Help: Is Radeon HD 6950 acceptable replacement for 5870?

[Apis]

I had my Radeon HD 5870 card serviced recently because of a failing fan, when I returned to pick it up the sales person informed me they have replaced it with a newer and better card (Radeon HD 6950) because they couldn't find a replacement for the 5870. (The perfectly fine 5870 was sent for destruction, instead of simply replacing the fan!)

After getting home and checking the specs for the 6950 and the anandtech review I feel I should have gotten the 6970 instead.

The 6950 perform similarly to 5870 in games, (somewhat better in some cases, worse in a few other) but it is significantly worse when it comes to GPGPU performance (only 1408 cores at 800 MHz vs. 1600 at 850 MHz). I bought the 5870 especially for the computing performance, wanting to try out OpenCl programming.

The store insists the 6950 is much better and reference this passmark benchmark page. But according to that page even the 6850 is better than 5870 which makes no sense at all to me.

Am I missing something?? I'm starting to wonder if it's just me who's nuts.

 

[ViRGE]

You can try arguing your case, but you probably won't make any progress. In virtually all circles the 6950 is considered a proper replacement for (if not a slight upgrade to) the 5870. You're doing the one thing where a 6950 may trail a 5870, and even then the performance gap is going to be very small.

 

[ShreddedWheat]

I would take 6950 over 5870 anyday. Be happy!

 

[TimCh]

I had my Radeon HD 5870 card serviced recently because of a failing fan, when I returned to pick it up the sales person informed me they have replaced it with a newer and better card (Radeon HD 6950) because they couldn't find a replacement for the 5870. (The perfectly fine 5870 was sent for destruction, instead of simply replacing the fan!)

After getting home and checking the specs for the 6950 and the anandtech review I feel I should have gotten the 6970 instead.

The 6950 perform similarly to 5870 in games, (somewhat better in some cases, worse in a few other) but it is significantly worse when it comes to GPGPU performance (only 1408 cores at 800 MHz vs. 1600 at 850 MHz). I bought the 5870 especially for the computing performance, wanting to try out OpenCl programming.

The store insists the 6950 is much better and reference this passmark benchmark page. But according to that page even the 6850 is better than 5870 which makes no sense at all to me.

Am I missing something?? I'm starting to wonder if it's just me who's nuts.

The 6950 cores are vliw4 which makes it more efficient than the vliw5 cores in the 5870 for GPGPU - I think the 6950 will be better overall.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Not necessarily if you want to upgrade a 5870, a 7950 would be the minimum to justify spending the money.

 

[Concillian]

Not necessarily if you want to upgrade a 5870, a 7950 would be the minimum to justify spending the money.

^
didn't read the first post... This thread has nothing to do with spending money.

 

[Apis]

Thanks for the input!

My impression from the anandtech benchmark is that the 5870 is about 20% faster at compute performance. These bitcoin mining benchmarks show similar results: 393/333 = 118 % (333 is average for 6950 cards excluding the unlocked ones, (the replacement is hw-locked))

I agree the 6950 is somewhat better from a pure gaming perspective and better driver support etc, but only by a small margin. So the big difference would be the compute performance?

RavenSEAL: It's a free replacement otherwise I completely agree with you

 

[RavenSEAL]

^
didn't read the first post... This thread has nothing to do with spending money.

Well, you got me there :$

 

[Spikesoldier]

IMO its a comparable swap. I would take it.

 

[BrightCandle]

The 6970 was and is the equivalent of the 5870 but it is not universally faster. They swapped raw compute power for optimisations elsewhere dealing with the bottlenecks for gaming. Since your need is for computer performance not gaming you should be insisting on equivalent performance for your usage, because the shop doesn't get to dictate how you use your card or what an equivalent replacement is. You give them the benchmarks that matter in your circumstances and you should suggest acceptable replacements, which includes a refurbished 5870.

If they don't have any 5870's then they are going to have to replace it with a 7800 series as even the 6970 can't equal the 5870 in GPU compute.

 

[KingFatty]

I think you should consider the market value of the swapped items. What was the market value of your used 5870, assuming it had a fully functional fan? What is the market value of your 6950 (I assume it's the 1 GB version)?

It's tempting to want to artificially inflate the value of the 5870 above market value because you have a specific usage for it, but does the market value reflect that?

Looking on Ebay, you may have a case to argue that current market value of a 5870 exceeds that of a 6950, but it seems they are about the same value.

Also, consider the situation where it's possible at some point no 5870s will be available - the shop needs to account for this situation, because you could argue the replacement value would be an infinite amount of money due to the rarity of such an item being irreplaceable. But that's not fair, the shop has to be able to use a comparable item when the item being returned is not available.

 

[superjim]

If I was bitcoin mining I'd be a little upset but if I wasn't, I would be happy with the 6950 (especially if it was a 2GB model).

 

[poohbear]

its more efficient and less power hungry than the 5870, otherwise it performs the same. When i look at reviews i always look at the 6950 if a 5870 is missing from the benchies cause it performs the same. U should've done ur homework if u were thinking it'd perform better.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

A 2gb 6950 would definitely be slightly better over a 1gb 5870 while a 1gb6950 would be a bit faster as well, but a lot faster with tesselation or even with aa and af perhaps. Given no money is involved, I would anyway take a 6950 over a 5870. They could have given a 6870 oc as well and in modern titles it would be nearly as fast assuming some tesselation, but that would be a slight downgrade. 6950 is a highly improved side grade

 

[notty22]

its more efficient and less power hungry than the 5870, otherwise it performs the same. When i look at reviews i always look at the 6950 if a 5870 is missing from the benchies cause it performs the same. U should've done ur homework if u were thinking it'd perform better.

This was a warranty replacement question.

I'm also curious what type of 6950 they sent you. Is it a reference model with 2gb and the backplate ?

edit: Hardware locked is usually the 1gb versions. I missed that.

 

[railven]

Sometimes I wonder if people even read the OP...

@OP, I think in this situation, you'll have to eat the difference. Unfortunately the 5870 has been EOL for a long time. I doubt you'll get an equal computation part, and I doubt shops distribute replacements based on computation performance.

Hopefully you can make due, otherwise, all you can do is petition the shop and see if they're willing to swap it or offer you the monetary value of the card as payment towards a card better for your needs.

 

[Zebo]

Yes much better plus you can make it a 6970 w/ flash then much much better.

 

[railven]

Yes much better plus you can make it a 6970 w/ flash then much much better.

He already stated it's H/W locked.

And he isn't talking about gaming performance. That is the least of his concerns.

 

[FalseChristian]

Go here. The 6950 is 10% to 20% faster. I think you'll be happy that you got a 6950.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/293?vs=294

 

[Apis]

Thanks for all the feedback!

As railven said, the gaming performance isn't the problem, it is the computing performance. I originally got the 5870 because I wanted to play around with OpenCL programming. In that regard the 6950 is performing much worse than the 5870, even though it is slightly better when it comes to gaming.

To those who was wondering, the replacement is an XFX HD-695X-CDFC, 2 GB and the original card was a Gigabyte GV-R587UD-1GD, 1 GB. The 2GB memory increase is definitely nice, but again, that does not help with compute performance which is my primary use for the card. (It doesn't really help with gaming much either since I have single monitor with standard resolution).

Still waiting for an answer from the store, at least they have taken my argument under consideration.

Since your need is for computer performance not gaming you should be insisting on equivalent performance for your usage, because the shop doesn't get to dictate how you use your card or what an equivalent replacement is.

Yes that is how I see it as well. I would accept an 6970 though, don't think there is any chance at all of getting a 7xxx series card.

I think you should consider the market value of the swapped items.

Well, I think that would be a very strong legal argument, but it doesn't help me much, I still got downgraded in practice. My counterargument would be that they replaced and destroyed my card without asking me first. To actually get equal or better performance as the 5870 (2720 GFLOPS), I would have to get a 7950 (2867 GFLOPS), but the 6970 comes close (2703 GFLOPS). [Ref: WP] The 6970 cost (retail) 50% and the 7950 cost almost 100% of the 6950. (I could have gotten a replacement heat sink for the 5870 for 30$).

Go here. The 6950 is 10% to 20% faster. I think you'll be happy that you got a 6950.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/293?vs=294

That is Odd, those results contradict the ones in the Anandtech review? If you look at the actual card specs on wikipedia: HD 5870: 2720 GFLOPS, HD 6950: 2253 GFLOPS. So it should be quite a large difference (in agreement with the above review).

 

[Jacky60]

Edit Nothing to add

 

[nurturedhate]

I would heavily consider going the route of your counterpoint that they destroyed your card without your consent. I have never had a situation like that where I was not consulted first. You brought your card in to be serviced and they destroyed it. That alone seems to be a highly inappropriate decision on their behalf.