AMD’s Radeon HD 6870 & 6850: Renewing Competition in the Mid-Range Market
by Ryan Smith on October 21, 2010 10:08 PM ESTThe second new game on our list is 4A Games’ Metro 2033, their tunnel shooter released earlier this year. Last month the game finally received a major patch resolving some outstanding image quality issues with the game, finally making it suitable for use in our benchmark suite. At the same time a dedicated benchmark mode was added to the game, giving us the ability to reliably benchmark much more stressful situations than we could with FRAPS. If Crysis is a tropical GPU killer, then Metro would be its underground counterpart.
From the moment you run Metro it’s clear that it’s going to be a shader-heavy game, and the results from our benchmarks mirror this. The 6800 series does particularly poorly compared to the 5800 series here as a result of the loss of shaders, giving the 5800 series a solid 10% lead over the 6800 series, and showcasing why AMD’s rebalanced design for Barts comes with its own set of tradeoffs.
In the 6870 pack, we’re looking at a dead heat; how Metro reports averages creates a wider spread than the actual performance differences in these cards. Metro is a hard game but it’s a fair game: everything is equally slow. Meanwhile the 6850 manages a small lead over the GTX 460 1GB.
Finally, looking once more at Crossfire scores we see the same mysterious pattern: the 6800 series nearly closes the 5800 series gap.
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krumme - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
No it more looks like NV have been playing around with rivatuner.Their cards at stock speed is a toaster. Overclocking again just before an AMD release does not make it better.
If they can sell cards at higher speeds do it. Release it. Dont talk about it, or coverdly hide behind factory overclocked cards. Pathetic and weak.
The sad thing about it is they made Anand change their methology.
What a sad result when the start was just bad gfx cards.
MrSpadge - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
Not sure it was mentioned before: Cypress and RV770 run FP64 at 2/5th the FP32 speed, not 1/5th as written on the first page.MrS
Quantumboredom - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
It's 2/5 for addition, but 1/5 for multiplication and FMA as I recall it.krumme - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
I you want real world testning for solid buying knowledge and no idiotic mixing of oc and non oc cards go to HardocpAnand needs to do a solid review of his own gfx reviews. This is stoneage methology with a fishy smell.
For the ssd there was an excellent revision with the real world bm suite introduction, - a revision far deeper is needed here.
chillmelt - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
I agree. Comparing a non-OC'd card to an OC'd one is in no way fair. The 6870 clearly clubbered 460 gtx in virtually all benchmarks, at stock speeds.krumme - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
Yes. Think about this scenario: For this review anand (kyle) decided to use an overclocked Sapphire 6870 and compare it to a stock speed 460.What would happen? How would that look?
Its the same thing happening here.
mindbomb - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
if they are in the same price range, they should be compared.it gives the consumer more information on his purchasing decision.
idk why this arbitrary oc/non-oc rule comes into play. It was a factory overclock, and required nothing on the part of the end user.
krumme - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
Okey. Now take an OC 6850, 900Mhz, and compare it to a far more expensive stock 460 1G?Where does this end. AMD and NV suplying the sites with factory overclocked cards for reviews. Its going to be a f..king mess. No one knows about availability, time period and so on.
Regarding pruchasing decision all the methology is plain wrong. Go to Hardocp if you consider buying a card. Here you have real world testing. Not like this old bad - and now fishy - methology of anand.
Why does he change methology just when he is getting the new cards. Hmm. Thats simply very bad science.
NV should concentrate on making cards that performs instead of using ressources putting pressure on sites like anand. If they have faster 460 models release it, or stop spinning.
Its a pain to read and watch. And its a shame for a site, that have the ressources to do proper testing, but dont have the balls any more.
We dont like AMD, Intel nor NV to influence the reviews. Right now there is an obvious bad influence from especially NV. And you, and everyone can see it. Dont underestimate the consequenses.
bji - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
You COMPLETELY missed the point. *IF* the OC 6850 was a factory overclocked card, sold at a price that puts it in the range of cards reviewed, then it *WOULD* make sense to compare it.So your example just further makes the point.
krumme - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
Well as it stands now they dont release oc cards at launch day, but that will soon change..., if Anand and others dont stick to their policy