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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GullLars - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
One sollution would be to to move away from pure number based naming, and do something like:AMD/nVidia AG#S# ([Maker]_[Architecture][Generation][# generation of architecture][Market Segment][# of relative performance within segment 1-9]
Or possibly AMD/Nvidia Architecture Gen# S#
Example:
AMD EG1E9 or Evergreen Gen1 E9 = 5970 (Enthusiast)
nVidia FG1E9 = 480
AMD Evergreen Gen2 G5(?) = 6850 (Gamer)
AMD Evergreen Gen1 V7 = 5770 (Value)
AMD Evergreen Gen1 M5 = 5350 (Media)
These are just early floating thoughts, which could be refined by marketing monkeys.
Exelius - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
Marketing monkeys have no intent on making it simple to understand; if you don't know exactly what you're buying, it's easier to sell it to you for more than they would be able to otherwise.It's not an accident that the numbering is confusing; if you don't know what you're looking at then a 6870 at a lower price than a 5870 looks like a great deal.
MonkeyPaw - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
Big deal, I say. The card is a few % slower, but is more efficient and is cheaper. People who will actually notice the drop off will probably read reviews first. Besides, if the x900 series is for dual GPU designs, then the naming might not be far off.Also, if I had to pick between the 5800 or the 6800, I'd probably get a 6800.
therealnickdanger - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
Don't forget improved image quality!It's only disappointing because with a new moniker, I expect new tech, but then again, how long did NVIDIA push G92? 3 generations as different products? LOL
Rafterman - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
What exactly have NVidia got to do with this, no fanboyism please.morphologia - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
They are a comparable company with comparably ridiculous naming conventions. How do you go from 9000 to 200?Talk about fanboyism...claiming irrelevancy when it's totally relevant reveals your fanboy decoder ring quite clearly.
Alilsneaky - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
I hated nvidia for doing it, why should amd now be forgiven for resorting to doing the same bullshit just because nvidia did it before them?I had someone tell me earlier 'that's business'.
WHAT? No it's bloody not, a scam is a scam, when people start equalling questionable practices like these to business then something is really wrong with today's society.
Mr Perfect - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
What Nvidia did was simply rename the 8800 cards to 9800 card. Same exact chip, same exact clocks, same exact board(at least initially). There where owners of 8800GTs who simply edited the name in the BIOS of their card and had a 9800GT!The reason AMD is getting a pass from most people is because this isn't a purely renamed card. It's a redesigned chip on a new PCB with a poor name. If, on the other hand, AMD renames the 5750 and 5770 to the 6750 and 6770 you can expect them to get nailed to the wall right next to Nvidia.
pcfxer - Saturday, October 23, 2010 - link
It was very clear why he mentioned NVIDIA. You should read his post...snarfbot - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
at least all the iterations of g92 improved performance over their predecessor.compare this launch to the x1xxx series of ati products, the x1800 was replaced by the x1900 which was replaced by the x1950. all of which improved performance over their predecessor. all the while on the same process 90nm.(save for the 1950pro and gt, which were mainstream parts.)
imagine if they named the x1900 the x2900, and somehow it actually performed worse than the x1800.
thats what they did here, and thats why it fails imo.
if they just called it hd5790 and kept it at the same price people wouldve gobbled it up anyway, without sacrificing their integrity.
just a bunch of numbers, but what it means in mindshare is important, and all most people will remember about this generation, is that it was worse than the 5 series and worse than nvidias.
all aboard the fail boat. honk honk.