How much faster is a 6950 than a 4870?

[ExcaliburMM]

Sup VC&G,
I'm thinking of buying a new card for my rigg. My 4870 1GB is a trooper but its showing its age and even with the VF1000 cooler on it, the amount of heat it puts out is getting to be a bit frightening since my case is now in an environment with higher ambient temps.

My question to you is that on average, at 1920x1080, for every game from Diablo II/SC1 to Crysis 2/Metro, with a 920 @ 4GHz, how much of an improvement am I looking at generally speaking? And what is a fair price for a 6950 2GB these days? I'm seeing 220$ after promo but before tax and rebate. I live in NJ so I have to take the 7% tax into account on any and all deals. Southern Islands is due late 2011 if wikipedia is to be believed. What kind of improvements are expected with the new (28nm?) process? I mean in terms of amounts since I know this leads to better temps and clock for clock performance. I also realize this would be guestimates and are just opinion.

Thanks for any and all help guys. :3

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Anandtech's "Bench" does it for you

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/304?vs=293

We are probably looking at anywhere from 50% to 200% faster, specially if tessellation comes into play

 

[tigersty1e]

I have the 4890 and have a 6950 coming in. this is probably the best and only time to grab a reference 6950 before they come ready as only 6950 chips.

If you were getting 60+ fps constant in all your games, you won't notice the increase in fps. Obvious crysis 2/metro and for me, shogun 2, you will probably notice.

the new cards are definitely going to be much faster because of the large die shrink, but they will also be much more expensive because of the die shrink and amd won't have a headstart to work with 28nm chips before their behemoths come out.

 

[Makaveli]

I just went from 4890 to 6950 now shader unlocked. It was a huge increase in speed, Metro,AVP all run great. Even saw an improvement in SC2 in 4vs4 custom battles.

 

[kmmatney]

Anandtech's "Bench" does it for you

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/304?vs=293

We are probably looking at anywhere from 50% to 200% faster, specially if tessellation comes into play

Anand's bench needs more older cards, or at least, it would be useful to have a guestimate of what modern card is equivalent to an older card, like an X850XT, etc...

 

[Makaveli]

Why if you are running a x850xt you need to upgrade regardless of what some chart says.

That card is 4 generations old.

 

[Shinjo]

Why if you are running a x850xt you need to upgrade regardless of what some chart says.

That card is 4 generations old.

you cannot put them together to compare since they're far from the same generation, but if benchmark them in DX9, I think that 6950 won't be higher too much than 4870, after all they want 6 series to complete DX11, not DX9.

 

[3DVagabond]

you cannot put them together to compare since they're far from the same generation, but if benchmark them in DX9, I think that 6950 won't be higher too much than 4870, after all they want 6 series to complete DX11, not DX9.

What makes you say that? The 6950 is about 4870x2 speed.

 

[timma]

still faster @ DX9/10 with 4870
because the new shader core and PS/SM version~

 

[alcoholbob]

I can't see 6970 being worse than 4870 at anything except extreme legacy software/games.

Some performance has dropped in the new gen, like the 5870 is faster than the 6970 in some older titles, but anything new is going to be a steep upward climb.

 

[jiffylube1024]

you cannot put them together to compare since they're far from the same generation, but if benchmark them in DX9, I think that 6950 won't be higher too much than 4870, after all they want 6 series to complete DX11, not DX9.

That's nonsensical. The 6950 has essentially double (or more) the effective shader power of the 4870. The 4870 has 800 shader units in a VLIW5 configuration (5 shaders per 'pipe'), while the 6950 has 1408 shaders in a more efficient VLIW4 configuration (4 shaders per 'pipe'). The 6950 also has double the number of ROPS and more than double the Texture units of the 4870.

All of this theoretical power gives the 69xx cards a massive boost in DX9 games as well as DX10 and DX11 games.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Depends what resolution you play at. If your current card is giving you 60fps on a 60mhz LCD then a 6950 will also give you 60fps.
Easy way to compare the oempf each got check their tflops values. That should tell you their power

 

[Makaveli]

you cannot put them together to compare since they're far from the same generation, but if benchmark them in DX9, I think that 6950 won't be higher too much than 4870, after all they want 6 series to complete DX11, not DX9.

LMAO what?

bro I own both cards the 4890 is sitting on my table right now do I have to pop it back in and show your the difference in speed between it and a 6950?

 

[Tempered81]

i also have a 4890 and am getting a 6950 to unlock soon. Makaveli, how high does your 4890 and 6950 overclock. did you use a 6970 bios or a modded 6950 bios?

 

[Makaveli]

To be honest on the 4890 I never really pushed the overclock that much maybe 50mhz on core and memory and that was it the gains weren't great so I didn't bother.

I have a reference model sapphire 6950 and I basically just took RBE from TPU. I dumped the bios from the card and ran the shader unlock on it then reflashed it no issues. So now i've only had the card running at 6970 stock speed. I'm still testing and just use MSI AB to switch from stock speed to 6970 speed on 3d detection.

I've also removed the stock cooler and installed the Artic cooler Twin turbo pro which was a very easy and I get great temps.

Card will idle around 43-45c depending on room temp. I'm on dual monitors so my idle clocks are higher than single 450/1250 which cause slightly higher idle temps.

I have metro 2033 and the gain in that game was huge. And I recently just reinstalled Crysis warhead and its like butter. On the 4890 it ran well but with some slow downs from time to time. The 4890 had to set to gamer for playable framerate. With the unlocked 6950 I can run a combination of gamer and enthusiast and it looks and plays great.

At 6970 speed and running furmark with 50% fan speed on the AC TT pro I do 72c max.

 

[Tempered81]

Nice thanks for your comments on that. Sounds like you're really happy with the unlocked 6950 2gb. I have the 4890 now and it still screams - have it at ~960mhz core and overvolted.

I still cant decide between the 170 dollar 5870 or the 260 dollar 6950. Both are sweet deals, and the 6950 just comes with all the more unlockable potential.

the 5870 is only like 5% behind the stock 6950, but it doesnt have all that headroom to push and unlock speed & shaders....

Think I'll go with the 6950, and shoot for 6970 unlock @ 950-1000mhz core. I'll likely jack the fan to 70-100%, don't care about noise, I want speed!

 

[MrK6]

Nice thanks for your comments on that. Sounds like you're really happy with the unlocked 6950 2gb. I have the 4890 now and it still screams - have it at ~960mhz core and overvolted.

I still cant decide between the 170 dollar 5870 or the 260 dollar 6950. Both are sweet deals, and the 6950 just comes with all the more unlockable potential.

the 5870 is only like 5% behind the stock 6950, but it doesnt have all that headroom to push and unlock speed & shaders....

Think I'll go with the 6950, and shoot for 6970 unlock @ 950-1000mhz core. I'll likely jack the fan to 70-100%, don't care about noise, I want speed!

I'd get the 6950 just because they overclock much better one air. I needed water to really push my 5850 (same for a 5870), my 6950 on water isn't doing anything more than they do on air. If you don't care about noise, this Gigabyte reference model is sweet for $245 AR - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-356-_-Product . Gigabyte's warranty is incredible, I wish it'd been on sale when I got mine.

 

[Makaveli]

I'd get the 6950 just because they overclock much better one air. I needed water to really push my 5850 (same for a 5870), my 6950 on water isn't doing anything more than they do on air. If you don't care about noise, this Gigabyte reference model is sweet for $245 AR - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-356-_-Product . Gigabyte's warranty is incredible, I wish it'd been on sale when I got mine.

Hey what voltage are you at to hit 1030 core speed?

And do you find the card fast enough to handle that res on its own.

I'm asking because i'm looking at the dell 27 inch monitor which does 2560x1440 so I want to know if it has enough power to push that res don't really care about adding AA which I don't find as useful at that high a res.

I prefer to go with single card setups over crossfire or SLI.

 

[happy medium]

For about 75$ I grab a used 4870 and crossfire it. Later on upgrade to a 28nm card.
75$ for 6950 like performance is a great upgrade. Crossfire/sli works for just about any game worth playing now a days.

 

[MrK6]

Hey what voltage are you at to hit 1030 core speed?

And do you find the card fast enough to handle that res on its own.

I'm asking because i'm looking at the dell 27 inch monitor which does 2560x1440 so I want to know if it has enough power to push that res don't really care about adding AA which I don't find as useful at that high a res.

I prefer to go with single card setups over crossfire or SLI.

I'm using 1.3V on the core for 1030MHz (as stated, I'm on water), and it handles 2560x1600 fine. I'm currently playing BF: BC2 and Borderlands DLC with no issues. BF: BC2 plays 2560x1600, 4xAA, and everything on/High fine. In multiplayer, I generally run without AA and HBAO as I like to keep the FPS above 60FPS at all times. At 2560x1440, the performance would be even better, especially if you aren't adding AA to most games.

I much prefer single card setups as well. At these speeds, the 6950 is as fast or faster than a GTX 580, which is pretty much as good as you're going to get for a single card, and it was only $235 (actually $85 as I sold my 5850 for $150). It's really a fantastic part. :thumbsup:

 

[dennilfloss]

But Crossfiring would use twice the power compared to using a single newer card.

 

[dust]

I switched from crossfire 4870's (512mb) to a 6950 and I'm pretty happy with the setup. I'm mainly playing Metro, Bulletstorm, Mass effect 2 and Call of Pripyat nowadays, at 1920x1080 resolution and I can max out everything( I just loose the DOF in Metro as it's killing the frames without adding much to the game).

I was unable to use MX 4AA in Metro with the previous setup, and couldn't apply any AA for Call of Pripyat. The 6950 handles all that just fine, even paired with my 3,2Ghz quad.

 

[CFP]

I wonder how well tri-fire 4870's perform.

 

[badb0y]

Simple Answer: A lot.