6850/6870 Reviews up

[Domestic_Ginger]

@GURU3D its realy slow.

It's gone down.....

[Terbinator]

Swiftly removed it seems...

[Terbinator]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U084ZROW

** I have not checked the file myself yet.

Edit: It's legit, both CFX and normal reviews in the rar.

[sadbuttrue]

Screencaps available on 4chan (I won't provide links to that site). Looks like the 6870 is just shy of the 5870.

[Pob255]

Well malwarebytes shows it as clean

Specifications, Radeon HD 6850, Radeon HD 6870
GPU, Barts Pro, Barts XT
Manufact. tech, 40nm, 40nm
GPU frequency, 775 MHz, 900 MHz
Stream processors, 960, 1120
Memory frequency, 4000 MHz, 4200 MHz
Memory bus , 256-bit, 256-bit
Memory buffer, 1 GB GDDR5, 1 GB GDDR5
Power consumption, ~ 127 watt, >150 watt

Radeon HD 6850 is pitted against the competition's GeForce GTX 460 768MB mode

Pitted against the GeForce GTX 460 1GB version is the Radeon HD 6870

HD3D
it is comparable to NVIDIA's 3D Vision and thus brings 3D display support for games, movies and videos to the AMD Radeon lineup of graphics cards. This of course will require separate 3D Goggles. HD3D includes support for Blu-ray in 3D third-party 3D applications.
The new implementation is very tricky and in it's default setup, far far away from what NVIDIA's does (and i do mean that in a negative way). Now, 3D Blu-ray support will only need you to have the right hardware (glasses, graphcis card, 3D TV/monitor HDMI 1.4a cable) and a software playback solution supporting it.
D Gaming wise ... AMD waved everything away, and that's where we think AMD HD3D is going to fail.
There are no kits, there is no real driver support within the Catalyst drivers. You can play games in 3D yet you'll need to actively get support for this yourself. Meaning AMD handed out 3D game support to 3rd party vendors.

[Pob255]

Eyefinity
The reference design cards will carry two mini Displayport (v1.2) connectors, one HDMI 1.4a connector and two DVI connectors of which one is single link, the other dual-link.

Display ports is now up-to snuff at revision v1.2 and that allows for a lot of extra bandwidth, in fact per connector you could drive up-to three monitors, so if you use both DP 1.2 connectors, up-to 6 monitors will be supported. Unfortunately that isn't all, connecting six monitors to two display port connectors will require an external breakout-box or monitors that support daisy chain (very expensive). The external breakout-box I mentioned will be called a MST HUB (Multi Stream Transport), to date pricing and availability for that is unknown.

AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) Technology
ATI at first introduced ATI Stream, this is now renamed to AMD Accelerate.
Currently it simply follows and believes strongly in open standards as OpenCL or for the easiest path to add compute capabilities, Microsoft's DirectX 11 DirectCompute. OpenCL is what AMD believes in the most and allows any developer to use code that scales well on both CPUs and GPUs.

HD 6850
9" long
single pci-e 6pin, rear faceing
single crossfire connector (so dual card only)
Subjective measured GPU power consumption

Idle ~ 19W
Load ~ 121 Watts

Load temp 74c

HD 6870
10.5-inches long
Two pci-e 6pin, side faceing
single crossfire connector (so dual card only)
Subjective measured GPU power consumption

Idle ~ 19W
Load ~ 141 Watts

Load temp 68c

Looking at the tables performance is roughly (my interpretation of the numbers)
5870 > 6870 > gtx470 > 5850 >/= 6850 > gtx460 1gb (the 6850 is drawing equal in some games slightly below in others)
On Far Cry 2 where nvidia 4xx cards have been out stripping ati 5xxx cards the nvidia cards are still ahead but by a far smaller margin now, with the 6850 just beating the performance of the 5870

While capable, we feel that the HD3D implementation is a loss 3D gaming wise. Pretty much what AMD is doing is saying, "here's a hardware-capable product ... and you guys do the rest". The complexity of finding the right TV/Monitor, glasses and then 3rd party software you need to buy is in our vision too difficult for the generic end user, without any guarantees that the 3D experience will work properly as it's not backed by AMD whatsoever. Time will tell, though we think that the complexity of a 3rd party for a lot of end-users will simply be complicated, making them choose the competitions (NVIDIA 3D Vision) solution as that's a handy straight out of the box kit, which is far more easy.

But yeah with the introduction of HD3D and HDMI 1.4a AMD also brings 3D Stereoscopic features towards the new 6000 series graphics cards, which is a welcome addition of course, yet requires optimal monitors and shutter glasses. As stated we do not like the complexity of the 3D gaming side at all, but watching movies and pictures in 3D is an easy to accomplish task.

Architecture wise both products today merely are improved changes & tweaks based of the last-gen architecture. There are no ground-breaking new designs aside from some feature updates. Price/performance wise however, you have noticed that the R6800 does offer a truckload of value for money. Its one purpose, which is to hinder the GeForce GTX 460 series, is achieved.

Now I do want mention though that, as policy and guideline, we compare reference to reference cards only with reference reviews. NVIDIA's board partners do have a lot of factory faster clocked models, at a price premium of course, they offer 10 to 20% more performance depending on the model. Keep that in mind, just to be fair here.

The Radeon 6850 offers plenty of performance for today's games. We feel it's sweet spot gaming wise is for gamers with a monitor up-to roughly 1600x1200, even 1920x1200. At that resolution pretty much any game will play excellent with good options in image quality settings like AA.

The Radeon HD 6870 is as far as I am concerned, definitely the more interesting card. It does have a handful more shader processors over what we expected initially, and armed with a phat 900 MHz clock frequency this product simply makes really good sense. It will bring a lot of value to the table but will also allow you to play your games at 1920x1200 extremely well. From a price point of view that makes this product really nice. AMD needed two GeForce GTX 460 cards of their own ... and these are it. Bare in mind though, coming from an R5870 you'd be taking a small perf step down.

Now if you own a Radeon HD 5850 or something more spicy, then there's no need to upgrade just yet; unless watching 3D movies is a big thing for you. But if you come from the Radeon HD 3000/4000 series, well ... that's where this DX11 class products start to really make sense. But scouts honor, the two cards tested today run beautifully, seem faster than the reference GTX 460 cards and can even match the GTX 470. The cards neither are noisy or running hot and the overall game performance really is spot on.

Prices then, the R6850 will cost you roughly 189 USD/ 159 EUR and thus is targeted at the slightly cheaper priced GeForce GTX 460 768MB.

For 249 USD / 209 EUR the R6870 is positioned against the GeForce GTX 460 with 1024MB graphics memory, now the R6870 is faster, however NVIDIA will pull their trump card, the GeForce GTX 470 and lower its price on that product, significantly I must add.

As of today you can spot these price-cuts, NVIDIA confirmed that the GeForce GTX 460 1024MB will now cost US $199 / 169 EUR including VAT and the GeForce GTX 470 is to cost US $259 = 219 EUR including VAT, pricing it very close to the Radeon HD 6870, and these two cards are close to each other performance wise alright. So yeah, that will be your baseline and benchmark to judge from right there and here on.

[Pob255]

Overall I'm still a bit anoid with the model number change, but as a card for the cost they look like very nice buys esp the 6850 if you've not made the jump to a dx11 card and you want to now

Price cuts will make the gtx460 and gtx470 (even) more viable cards HOWEVER thoes are price cuts in the US and they can often take months to filter down to us on this side of the pond.
And we may have stock issues as the majority of cards end up going to the US for yet another bitter short term price war.

[Terbinator]

I've just read a Chinese translated review and the performance wasn't in the same vein as the guru3D one [albeit still very good] - lower minimum frame rates and in-consistent at that :/

They used 32bit Win 7 and a Thuban so i don't know if that had any implications on performance.

Will have to wait for Hexus review now

[Pob255]

3dguru don't list minimum just avarage also will depend on settings used.

32bit Win 7 ?? how much memory did they match it up with?
I can see there could be addressing issues if they used 3gb or more as win7 trys to dynamically shift it's adressing about to meet demands.

However in general yes, I never trust just one review, esp for graphics cards where sites can often have a definate bias towards one card or another.

Intresting with the HD3D thing, looks like ATi don't think to much of 3D, enough to included it in the feature list just so they can say "look we can do it too" but not enough to give it much support.

[Terbinator]

Can't find the review now, i followed the link off the Guru3D forums.

Can't wait for the fallout tomorrow when everyones reviews are up.

Edit: Well, later today.

[Golden Dragoon]

The most important thing is: will it blend.......
Sorry wrong one, I meant: will it fold?

[Queelis]

The most important thing is: will it blend.......
Sorry wrong one, I meant: will it fold?

Probably not that well. Until the new GPU client comes, at least.

Otherwise, about the cards - very nice performance for watt and price. I might consider upgrading into a 6850

[Trickle]

Tessellation performance looks disappointing on these cards. Maybe its because I'm playing a lot of Civ5 now, but the 460s and 470s look better buys to me if your case venting and existing psu are up to the job

I'm seeing 6870 not really getting much over on the 5850 on DX10 bench _minimum_ scores and not much better in tessellation. Considering the poor overclocking, same stock tdp, disappointing improvements on idle power use and release date price gouging, then it looks like a straight swap vs recent 5850 card pricing/performance.

Quite disappointed on the tessalation scores here. 6870>5850 but not enough after its poor overclocking situation = score draw, and potentially a win for the Nvidia cards imo.

[Domestic_Ginger]

The Overclocking results are bit limited from many reviewers. techpowerup seem to get the CuCore upto about 1ghz with a voltage bump on the 6850. It seems to offer a very nice speed bump.

[scaryjim]

6870 was never going to overclock well with an OOB 900MHz core. But if a reference model can be pushed to 970MHz then I suspect we'll see > 1GHz sooner or later with better voltage regulation and cooling. In that respect it's very similar to the 4890 with a high clockspeed and limited OC headroom: it's not intended for overclockers really.

Of the two the 6850 looks like an inherently better card: lower power draw, lots of overclocking headroom, good retail price: I hope we'll see partner OC models use higher rated DDR5 as well - I reckon that a 900MHz core and 4800MHz memory on a 6850 could be impressive It fills that 5770 - 5850/6870 gap really nicely.

[Domestic_Ginger]

The 4890 was okay as an OCer 850 to ca 1000 with a little voltage iirc.

The ram seems to be 1250mhz chips perhaps its just the controller or the voltage which is limiting it running slightly over this.