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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
197 Comments
View All Comments
Goty - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
Other reviews show 6850s hitting 1GHz+ with software voltage modification, so I don't think that will be an issue.karlostomy - Monday, October 25, 2010 - link
The question then is, why did anandtech choose to include the EVGA card that NVIDIA no doubt hand picked and delivered?Including the OC 460 card is one thing, but at the very least some 'attempt' at oc'ing the 6850 would have retained a semblance of reviewer impartiality.
wyvernknight - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
According to this article i just read it can do 6 way eyefinity.http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/10/21/amds-6870-b...
The diagram is close to the bottom.
notty22 - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
The reviewer addressed why the 460 o/c was included. Owners/gamers are reporting the ability to clock their 460's to the 810,820,850 mhz the clocks various "special" models come @ with stock voltage. I agree , its more of why did Nvidia do this ? Imho, it was to position the card without competing/obsoleting the gtx 465/470. Now that Nvidia has lowered the prices, and the good price point the new AMD cards launched with, this is a exciting time for the gamer.Now lets get some new, more powerful dx11 games !
Thanx for the COMPLETE review !
Kyanzes - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
I could have sworn that AvP had been mentioned as a future standard test game on Anandtech. I could be wrong ofc.3DVagabond - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
I'm really surprised you went along with using the EVGA (OC) card nVidia sent you. They sent you what is commonly referred to as "a ringer", and you went along. You should have used the stock 460 (both models) and a stock 470, IMO. Why let nVidia name the conditions? They are obviously going to do everything they can to tilt the playing field. Was there anything else they wanted that you did for them?AnandThenMan - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
Well in the article, they basically admitted to "caving in" to Nvidia by including the overclocked card. Obviously Nvidia was very keen to have a specific card included, seems dubious."However with the 6800 launch NVIDIA is pushing the overclocked GTX 460 option far harder than we’ve seen them push overclocked cards in the past –we had an EVGA GTX 460 1GB FTW on our doorstep before we were even back from Los Angeles."
I mean stating, "a matter of editorial policy" then ignoring that policy outright seems pretty sketchy to me. Like you said, makes one question the results in general.
DominionSeraph - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
If AMD's official segmentation strategy were to put a factory overclocked 6870 against the GTX 470, what would be the issue with AnandTech comparing the two? Granted, it doesn't mean much to enthusiasts who would just buy a stocker and overclock it to pocket the price differential, but I'd wager a card bought by your average idiot buying off the shelves of Best Buy isn't going to see anything other than the factory clocks.bji - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
Actually the people overclocking their video cards and then dealing with overheating and loud-as-an-aircraft-engine fan noise are the idiots.Just thought that if you were going to go around saying disparaging things about people who have different values than you do, that you might appreciate some of the same.
spigzone - Friday, October 22, 2010 - link
Maybe if you had dropped testing the FTW 460 for the time being, saving it for your 'overview' test next week, you would have had enough time to release a fully fleshed out and organized review instead of letting Nvidia jerk you around, compromising your own 'editorial policy' on only using stock cards in the initial review and saving you the time and trouble of coming up with lame @$$ rationalizations.