AMD's Radeon HD 6970 & Radeon HD 6950: Paving The Future For AMD
by Ryan Smith on December 15, 2010 12:01 AM ESTFinal Thoughts
Often it’s not until the last moment that we have all the information in hand to completely analyze a new video card. The Radeon HD 6970 and Radeon HD 6950 were no different. With AMD not releasing the pricing information to the press until Monday afternoon, we had already finished our performance benchmarks before we even knew the price, so much time was spent speculating and agonizing over what route AMD would go. So let’s jump straight in to our recommendations.
Our concern was that AMD would shoot themselves in the foot by pricing the Radeon HD 6970 in particular at too high a price. If we take a straight average at 1920x1200 and 2560x1600, its performance is more or less equal to the GeForce GTX 570. In practice this means that NVIDIA wins a third of our games, AMD wins a third of our games, and they effectively tie on the rest, so the position of the 6970 relative to the GTX 570 is heavily dependent on just what games out of our benchmark suite you favor. All we can say for sure is that on average the two cards are comparable.
So with that in mind a $370 launch price is neither aggressive nor overpriced. Launching at $20 over the GTX 570 isn’t going to start a price war, but it’s also not so expensive to rule the card out. Of the two the 6970 is going to take the edge on power efficiency, but it’s interesting to see just how much NVIDIA and AMD’s power consumption and performance under gaming has converged. It used to be much more lopsided in AMD’s favor.
Meanwhile the Radeon HD 6950 occupies an interesting spot. Above it is the 570/6970, below it are the soon to be discontinued GTX 470 and Radeon HD 5870. These cards were a bit of a spoiler for the GTX 570, and this is once more the case for the 6950. The 6950 is on average 7-10% faster than the 5870 for around 20% more. I am becoming increasingly convinced that more than 1GB of VRAM is necessary for any new cards over $200, but we’re not quite there yet. When the 5870 is done and gone the 6950 will be a reasonable successor, but for the time being the 5870 at $250 currently is a steal of a deal if you don’t need the extra performance or new features like DP1.2. Conversely the 6950 is itself a bit of a spoiler; the 6970 is only 10-15% faster for $70 more. If you had to have a 6900 card, the 6950 is certainly the better deal. Whether you go with the 5870, the 6950, or the 6970, just keep in mind that the 6900 series is in a much better position for future games due to AMD’s new architecture.
And that brings us to the final matter for today, that new architecture. Compared to the launch of Cypress in 2009 the feature set isn’t radically different like it was when AMD first added DirectX 11 support, but Cayman is radically different in its own way. After being carried by their current VLIW5 architecture for nearly four years, AMD is set to hand off their future to their new VLIW4 architecture. It won’t turn the world upside down for AMD or its customers, but it’s a reasonable step forward for the company by reducing their reliance on ILP in favor of more narrow TLP-heavy loads. For gaming this specifically means their hardware should be a better match for future DX10/DX11 games, and the second graphics engine should give them enough tessellation and rasterizing power for the time being.
Longer term we will have to see how AMD’s computing gamble plays out. Though we’ve largely framed Cayman in terms of gaming, to AMD Cayman is first and foremost a compute GPU, in a manner very similar to another company whose compute GPU is also the fastest gaming GPU on the market. Teething issues aside this worked out rather well for NVIDIA, but will lightning strike twice for AMD? The first Cayman-based video cards are launching today, but the Cayman story is just getting started.
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MeanBruce - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
TechPowerUp.com shows the 6850 as 95percent or almost double the performance of the 4850 and 100percent more efficient than the 4850@1920x1200. I also am upgrading an old 4850, as far as the 6950 check their charts when they come up later today.mapesdhs - Monday, December 20, 2010 - link
Today I will have completed by benchmark pages comparing 4890, 8800GT and
GTX 460 1GB (800 and 850 core speeds), in both single and CF/SLI, for a range
of tests. You should be able to extrapolate between known 4850/4890 differences,
the data I've accumulated, and known GTX 460 vs. 68xx/69xx differences (baring
in mind I'm testing with 460s with much higher core clocks than the 675 reference
speed used in this article). Email me at mapesdhs@yahoo.com and I'll send you
the URL once the data is up. I'm testing with 3DMark06, Unigine (Heaven, Tropics
and Sanctuary), X3TC, Stalker COP, Cinebench, Viewperf and PT Boats. Later
I'll also test with Vantage, 3DMark11 and AvP.
Ian.
ZoSo - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Helluva 'Bang for the Buck' that's for sure! Currently I'm running a 5850, but I have been toying with the idea of SLI or CF. For a $300 difference, CF is the way to go at this point.I'm in no rush, I'm going to wait at least a month or two before I pull any triggers ;)
RaistlinZ - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
I'm a bit underwhelmed from a performance standpoint. I see nothing that will make me want to upgrade from my trusty 5870.I would like to see a 2x6950 vs 2x570 comparison though.
fausto412 - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
exactly my feelings.it's like thinking Miss Universe is about to screw you and then you find out it's her mom....who's probably still hot...but def not miss universe
Paladin1211 - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
CF scaling is truly amazing now, I'm glad that nVidia has something to catch up in terms of driver. Meanwhile, the ATI wrong refresh rate is not fixed, it stucks at 60hz where the monitor can do 75hz. "Refresh force", "refresh lock", "ATI refresh fix", disable /enable EDID, manually set monitor attributes in CCC, EDID hack... nothing works. Even the "HUGE" 10.12 driver can't get my friend's old Samsung SyncMaster 920NW to work at its native 1440x900@75hz, both in XP 32bit and win 7 64bit. My next monitor will be an 120hz for sure, and I don't want to risk and ruin my investment, AMD.mapesdhs - Monday, December 20, 2010 - link
I'm not sure if this will help fix the refresh issue (I do the following to fix max res
limits), but try downloading the drivers for the monitor but modify the data file
before installing them. Check to ensure it has the correct genuine max res and/or
max refresh.
I've been using various models of CRT which have the same Sony tube that can
do 2048 x 1536, but every single vendor that sells models based on this tube has
drivers that limited the max res to 1800x1440 by default, so I edit the file to enable
2048 x 1536 and then it works fine, eg. HP P1130.
Bit daft that drivers for a monitor do not by default allow one to exploit the monitor
to its maximum potential.
Anyway, good luck!!
Ian.
techworm - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
future DX11 games will stress GPU and video RAM incrementally and it is then that 6970 will shine so it's obvious that 6970 is a better and more future proof purchase than GTX570 that will be frame buffer limited in near future gamesNickel020 - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
In the table about whether PowerTune affects an application or not there's a yes for 3DMark, and in the text you mention two applications saw throttling (with 3DMark it would be three). Is this an error?Also, you should maybe include that you're measuring the whole system power in the PowerTune tables, it might be confusing for people who don't read your reviews very often to see that the power draw you measured is way higher than the PowerTune level.
Reading the rest now :)
stangflyer - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Sold my 5970 waiting for 6990. With my 5970 playing games at 5040x1050 I would always have a 4th extended monitor hooked up to a tritton uve-150 usb to vga adapter. This would let me game while having the fourth monitor display my teamspeak, afterburner, and various other things.Question is this!! Can i use the new 6950/6970 and use triple monitor and also use a 4th screen extended at the same time? I have 3 matching dell native display port monitors and a fourth with vga/dvi. Can I use the 2 dp's and the 2 dvi's on the 6970 at the same time? I have been looking for this answer for hours and can't find it! Thanks for the help.