gtx570vs6970vs6950vs5870 all overclocked review> gtx570 wins

[happy medium]

I really enjoyed that review. Charts and setups were great. The performance difference between the 5870 and 6950 is marginal at best. The price of the 6950 needs to come down 20-25 bucks for it to make sense. The 6970 needs to be 350 to compete against the 570 as well.

Thats preety much what I see too.
I would also think the gtx580 should be priced at $450, a slight premium because it,s clearly the fastest card. The fastest card is usually not the best value.

 

[happy medium]

really enjoyed that review. Charts and setups were great. The performance difference between the 5870 and 6950 is marginal at best.

I totally agree ,it was agreat read and I epecially like the fact that they added a overclocked 5870.

 

[Rifter]

Like I said before: the moment you bring up the 580 in these comparisons, you've already lost.

The $500 card being faster or sometimes tying the $370 card? The $350 card beating the $300 card?

If you can't resist going on defense, just mention the GTX cards manage well enough at higher resolutions. Resist the urge to somehow declare victory against red every single time, it leads to some pretty fantastic statements.

This is exactly what i was going to say, of course the 580 beats the 6970.

They are NOT competing with each other, the 6970 is going up against the 570.

And in happys provided link to his other thread guess what, the 6970 beats the 570 at eyefinity res in almost every test. so i'll stand by my statement that the ATI cards do better at higher res. Of course the 580 pulls ahead but it also has nothing in its price range from ATI to compete with, and doesnt pull ahead enough to justify its added cost IMO.

 

[MrK6]

Great review. Too bad they got the conclusion wrong. One can't compare a 14% overclock on a GTX 570 to an 8% overclock on a 6970 and then make any meaningful performance comparison. In any case, the review shows that the HD5850 was one of the best cards in years. For $150, overclocked to 900MHz+ it'll run with any of these cards. :thumbsup:

 

[happy medium]

Great review. Too bad they got the conclusion wrong. One can't compare a 14% overclock on a GTX 570 to an 8% overclock on a 6970 and then make any meaningful performance comparison. In any case, the review shows that the HD5850 was one of the best cards in years. For $150, overclocked to 900MHz+ it'll run with any of these cards. :thumbsup:

They don't even test a 5850 and 150$ used mabe if your lucky.
They compared the highest overclocks for the 2 cards? gtx570 n 6970.

 

[brybir]

They don't even test a 5850 and 150$ used mabe if your lucky.
They compared the highest overclocks for the 2 cards? gtx570 n 6970.

I agree about the overclocks. If you are in the market like me, I want to know if I go to Newegg right now and buy one, what can I get OC wise from the cards and what does that do to their relative performance.

Perhaps in the future someone will figure out a way to get the 6XXX series past 8% and then we can compare a 14% to 14% and see how it goes. But, if you cant do it right now, then why do I care that its not theoretically "fair" in comparison because the same percentage overclock is achieved?

 

[MentalIlness]

Any chance of AMD releasing a 6770 maybe to compete with the GTX 560 ? Or maybe a GTS 550 ?

As long as it isnt neutered though to 128-bit like the 5770. Id say a 6770 at 256-bit would overclock nicely.

 

[Riek]

They don't even test a 5850 and 150$ used mabe if your lucky.
They compared the highest overclocks for the 2 cards? gtx570 n 6970.

At least not for the 6970 since that one was limited by the used CCC (same for the 6950). note that they even mention that, we just put the slides completely to the max we could. I believe there was a way to bypass that, but that review didn't.

 

[Aristotelian]

obligatory "sample size = 1" quip

Haven't read reviews at hardwareheaven in ages, they get +1 style points for the supercool graph layout.

Back to the point of sample-size, does anyone out there do reviews where they secure say 10 cards of the same SKU and generate any kind of statistics regarding the distribution in OC results?

I have not seen such a review yet. From the link in the OP:

"The 6970/6950 cards on the other hand do not currently have any overclocked retail models to base the testing on so we have set each to their maximum rating available in Overdrive. We also increased PowerTune to its maximum setting. This gives us a core speed of 950MHz on the 6970 with 1450MHz memory. The 6850 overdrive maximum is 840/1325MHz."

It doesn't sound like this overclocking test pushed the AMD cards. I'm not sure that it's fair to conclude that the 570 is a better overclocker than the 6970 if there is a limitation imposed that is not strictly caused by the physical nature of the card itself. Looking forward to more reviews.

 

[MagickMan]

Bad test is bad, film at 11.

 

[MrK6]

I have not seen such a review yet. From the link in the OP:

"The 6970/6950 cards on the other hand do not currently have any overclocked retail models to base the testing on so we have set each to their maximum rating available in Overdrive. We also increased PowerTune to its maximum setting. This gives us a core speed of 950MHz on the 6970 with 1450MHz memory. The 6850 overdrive maximum is 840/1325MHz."

It doesn't sound like this overclocking test pushed the AMD cards. I'm not sure that it's fair to conclude that the 570 is a better overclocker than the 6970 if there is a limitation imposed that is not strictly caused by the physical nature of the card itself. Looking forward to more reviews.

Exactly. And there really is no excuse for not installing an MSI Afterburner beta and having at it. Otherwise, why waste the time doing a review that doesn't give helpful results?

 

[MagickMan]

Exactly. And there really is no excuse for not installing an MSI Afterburner beta and having at it. Otherwise, why waste the time doing a review that doesn't give helpful results?

Of course there's an excuse, if you don't want to really show what the 69x0 card can do.

 

[Aristotelian]

Of course there's an excuse, if you don't want to really show what the 69x0 card can do.

The way it's meant to be reviewed: coming soon to a theatre near you. At least it wasn't just 2 games at one resolution.

 

[soccerballtux]

I really enjoyed this review. I hope we see more like it. Mabe with a gtx580,480 and 5850 in the mix.

Conclusion:
"When we looked at the 6900 series on launch day we saw that generally the GTX 570 was faster than the 6970 with the 6850 a little further behind. When we overclock the cards and run them through a selection of games the Gigabyte GTX 570 still managed to come out on top for most of the tests however the 6970 did close the gap a little under these enhanced configurations."



http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...5870-all-overclocked-review-introduction.html

Personally, I've never been able to overclock an nvidia card more than a few % or so. Gets too hot.

 

[Wreckage]

Great review. Too bad they got the conclusion wrong. One can't compare a 14% overclock on a GTX 570 to an 8% overclock on a 6970 and then make any meaningful performance comparison.

Sounds like the conclusion is that NVIDIA cards overclock better than AMD cards. Some people always want to cripple reviews, don't use this game, don't use Physx, don't use CUDA, etc.

 

[badb0y]

Sounds like the conclusion is that NVIDIA cards overclock better than AMD cards. Some people always want to cripple reviews, don't use this game, don't use Physx, don't use CUDA, etc.

No, actually it doesn't.

 

[exar333]

You read that review and think tbh they could have just stuck a vapour cooler and better tessellator on the 5870 and not bothered with the 69xx. It would have been lower power and just as fast.

The 6970 is also looking a bit pointless - performance is so close to the 6950 you think why bother? You can get away with it if it is the *top* performing card as people will always pay more for that, but being as the GTX 580 is that card then can't see why anyone would buy a 6970 when the 6950 is so much cheaper?

Exactly. This was my first reaction when official benches were available after launch day. These could easily be one SKU; either that or make the 6970 2GB ram and the 6950 1GB and have more of a differentiation.

 

[exar333]

I have not seen such a review yet. From the link in the OP:

"The 6970/6950 cards on the other hand do not currently have any overclocked retail models to base the testing on so we have set each to their maximum rating available in Overdrive. We also increased PowerTune to its maximum setting. This gives us a core speed of 950MHz on the 6970 with 1450MHz memory. The 6850 overdrive maximum is 840/1325MHz."

It doesn't sound like this overclocking test pushed the AMD cards. I'm not sure that it's fair to conclude that the 570 is a better overclocker than the 6970 if there is a limitation imposed that is not strictly caused by the physical nature of the card itself. Looking forward to more reviews.

Maybe AMD should do a better job in allowing GPU overclocks then? This is entirely sour grapes here IMHO.

If/When AMD comes out with a way to OC these cards more, then a re-review would be appreciated. The fact is, this "feature" they enabled reduces the value of the 6950 and 6970 compared to the 570 which has no artificial limitation.

Believe me when I say that NV would be crucified by people here if they limited OCs in their cards. AMD does it, "no big deal". Kind of annoying. I would not buy a 6970 or 6950 until this limitation is removed, and no a "beta" solution isn't good enough for me. I always OC my graphics cards, so the ability to push boundaries is important to me.

Edit: I will keep my 5870 and be happy for the time being...

 

[happy medium]

At least not for the 6970 since that one was limited by the used CCC (same for the 6950). note that they even mention that, we just put the slides completely to the max we could. I believe there was a way to bypass that, but that review didn't.

hey, I didn't see that
thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Elfear]

Maybe AMD should do a better job in allowing GPU overclocks then? This is entirely sour grapes here IMHO.

If/When AMD comes out with a way to OC these cards more, then a re-review would be appreciated. The fact is, this "feature" they enabled reduces the value of the 6950 and 6970 compared to the 570 which has no artificial limitation.

Believe me when I say that NV would be crucified by people here if they limited OCs in their cards. AMD does it, "no big deal". Kind of annoying. I would not buy a 6970 or 6950 until this limitation is removed, and no a "beta" solution isn't good enough for me. I always OC my graphics cards, so the ability to push boundaries is important to me.

Edit: I will keep my 5870 and be happy for the time being...

It's been a couple years since I overclocked an Nvidia card. Can you do that directly through the control panel?

 

[SirPauly]

I can over-clock my GTX 470 through the control panel by downloading system tools.

 

[Elfear]

I can over-clock my GTX 470 through the control panel by downloading system tools.

Didn't know that. Is the system tools program made by Nvidia?

 

[SirPauly]

Yes!

 

[ronnn]

I see a bunch of cards that you wouldn't be able to tell much (any?) real world difference when using one vs. another. It also tells me that for my budget there is no reason to get rid of this 5870 any time soon.

No kidding! Why I quit reading Driver Heaven reviews. Every card tested gets good frame rates at the selected settings/games. They need to work the cards like kyle - than we can see where the difference is and if we care.


To test these new cards, you need a high res monitor or 3.

 

[Aristotelian]

Maybe AMD should do a better job in allowing GPU overclocks then? This is entirely sour grapes here IMHO.

If/When AMD comes out with a way to OC these cards more, then a re-review would be appreciated. The fact is, this "feature" they enabled reduces the value of the 6950 and 6970 compared to the 570 which has no artificial limitation.

Believe me when I say that NV would be crucified by people here if they limited OCs in their cards. AMD does it, "no big deal". Kind of annoying. I would not buy a 6970 or 6950 until this limitation is removed, and no a "beta" solution isn't good enough for me. I always OC my graphics cards, so the ability to push boundaries is important to me.

Edit: I will keep my 5870 and be happy for the time being...

Do you know what sour grapes means? All that my post stated was that I look forward to a 'full out' review, eventually, where the physical limitations of the reviewed card are reached, as opposed to a software limitation. Sour grapes would mean that I bought one of these cards (I haven't) and am thus bitter about Nvidia's cards (for now) overclocking better (I'm not). Where the heck did you get sour grapes from? Please reread my post.