b'''h

Im just saying toyota, you dont get banned for lying. you get banned for several other reasons, but not for lying. Lying is actually a "right" you have...

Point of clarification: Lying out of ignorance is OK, but is hazardous to your credibility.

Silverforce's credibility is the tragic victim in this situation. Everyone that believed him hook, line, and sinker get to come out of the experience perhaps a little wiser but not worse for the wear.

Silverforce has created a credibility gap though that will dog him until he does something to rectify the situation. In a lot of ways that is more punitive than a mere infraction or outright banning if you think about it.

And lying with intent to mislead is not a right, it is infractable, but it needs to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

well then I have a gtx580 right here that I am testing as we speak...

And we can't prove you to be lying, even though we might fully suspect you to be lying, so there is little we can do or will do about it. But you only get to leverage your credibility once, waste it and you'll never be taken seriously a second time.
 
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toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
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toyota the issue here is "intent".

Was there intent to knowingly mislead? Can it be proved?

What can be proved is that the statements don't reflect the reality of what was released. That does make silverforce's prior posts factual inaccurate.

But we don't infract people, let alone ban them, for posting factually inaccurate information unless they are intentionally doing it as a means of trolling or violating basic rule #1 of the TOS:



http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=60552

Lying can happen by accident, ignorance can result in a lie. So an extra layer of burden of proof is required before the posts become actionable.

Calling someone a troll doesn't happen by accident. Hence the clear-cut "go straight to jail" infractionability of such posts.



Point of clarification: Lying out of ignorance is OK, but is hazardous to your credibility.

Silverforce's credibility is the tragic victim in this situation. Everyone that believed him hook, line, and sinker get to come out of the experience perhaps a little wiser but not worse for the wear.

Silverforce has created a credibility gap though that will dog him until he does something to rectify the situation. In a lot of ways that is more punitive than a mere infraction or outright banning if you think about it.

And lying with intent to mislead is not a right, it is infractable, but it needs to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.



And we can't prove you to be lying, even though we might fully suspect you to be lying, so there is little we can do or will do about it. But you only get to leverage your credibility once, waste it and you'll never be taken seriously a second time.
well tell him to show us this magical 6870 that can do a 200mhz oc without additional voltage that he claims he has. anyone that is the least bit tech savvy knows that is an outright lie.
 

blastingcap

Diamond Member
Sep 16, 2010
6,654
5
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Congrats on the new card! Don't you just love the fact that NV throws in free games with so many of their cards? Sneaky bastards.

Well for $135, HD6850 can't really compete for bang for the buck. I am sure you can get a healthy 850mhz+ overclock. Now you have $60+ to put away towards your next $400 upgrade involving HD7970 or Kepler :awe:

Thanks, the game is nice, I might even be able to sell it to subsidize the card!

Yeah, $197 HD6850 vs $135 GTX460-768 is pretty lopsided even without considering the free HAWX2 game. I figure that after reselling the card next year, I will have ~$100 to add to the $62 saved up from resisting HD6850. Maybe more if I can sell HAWX2. A $162+ subsidy on Kepler or HD7xxx sounds pretty good to me!

P.S. Another way to look at it: I got a GTX 280 that draws less power, emits less heat and noise, does DX11, and can easily oc 20% (probably more like 30% with a mild voltage bump), and comes with a free game, all for $135 shipped and the loss of 256MB VRAM. Plus it's a short card that can be slotted into most cases without any problems.
 
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Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
21,110
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well tell him to show us this magical 6870 that can do a 200mhz oc without additional voltage that he claims he has. anyone that is the least bit tech savvy knows that is an outright lie.

And how do you propose he "show us"?

Consider that his card, being pre-production, could very well have been dialed in at a higher stock voltage by default and thus truly not needed any extra voltage to clock higher.

Or, possibly, that his card was intentionally underclocked by whoever made it (maybe for stability, an earlier stepping of Barts, etc) such that when he overclocked it he could ramp it up 200MHz with ease but the actual clockspeed he clocked it up to was not much higher than what AMD released as stock clockspeed for the 6870?

My point here isn't to make excuses for silverforce but to show you that eliminating all the possible caveats and plausible explanations for the posts he made are simply beyond the resources of the moderator team. We aren't going to chase down every possible post for intentional lying.

On the extremely extreme cases we'll have confidence in levying an infraction without much concern over the possibility of unjustly punishing ignorance.

But I think you know how rare we invest that much effort into. Mostly because lying (intentional or otherwise) is self-destructive to one's credibility and in the end there really is no worse punishment that can be levied than having no one take you seriously.
 

blastingcap

Diamond Member
Sep 16, 2010
6,654
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well tell him to show us this magical 6870 that can do a 200mhz oc without additional voltage that he claims he has. anyone that is the least bit tech savvy knows that is an outright lie.

Perhaps he got a golden sample. *shrug*

Silverforce also said a few interesting things about stuff that AMD was adamant about keeping secret: crossfire performance and DP performance were two of them.

By now we've probably all heard that CF has caught up or surpassed SLI in scaling, at least with Barts, but I thought what he meant was Sideport. Barts won't have it, but Cayman, the weirdo GPU with 4D shaders, might well have it.

As for DP performance, I have no idea if that has anything to do with this: http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/faith/nvidia-slashes-latest-quadro-prices-by-50/

"OK, KitGuru is officially shocked. Droping the price of a mainstream card like the GTX460/470 in reaction to AMD’s 6850/6870 is perfectly natural and makes good business sense. These are fast moving cards, in a highly competitive market, and the busiest quarter of the year is upon us. Business sales are not so seasonal, there is far less price pressure on product and nVidia has enjoyed a MASSIVE lead in the workstation and professional market for many, many years. Huge price cuts on the latest Quadros? KitGuru investigates."

Only KitGuru has reported this, so the story may be bogus. So take it with an entire salt shaker's worth of salt.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
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The price cut on Quadro cards is strange. It is only offered by PNY and no other AIB. Even more suspicious.

One of my main arguments against GTX470 being replaced by GTX475 (GF104 fully unlocked 384 core part) was that if you replace GTX470, what do you do with all the failed GTX480 chips? Therefore, my gut has always told me that the minute GTX470 gets replaced, the GTX480 will disappear as well. Could it be that NV is clearing all their GF100 stock slowly in the next 1-2 months and replacing GTX470/480 altogether? Who knows.
 
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toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
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The price cut on Quadro cards is strange. It is only offered by PNY and no other AIB. Even more suspicious.

One of my main arguments against GTX470 being replaced by GTX475 (GF104 fully unlocked 384 core part) was that if you replace GTX470, what do you do with all the failed GTX480 chips? Therefore, my gut has always told me that the minute GTX470 gets replaced, the GTX480 will disappear as well. Could it be that NV is clearing all their GF100 stock slowly in the next 1-2 months and replacing GTX470/480 altogether? Who knows.
well the gtx480 is already a failed chip since it doesnt have the 512sp originally planned. but yeah I do think that we are within a few weeks of getting new revised chips and gf100 as well as some others are going to be cleared out. there has been some rumor buzz about gf110, gf114 and a few others so its just a matter of time IMO. and these will of course be the 500 series cards.
 

BenSkywalker

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
9,140
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I don't think Nvidia can sustain these kinds of price wars long term if their consumer dies have so much extra gpgpu space and having a more able price competitive Nvidia means bigger price wars.

You mean you don't think AMD can sustain these price wars? Fermi has been making significantly more profit for nV then the 5xxx series has for AMD. Their all in one strategy seems to be making them significantly more money and allowing them more pricing flexibility at the moment.

The price cut on Quadro cards is strange. It is only offered by PNY and no other AIB. Even more suspicious.

It is normal for the Quadros to only be available through one vendor. Getting a board certified for each application isn't a simple or speedy process, nor is it one you can just buy your way through ala WHQL.

One of my main arguments against GTX470 being replaced by GTX475 (GF104 fully unlocked 384 core part) was that if you replace GTX470, what do you do with all the failed GTX480 chips?

Quadro/Tesla.
 

Madcatatlas

Golden Member
Feb 22, 2010
1,155
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You mean you don't think AMD can sustain these price wars? Fermi has been making significantly more profit for nV then the 5xxx series has for AMD. Their all in one strategy seems to be making them significantly more money and allowing them more pricing flexibility at the moment.



It is normal for the Quadros to only be available through one vendor. Getting a board certified for each application isn't a simple or speedy process, nor is it one you can just buy your way through ala WHQL.



Quadro/Tesla.


It should be a fairly obvious point that if you lower prices for a "special" product like that quadros, you just dont have enough demand.

So in other words. People arent buying Quadros. Nvidia cuts the price in half to sell more. I mean how stupid wouldnt you feel if you just bought one for 1000$ and then the price is cut to 500$? lol

I would assume the customer who did what i wrote above, would be reimbursed with the >500 $, but i doubt its the case with Nvidia.

Anyway, this is OT really, so ill start a topic on it to make it a good discussion.
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
14,003
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People bought $1000 Quadro cards made up much more from the work they did with them and I don’t think they are concerned for the $500.
 

tviceman

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2008
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You mean you don't think AMD can sustain these price wars? Fermi has been making significantly more profit for nV then the 5xxx series has for AMD. Their all in one strategy seems to be making them significantly more money and allowing them more pricing flexibility at the moment.

Perhaps, but I don't think subsidizing your consumer market prices with hpc prices is a win-win strategy. The point I was trying to make is that I think Nvidia would like to be competitive on die sizes in similar price points as obviously this would help their bottom line much, much more than competing with significantly larger die sizes.
 

buckshot24

Diamond Member
Nov 3, 2009
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well tell him to show us this magical 6870 that can do a 200mhz oc without additional voltage that he claims he has. anyone that is the least bit tech savvy knows that is an outright lie.
You might be right but there is a possible explanation as well. Perhaps the original specs for barts xt were for a lower core speed and AMD increased it late because of low performance. Maybe the voltage of his card was higher giving him more headroom with his overclock.

Although if he hasn't come out and explained his self since release then it doesn't look good.