discussion AMD Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 Review Comment Thread

[pierrebai]

Good, balanced review. I really appreciate the new ConcluTune utility that keeps overheating in the final page of the review within proper enthusiasm power envelope.

For those wanting to see tests of the HD69xx in CF vs. 580 and 570 SLI, you can go to Hardware.fr. (Or more precisely here) They've got it all covered. The result is that the CF is amazingly scalable. Two 6970 in CF match or beat 580 SLI every single time.

Seems now we've got a market with good cards for the money at every price point, and a potential price wars on our hands around the 570 / 6970 / 6950. This can only be good.

As for the mythical driver improvement potential, it does have more value this time around. I've look closely at the results on hardware.fr and some just don't make sense currently. In some game benchmarks at some setting, the 6870 beat the 6970. As they point out over there, the old vec5 archtecture has been around since the 2900. The new one probably has some improvement headroom as they optimize their shader compiler for vec4 and the particular cache layout of the new cards.

I'm not sure why AMD is receving so much critics over PowerTune though. NVIDIA has the same power limitation logic on their new card and they don't provide any tuning, do they? At least now you can push it up a bit on AMD cards. I expect custom tools from MSI and others to push it even further.

Seeing the CF vs. SLI result, I'll have to bookmarks SKY's "mark my words" about the future NVIDIA bi-GPU card.

 

[Heebs]

Probably the best review I've seen. I love the chart breakdown by the different resolutions and AA modes. Gives the best all round picture of whats going on.

 

[Desiato]

From my perspective, nvidia has won the fall/xmas 2010 refresh by addressing their power and acoustic issues while maintaining their performance advantage.

Only time will tell, but in my opinion, AMD has not demonstrated that it has addressed its most important issue, drivers. However, I will give them credit for improving crossfire.

What a difference a year has made for nvidia.

 

[SKYMTL]

Hardocp also really liked the 6950 2GB model.

I think the DP 1.2 stuff is probably the most exciting part of it.

Sky, one question, did the included marketing stuff discuss whether the MiniDP to DP will be included?

Thanks for a great and thorough review.

No mention but I expect them to be included with some special edition cards. Check ASUS' packaging details in particular. :thumb:

 

[Souljah]

Great review.. but im disappointed to say the least.

 

[xhrrcollector]

I'm slightly disappointed by the 69xx series performance! Was hoping the rumor that 6970 will easily beat the 5970 to be true, but i guess it is too good to be true. I guess i will stick with my current card until 7xxx arrives before switching back to ATI.

 

[martin_metal_88]

Guru3D liked the card to. How can you not love the best bang for the buck performer for high res?

 

[Fudd Rucker]

Not sure whats to not like about these cards. They might be a little pricey at the moment , but it is the holiday season afterall. Glad to see my GTX 480 was still a good buy after loooking at the benchmarks and whatnot.

 

[_dangtx_]

well,chances are that if you buy a 300 or more gpu, you wont play your games on a 19 inch lcd lol so the fact that they do well above 1920 might be worth something

there was mention of one giger versions, so im guesstimating performance at and or above 1920 will be affected accordingly, but if the price is considerably less? may or may not have a winner. takes out the footing from a 6930, if there will be one.

 

[Inate8]

Great review. Glad to see my choice on the 580 was a good one.

Good to see some nice back and forth between these companies, sadly I just can't get behind the red team anymore personally.