torn between 6850 CF vs 6870 CF *updated* Arrived and installed.

[Powermoloch]

Halo !

A while ago I posted a thread about a 6870 cf from a 5770 upgrade. I'm still deciding whether or not to spend the extra $120 from a 6850 CF setup. With the newegg %10 deal...I feel like to earn more bang for my buck

Plus I've been reading that 6850 are able to clock up to 1000 mhz ! on stock voltage and 850 mhz easily on CCC.

Will a OC 6850 CF be close to 6870 cf performance?


$360 6850 vs $480 6870 !!!?!

update:

bought 2 x 6850 sapphire 380~ , cost as much my old x850xt pe agp a few years back. !!!

update: 11/10

They arrived last night, I spent a couple of hours trying to make the CF work right, pretty frustrating.
BUT in the end, the 10.10d drivers fix the issue, and I was able to test these suckers out.

Vantage performance
20,000 GPU ~

Heaven (biggest improvement i've seen)
1350 score.

Crysis...all max and no slowdowns ! smooth gameplay

Overall I'm really impressed with the performance, Gonna do a slight OC when I get back from school.

cheers :thumbsup:

 

[Ben90]

Hmm, I remember there was this website that had just the answers you were looking for. It was some obscure name, and I'm having problems remembering it. LandMech.....No, SandTech...not it either, I'm sure I'll remember soon.

Either way it had a whole bunch of color coded graphs that showed performance of both 6870 and 6850 crossfire solutions along with many other cards. Oh how useful it was, if only I could remember that damn website name.

Maybe another poster on forums.anandtech.com remembers this site with the colorful graphs? Cmon there has to be at least 1 diamond member here that knows what I'm talking about.

I JUST REMEMBERED THE SITE! HERE IT IS!!!!

 

[Skurge]

Halo !

A while ago I posted a thread about a 6870 cf from a 5770 upgrade. I'm still deciding whether or not to spend the extra $120 from a 6850 CF setup. Witah the newegg %10 deal...I feel like earn more bang for my buck

Plus I've been reading that 6850 are able to clock up to 1000 mhz ! on stock voltage and 850 mhz easily on CCC.

Will a OC 6850 CF be close to 6870 cf performance?


$360 6850 vs $480 6870 !!!?!

6850 would have to be at 1Ghz to get close to a 6870.

 

[manimal]

I am trying to decide the same thing. I may end up going for the 6850 xfire since its going into a htpc and space is a concern....

 

[Powermoloch]

Hmm, I remember there was this website that had just the answers you were looking for. It was some obscure name, and I'm having problems remembering it. LandMech.....No, SandTech...not it either, I'm sure I'll remember soon.

Either way it had a whole bunch of color coded graphs that showed performance of both 6870 and 6850 crossfire solutions along with many other cards. Oh how useful it was, if only I could remember that damn website name.

Maybe another poster on forums.anandtech.com remembers this site with the colorful graphs? Cmon there has to be at least 1 diamond member here that knows what I'm talking about.

I JUST REMEMBERED THE SITE! HERE IT IS!!!!

Of course i know anandtech you silly....lol

Apparently they haven't OCed their 6870 or 6850 CF setup :*(

 

[RussianSensation]

Get HD6850s in CF imo. The performance difference is nowhere near the price difference, even before overclocking the HD6850s. Also, HD6850s will generally overclock within 7-10% of an overclocked HD6870. So are you willing to pay 33% more for 10-15% higher performance? Also, your stock processor may not even allow for dual HD6870s to stretch much more over HD6850s in some games.

And finally, you save $120 now towards your next upgrade. So your "next $360 upgrade" will really only be $240 if you go with the 6850s right now

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Here are the raw numbers from various sites comparing the 6850 CF to 6870 CF:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc...3TkNRWTNzeE5CZkE&authkey=COPFrYoD&hl=en#gid=0

No overclocking results, though, but this will give you the baseline of expectations.

A couple of reviews had 5770CF, so you can see what kind of performance jump you will see as well. Also note most, if not all, of these sites are testing with a Core i7, which may impact performance in a few areas.

 

[Powermoloch]

Get HD6850s in CF imo. The performance difference is nowhere near the price difference, even before overclocking the HD6850s. Also, HD6850s will generally overclock within 7-10% of an overclocked HD6870. So are you willing to pay 33% more for 10-15% higher performance? Also, your stock processor may not even allow for dual HD6870s to stretch much more over HD6850s in some games.

And finally, you save $120 now towards your next upgrade. So your "next $360 upgrade" will really only be $240 if you go with the 6850s right now

If i'm able to sell off my 5770 CF....It'll be a steal. It's true that my 955 BE will be my bottleneck, but it is still a strong processor B)

 

[Halogen23]

Halo !

A while ago I posted a thread about a 6870 cf from a 5770 upgrade. I'm still deciding whether or not to spend the extra $120 from a 6850 CF setup. With the newegg %10 deal...I feel like to earn more bang for my buck

Plus I've been reading that 6850 are able to clock up to 1000 mhz ! on stock voltage and 850 mhz easily on CCC.

Will a OC 6850 CF be close to 6870 cf performance?


$360 6850 vs $480 6870 !!!?!

Why not wait and see how well the 69xx cards from AMD fare? I would think it may be worth the wait, especially if they scale as well as their younger siblings. If performance of the one 69xx is similar for the price of the 68xx's in crossfire, it would arguably be better because you wouldnt have to worry about the scaling, too.

 

[3DVagabond]

Why not wait and see how well the 69xx cards from AMD fare? I would think it may be worth the wait, especially if they scale as well as their younger siblings. If performance of the one 69xx is similar for the price of the 68xx's in crossfire, it would arguably be better because you wouldnt have to worry about the scaling, too.

If the 6970 is 1920SP and isn't any better performing an arch it should match 6950x2. It's rumored to be better. Some hinting appreciably better. I'm pretty sure it'll be more than $360.00 though. Tough decision. It's not like you couldn't buy the 6800 series after the 6900 series is released though.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I'm thinking the 6970 will match or beat a 6850CF. It's certain to cost quite a bit more than $360.00 I bet.

 

[ZimZum]

Given your willing to spend $480 I'd normally say wait for 6970. But given the Newegg 10% deal, go with the 6850s. Worse case scenario, even if the 6970 blows your setup out of the water, and you want that instead . You will still be able to sell those 6850's for close to what you paid for them.

 

[betasub]

6850 CF (2 power connectors total) to game on your single monitor.
6970 (2 power connectors) with improved memory for multi-screen gaming.

 

[lavaheadache]

Get HD6850s in CF imo. The performance difference is nowhere near the price difference, even before overclocking the HD6850s. Also, HD6850s will generally overclock within 7-10% of an overclocked HD6870. So are you willing to pay 33% more for 10-15% higher performance? Also, your stock processor may not even allow for dual HD6870s to stretch much more over HD6850s in some games.

And finally, you save $120 now towards your next upgrade. So your "next $360 upgrade" will really only be $240 if you go with the 6850s right now

I never did understand this logic. Welcome to the world of diminishing returns. You can say that about anything. It's not about paying a lot more for little return. It should be more like paying to reach desired level. One could argue spend a lot less than 6850's to get within 10-15% cause I'm sure there is an option out there with trade offs.

 

[flopper]

6850 in crossfire and overclocked got to be the best deal for a long time.

Depending on 6970 I might go that route instead of a much more expensive singlecard.

 

[MrK6]

Overclocked 6850 CF, definitely. Or wait and see what the 6950/6970 can do (what I'm doing). Considering how well the 6850 can clock, it doesn't seem worth it to grab a 6870, never mind in CF.

 

[Seero]

Can you CF 6870 with a 6850?

 

[busydude]

Can you CF 6870 with a 6850?

Yes.

DiRT 2 is working fine for HD 68x0 CrossFire-X using Catalyst 10.10 and the latest CF profile.
(i.e. HD 6870 + HD 6850 at reference speeds)

i get 44.3 FPS average at 2560x1600 with Ultra settings plus 8xAA with a single HD 6870 (50.9 with HD 5870) using my Core i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz/6 GB DDR3/x58 MB in the DX11 DiRT 2 benchmark build into the retail game.

Adding a HD 6850 to my HD 6870 now in FrankenFire, that 44.3 FPS increases to 73. Awesome CrossFire-X scaling for brand new Barts mis-matched cards with launch drivers.
:thumbsup:

 

[manimal]

Yes.

yay for apop, our resident fankenfire guru!

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Something to consider in mixing a 6870 and a 6850 is overclocking. Those 2 might not play nice, since the 6850 seems to do better.

 

[happy medium]

Are you overclocking your cpu? If you plan on getting to 1000 core with a 6850 x2, I would take in consideration if your psu up to the task. if your running a stock cpu ,then I dont see a problem.

 

[RussianSensation]

I never did understand this logic. Welcome to the world of diminishing returns. You can say that about anything. It's not about paying a lot more for little return. It should be more like paying to reach desired level. One could argue spend a lot less than 6850's to get within 10-15% cause I'm sure there is an option out there with trade offs.

If you actually looked at the review I linked, you would notice that HD6870 CF does NOT provide any more playability at 2560x1600 where you really need it (Crysis 44 vs. 39, Metro 2033 22 vs. 20 fps). However, at 1920x1200 every game played at > 60 fps with the HD6850 setup. So you are advising to spend another $120 for a benchmarking measurable 10-15% faster setup that isn't going to suddenly let you max out Metro 2033 or Crysis at 2560x1600. It only makes sense to pay more if you get tangible playability improvement, which isn't the case here. This is especially true once you overclock the HD6850s (and HD6870s don't overclock well on air cooling).

Let's follow my logic though. Let's say you have a limited budget of $600. Individual #1 spent $600 on GTX280 vs. Individial #2 who spent $300 for HD4870 for a mere 20% slower performance. Now let's say they both kept their graphics cards until now. The first individual has already maxed out his budget so he has to keep the 280. The person with the HD4870 has $300 left over from his/her purchase 2 years ago. As a result, he/she is now able to simply purchase an HD6870 that currently crushes the 280 in all modern games. This is the exact advice I have given. Save $$$ now since current games don't benefit enough from HD6870 over HD6850 CF setup. However, this makes your future upgrade much less costly where it will matter when even more demanding games ship in 2011-2012.

The performance difference in yesterday's games between HD4870 and GTX280 was there but not enough to warrant the price difference. The extra $300 extra savings from HD4870 goes a long way today though for the 2nd user while the 1st user is stuck with a slow GTX280 or has to outlay more $$!! Therefore, these budgeting decisions are something to think about for everyone who doesn't have unlimited funds. Although I see you have a $700+ HD5870 CF setup so bang for the buck doesn't seem to be a factor in your decision making process, which supports the view that you would spend another $200 for an extra 15%. This doesn't make it logical advice though when the OP is clearly concerned about performance/$$. Otherwise, he wouldn't think twice about throwing $500 towards HD6870 CF.

 

[busydude]

Something to consider in mixing a 6870 and a 6850 is overclocking. Those 2 might not play nice, since the 6850 seems to do better.

After Mixing 5770 and 5750, I would not do that again. The performance is good, the drivers are not. There is always atleast one game in my catalog that has performance issues.

 

[Powermoloch]

Are you overclocking your cpu? If you plan on getting to 1000 core with a 6850 x2, I would take in consideration if your psu up to the task. if your running a stock cpu ,then I dont see a problem.

Not gonna tinker the CPU..just GPU :thumbsup:

And after reading many post, threads, forums and also a couple of reviews. Now I have decided to jump on the 6850 CF.

Now what type of brand should i get...

XFX ( i heard that you need to flash bios thingymajig to adjust the fan speed... lol !, although the warranty is the best, and experienced it myself)

Sapphire (reliable then ATi vendor)

HiS (the card so far that has been reviewed for 6850 CF from a couple of websites)

Gigabyte (the cooler...but OOS)

Asus (OOS on newegg and read that the company had tweaked bios that GPU can go up to 1000 GHz w/o a problem)

Power color (my powercolor 5770 x 2 are running like champs, so i have np w/ those guys)

what ya guys think?

 

[ModestGamer]

I never did understand this logic. Welcome to the world of diminishing returns. You can say that about anything. It's not about paying a lot more for little return. It should be more like paying to reach desired level. One could argue spend a lot less than 6850's to get within 10-15% cause I'm sure there is an option out there with trade offs.

I'll give you a great example in car speak

a 400hp v8 cost $5,000
a 500hp v8 cost 10,000
a 600hp v8 costs 20,000
a 700hp v8 cost 40,000
a 800hp v8 costs 80,000
a 900hp v8 costs 160,000
a 1000hp v8 costs 320,000

BTW thats a full season of racing for those figures.

even broke down to rudimentary costs the price difference between 400hp and 1000hp at full retails is 400hp engine cost 3500 to build and a 1000hp engine costs 45,000

if you building a small block.