AMD's Radeon HD 6970 & Radeon HD 6950: Paving The Future For AMD
by Ryan Smith on December 15, 2010 12:01 AM ESTCivilization V
The other new game in our benchmark suite is Civilization 5, the latest incarnation in Firaxis Games’ series of turn-based strategy games. Civ 5 gives us an interesting look at things that not even RTSes can match, with a much weaker focus on shading in the game world, and a much greater focus on creating the geometry needed to bring such a world to life. In doing so it uses a slew of DirectX 11 technologies, including tessellation for said geometry and compute shaders for on-the-fly texture decompression.
Once more Civilization V throws us a curveball, with some interesting results. At 2560 we’re GPU limited to the point where the 6900 series pulls ahead of the 5870, while at 1920 there’s something going on that doesn’t sit well with Civ V, leading to sub-5870 performance. In any case this is another game where NVIDIA traditionally does well, leading to even the fast 6900 series coming in well below the GTX 570 and even the GTX 470. AMD’s CrossFire scaling reigns supreme however, giving all the CF configurations an edge over their NVIDIA counterparts.
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DoktorSleepless - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
What benchmark or game is used to measure noise?Hrel - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
I'm not 100% but I believe they test it under Crysis. It was either that or a benchmark that put full load on the system. It was in an article in last year or 2, I've been reading so long it's all starting to mesh together; chronologically. But suffice it to say it stresses the system.Hrel - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
It's furmark, it's in the article.Adul - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
nice Christmas gift from the GF :DAstroGuardian - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
I saw my GF buying a couple of those. One is supposed to be for me and she doesn't play games...... WTF?MeanBruce - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Wow, you are getting a couple of 6950s? All I am getting from my 22yo gf is a couple of size F yammos lying on a long narrow torso, and a single ASUS 6850. Don't know which I like better, hmmmmm. Wednesday morning comic relief.Adul - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
damn sounds good to me :) enjoy both ;)SirGCal - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
I'm happy to see these power values! I did expect a bit more performance but once I get one, I'll benchmark it myself. By then the drivers will likely have changed the situation. Now to get Santa my wish list... :-) If it was only that easy...mac2j - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
One of the most impressive elements here is that you can get 2x6950 for ~$100 more than a single 580. That's some incredible performance for $600 which is not unheard of as the price point for a top single-slot card.Second... the scaling of the 6950 combined with the somwhat lower power consumption relative to the 570 bodes well for AMD with the 6990. My guess is they can deliver a top performing dual-GPU card with under a 425-watt TDP .... the 570 is a great single chip performer but getting it into a dual-gpu card under 450-500w is going to be a real challenge.
Anyway exciting stuff all-around - there will be a lot of heavy-hitting GPU options available for really very fair prices....
StormyParis - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
It's nice to have all current cards listed, and helps determine which one to buy. My question, and the one people ask me, is rather "is it worth upgrading now". Which depends on a lot of things (CPU, RAM...), but, above all, on comparative perf between current cards and cards 1-2-3 generations out. I currently use a 4850. How much faster would a 6850 or 6950 be ?