AMD’s Radeon HD 6870 & 6850: Renewing Competition in the Mid-Range Market
by Ryan Smith on October 21, 2010 10:08 PM ESTKicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead, still the toughest game in our benchmark suite. Even 2 years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and the answer continues to be “no.” One of these years we’ll actually be able to run it with full Enthusiast settings…
For reasons we’ve yet to determine, Crysis continues to do a very good job serving as an overall barometer for video card performance. Much of what we see here will show up later, including the order that cards fall in.
As we’ve been expecting, the 6800 series cannot keep up with the 5800 series – Barts is still a “rebalanced” Cypress after all. The performance gap isn’t too severe, and it certainly couldn’t justify 5870 prices at today’s prices, but the 6870 and 6850 definitely aren’t perfect replacements for their 5800 series counterparts.
Focusing on 1920x1200, we have a 3-way race between the GTX 470, EVGA GTX 460, and the 6870. The 6870 comes out ahead, with the EVGA and then the GTX 470 bringing up the pack at under a frame behind. Meanwhile near the 6850 is the GTX 460 1GB, and it’s 2fps behind; while even farther down the line is the GTX 460 768MB, which officially is only $10 cheaper than the 6850 and yet it’s well behind the pack. As we’ll see, the 6850 will quickly assert itself as the GTX 460 1GB’s peer when it comes to performance.
Meanwhile taking a quick look at Crossfire performance we see an interesting trend: the 6800 series cards are much closer to their 5800 series counterparts than they are in single card mode. Here the 6850CF even manages to top the 5850CF, an act that nearly defies logic. This is something we’ll have to keep an eye on in later results.
Moving on to our minimums, the picture changes slightly in NVIDIA’s favor. The 6870 drops to the bottom of its pack, while the 6850’s lead narrows versus both GTX 460 cards. Meanwhile in CF mode now both 6800 series cards top their 5800 series counterparts. Crysis’ minimum framerate has always been a bit brutal to AMD cards due to how AMD’s drivers manage their memory, a problem compounded by Crossfire mode. Perhaps something has changed?
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529th - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
the marketers wanted to differentiate themselves from Nvidia, that's why they are using their second place cards to be in the same category as nvidias second place cardsIf you are shopping for a top of the line card you should know atleast a little bit about them although the un-educated video-card shopper would think that a 470 and 5870 or 6870 is on the SAME performance level, WHICH ISN'T TOO FAR FROM THE TRUTH, but I think it's here where AMD marketers are trying to make a statement
i could be wrong, i have had very little sleep last night, cedar point was a blast!
SininStyle - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
Can I just say THANK YOU for adding a OC edition of the 460. Don't know why everyone is whining. If you don't want to know how an OC edition compares then ignore the stupid bench for it. Why is such a huge deal?I personally am glad they included it and this is why. The 460 1gb stock is 675mhz and can OC "reliably" to 850mhz.. That's 175mhz gain and its noticeable. Stock volt stock fan. And for those that wanna claim heat, mine shows 64c at 75% fan on OCCT. The 6870 get 50hz OC at stock volt/fan. SEE why this is important people? $180 vs $240 with same results.
Now with volt changes I'm sure they both have room to go I'm not sure how much. I tend to shy away from higher voltages at least for now.
The 6850 is the better buy between the 2 68xx cards. That has allot of headroom to OC. That would even be a better comparison to the 460 due to the price. And owning the 460 doesn't make me a fanboy and I will say you can flip a coin for value on these 2.
So again thanks for the added information. Cant see why anyone would complain about more info. If you don't like the info ignore it if it makes you feel better. Feel free to add OCed 6850s and 6870s I look forward to the comparison.
Parhel - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
"The 460 1gb stock is 675mhz and can OC "reliably" to 850mhz"No, it absolutely cannot. the FTW card is a "golden sample" which is why there are so few available. Stock cooling on a stock card will not get you to 850Mhz with 24/7 reliability. You *might* get to 800Mhz, probably a bit less. That's a great value, IMO. If I were in the market at the moment, I'd pick a base model GTX 460 and OC it. Not arguing that point at all. But presenting this card in the 6870 launch article is a sham and major black eye to Anandtech's credibility.
rom0n - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
Is it possible to post the GPUZ of the HD6850. It seems there are numerous cases where HD6850 has 1120 sent out to reviewers. Seehttp://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_c... If this happens to be one of them the results may be a little misleading. If not then it'll reaffirm the results.
GullLars - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
This means a 6870 with open-air fan optimized for noise will be my early winter solstice present for myself, togheter with the 4x C300 64GB i just got :DI went for a value-upgrade of my old rigg with P2x6 1090T, 8GB kingston value DDR3, and AM3 mobo with SB850, so once i get both the SSD in RAID-0 and the GPU, I'll be a happy camper (or rusher) <3
It'll tide me over untill i can get Bulldozer or a next gen Intel (high end/workstation) around winter 2011/2012.
poohbear - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
"Apparently a small number of the AMD Radeon HD 6850 press samples shipped from AIB partners have a higher-than-expected number of stream processors enabled.This is because some AIBs used early engineering ASICs intended for board validation on their press samples. The use of these ASICs results in the incorrect number of stream processors. If you have an HD 6850 board sample from an AIB, please test using a utility such as GPU-z to determine the number of active stream processors. If that number is greater than 960, please contact us and we will work to have your board replaced with a production-level sample.
All boards available in the market, as well as AMD-supplied media samples, have production-level GPUs with the correct 960 stream processors."
so which one did Anandtech get? false marketing is such BS, just wanna be sure your benchmarks for the 6850 are reliable and we're not getting overrated benchmarks due to a cherry picked review sample.
lakrids - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
The review ended up looking like an advertisement for EVGA at page 7 and beyond. Why EVGA? Why not some other brand?Why include that brand at all? Just mark the card "GTX 460 OC'd 850MHz".
At the very first benchmark: Crysis 2560x1600, you didn't include the reference GTX 460, you pitched the HD6870 against the EVGA overclocked version. EVGA here, EVGA there, EVGA everywhere.
Would you blame me if I suspect you of being on EVGA's paycheck?
Lolimaster - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
When I call you a Intel/Nvidia biased site I'm saying the truth. Are you reviewing the HD6000 or doins an EVGA product reviews.This is an insult.
Message:
Nvidia will disappear like the dodo, just a bit more time and at that time all this sh1t will end.
SininStyle - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
You do understand if Nvidia vanishes the price of GPUs goes through the roof right? Nvidia isnt going to vanish any earlier then Radeon. Saying either just translates into "Im a fanboy"Stop defending a sticker and start shopping price performance. Neither company would hesitate to rape your wallet if the other would allow it. Case in point look at the price of the 57xx and 58xx 2 months ago. Then look at the price of the same cards including the 68xx cards now. Any of these cards perform less then they did 2 months ago? But the price is a whole lot cheaper isnt it? Well you can thank the 460 for that. Competition results in better pricing for the same performance. You should be thanking Nvidia not hating them.
Super_Herb - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
I love it - "as a matter of policy we do not include overclocked cards on general reviews"..........but this time nVidia said pretty please so we did. But because our strict ethical policy doesn't allow us to include them we'll just tell you we did it this one special time because a manufacturer specifically sent us a special card and then our integrity is still 100% intact......right? Besides, the "special" card nVidia sent us was so shiny and pretty!Back to [H]ard to get the real story.