AMD’s Radeon HD 6870 & 6850: Renewing Competition in the Mid-Range Market
by Ryan Smith on October 21, 2010 10:08 PM ESTWhat’s In a Name?
GPU naming is rarely consistent. While NVIDIA is usually the biggest perpetrator of naming confusion or suddenly switched names AMD does not have a clear record either (the Mobility 5100 series comes to mind). However we’re not sure there’s precedent for AMD’s latest naming decision, and there’s really no stepping around it. So we have a few thoughts we’d like to share.
Since the introduction of the Radeon 3870 in 2007, 800 has been the series designation for AMD’s high-end products. The only time they’ve broken this is last year, when AMD ditched the X2 moniker for their dual-GPU card for the 5900 designation, a move that ruffled a few feathers but at least made some sense since the 5970 wasn’t a true 5870 X2. Regardless, the 800 series has since 2007 been AMD’s designation for their top single-chip product.
With that naming scheme come expectations of performance. Each 800 series card has been successively faster, and while pricing has been inconsistent as AMD’s die size and costs have shifted, ultimately each 800 series card was a notable step up in performance from the previous card. With the 6800 this is not the case. In fact it’s absolutely a step down, the 6800 series is on average 7% slower than the 5800 series. This doesn’t mean that AMD hasn’t made enhancements to the card –we’ve already covered the enhanced tessellation unit, AA/AF, UVD3, and other features – but these are for the most part features and not performance enhancements.
Click to enlarge
Today AMD is turning their naming scheme on its head by launching these Barts cards with the 6800 name, but without better-than-5800 performance. AMD’s rationale for doing this is that they’re going to be continuing to sell the 5700 series, and that as a result they didn’t want to call these cards the 6700 series and introduce confusion. Furthermore AMD is trying to recapture the glory days of the 4800 series, where those parts sold for under $300 and then quickly under $200. It wasn’t until the 5800 series that an 800 series card became outright expensive. So for these reasons, AMD wanted to call these Barts cards the 6800 series.
We find ourselves in disagreement with AMD here.
We don’t have a problem with AMD introducing the 6 series here – the changes they’ve made, even if not extreme, at least justify that. But there’s a very real issue of creating confusion for buyers of the 5800 series now by introducing the 6800 series. The performance may be close and the power consumption lower, but make no mistake, the 5800 series was faster.
Ultimately this is not our problem; this is AMD’s problem. So we can’t claim harm per-say, but we can reflect on matters. The Barts cards being introduced today should have been called the 6700 series. It would have made the latest rendition of the 700 series more expensive than last time, but at the same time Barts is a very worthy upgrade to the 5700 series. But then that’s the problem for AMD; they don’t want to hurt sales of the 5700 series while it’s still on the market.
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Finally - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
Did you have a look at the games market lately? Noticed all those shabby console ports? There is no progress because the graphics power of an XBOX or PS3 is exactly the same as it has been when they were introduced.Then again, who wants to play dumbed-down console games, made by illiterates for illiterates running on antique hardware which severely limits innovation in the graphics sector?
jimhsu - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
"I know the 4890 is a pig (loud, noisy, power hungry) compared to the cards here"And hence your point. Essentially, major COMPUTER manufacturers (not just video card makers) simply are less concerned about maximum performance anymore -- for 95% of the population, what we have now is "good enough", and for the remaining 5%, getting more of the cheap stuff is also "good enough" (HPC builders, SLI/CrossFire, etc). Instead, people look at things like "is this quiet" (heat production, fans) or "what does this mean for my bottom line" (power consumption, replacability). The age of the monolithic "fast chip" is over.
Jamahl - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
AMD naming the cards the 6800 series or Anandtech changing their policy of not reviewing overclocked cards.spigzone - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
AMD renaming their cards = more confusingAnandtech 'changing' their policy = more inexplicable.
softdrinkviking - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
i join the throngs of disgruntled consumers that object to the new naming convention of the 6800 series.it's silly and stupid, and you should be ashamed of your collective AMD selves.
spigzone - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
I didn't like it either ... until I saw the release prices ...Then I didn't much care anymore.
gorg_graggel - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
why the heck didn't they just call them 6850 and 6530? according to the numbers those are the the true internal competitors...that would also fit with the premise that a next-gen card with the same naming conventions is at least a bit faster...
the upcoming 6950 and 6970 cards could accordingly be named 6870 and 6890 respectively...
and the next 2-chip variant could have the 69xx namespace for itself as it clearly wouldn't be justified to append an x2 to it, due to the same reasons the 5000 dual-chip cards don't do this...
because of different chips? john doe doesn't know about such distinctions and just cares about performance (compared to older generations) when upgrading.
he's just confused why the 6870 is slower than a 5870 and the guy who knows more about the tech behind it is pissed, because he has to explain to him why the names are not analogous to performance and why it's not kept consistent at least for a few generations...
the explanations amd has given about this is not satisfying and gives me the impression that they deliberately want to confuse customers...however i can't think of a logical "why"...
jonup - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
To answer your question, Because that makes too much sense!Donkey2008 - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
I agree 100%. The new naming scheme is misleading and it seems like 6750 and 6770 would have been much more accurate IMO. From AMD releases over the last several years, the performance of nex-gen 2nd tier cards are ~ equal to the previous top tier cards. This is the first time AMD has strayed from their naming scheme in a long time and it has all the makings of a marketing dept telling the engineers what to call their cards.Like to pointed out, 95% of consumers (the ones who waddle into Best Buy and tell someone at the Geek Squad counter to "install a gaming card") won't know the difference. Most of these average consumers will believe that a 6870 is a much better card performance-wise then the previous generation 5870, so they will see the price and think it is a steal. AMD is playing the numbers game with uneducated consumers ("higher numbers are better, right?") and it is sort of disappointing IMO. I expect more from them as a psuedo-fanboy (I am a current of owner of a 4850 and (2) 4890)
I am still anxious to see what the 69xx has to offer, but some of the excitement of the entire 6xxx series launch has faded because of the new naming scheme. I just don't like marketing games and being played. Tech people are not only sharp, but HIGHLY biased and any deviation from outright perfection usually gets punished (i.e. Microsoft Vista, iPhone 4 antenna, Nvidia GT 250, etc etc). AMD should have known better.
gorg_graggel - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
hmmm well, on second thought it could make more sense in the future as the new scheme reorganized the naming to fit more to the performance categories...if they would have been named 6750/6770 their would be riots, because amd dared to raise the prices in the midrange segment, as the author of the article already said i think, which would be even worse...
in the past amd changed strategies of how big and fast chips are a few times, but the naming didn't...they just didn't have single chips that deserved a name in the x900-range...
so now that the cayman chip is in the 300w size amd changed its sweet-spot only strategy to a more standard strategy again with low-end, midrange, performance and high-end cards and the new naming does fit perfectly here...at least i have this impression...
so it maybe confusing now, but depending on how future products turn out it will make more sense again...