AMD’s Radeon HD 6870 & 6850: Renewing Competition in the Mid-Range Market
by Ryan Smith on October 21, 2010 10:08 PM ESTElectronic Arts’ space-faring RPG is our Unreal Engine 3 game. While it doesn’t have a built in benchmark, it does let us force anti-aliasing through driver control panels, giving us a better idea of UE3’s performance at higher quality settings. Since we can’t use a recording/benchmark in ME2, we use FRAPS to record a short run.
Mass Effect 2 ends up being another game that AMD that AMD struggles at. It’s not a game we’d normally classify as being shader-bound, but looking at the 6800 series performance relative to the 5800 series, it’s either that or texture-bound. In any case the 6850 is still competitive with the GTX 460 1GB, but the 6870 falls behind NVIDIA’s competing cards by several frames per second.
Meanwhile it’s interesting to note that this is the only game where the 6800 series doesn’t dig itself out of a hole in CF mode. Both the 6850CF and 6870CF are where we’d expect them to be relative to the 5870CF/5850CF if we took a simple extrapolation of their performance.
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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.
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.
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.
Super_Herb - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
"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.
Will Robinson - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
Its amazing how many sites have used the FTW overclocked card as their NVDA comparison card.Think its a fluke?....even websites in Sweden were sent one with directions from NVDA to use it.....too bad the FTW card isn't even available in that country.....
mcnels1 - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
On the power use page, the article states :Because we use a 1200W PSU in our GPU test rig our PSU efficiency at idle is quite low, leading to the suppression of the actual difference between cards.
Actually, an inefficient power supply has the opposite effect, increasing the apparent difference. If the power supply were 100% efficient, then each additional watt used by the graphics card would show up as one additional measured watt used. But if the power supply is only 50% efficient, each additional watt used by the graphics card is measured as two additional watts.
JEEPMON - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
Please lose the 'Mexican Standoff' Just use standoff, much more professional and politically correct.Wolfpup - Monday, October 25, 2010 - link
Regarding texture filtering/mip map levels-is it possible this deficiency has existed since at least 2005 in AMD parts? I notice that in a LOT of Xbox 360 games.Sabresiberian - Monday, October 25, 2010 - link
I'm a gamer, video is a far second for me, but AMD just put the crown firmly on their head and if that's what I was after I'd be thrilled with these cards at these prices.;)
DarkUltra - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Have you checked in-game texture quality during motion? My GeForce GTX 285 have shimmering textures at max texture quality and 16xAF which are very noticeable when walking around in a game. As the GTX 285 have same type of AF quality, is this shimmering also present on the 480 or the 6870?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVjM_vrsBO8