AMD's Radeon HD 6790: Coming Up Short At $150
by Ryan Smith on April 5, 2011 12:01 AM ESTMetro 2033
The next game on our list is 4A Games’ tunnel shooter, Metro 2033. Metro is quite a resource intensive game, and if Crysis is a tropical GPU killer, then Metro would be its underground counterpart.
From the perspective of the 6850, Metro 2033 is one of the best titles for the 6790; the 6850 is only 13% ahead at 1680, meanwhile the 6790 is also quite close to the GTX 460 768MB. Much of this has to do with the fact that we don’t use anti-aliasing on this game at 1680 due to just how resource intensive it is, so the ROP penalty is minimized here. However at the same time memory bandwidth isn’t doing the 6790 much good, and as a result it’s only 8% faster than a 5770. The 6790 once again does well versus the GTX 550, but we’ve long since established that at launch prices it’s not the 6790’s biggest threat.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
69 Comments
View All Comments
deputc26 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
On the last page."and it would make NVIDIA think long and hard about what to do with what to do with the GTX 460 768MB"
Oh and this comments section never remembers me despite always ticking the "remember me" box, (W7 Chrome)... annoying
Belard - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
Why not just reduce the price of a 6850 a bit more... And calling it the 6830 wouldn't have hurt that much - since AMD totally screwup the model names of the entire 6000 series.Pretty much everyone knows the 6800s are cheaper and slightly updated 5800s.
Think I'll wait until the 7000s come out... but that maybe in 2012.
enterco - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
So, 6790 looks like a 5770 with a little performance improvement. For a 5770 / 450 owner it doesn't make any sense. Maybe for a new computer build on a specific tight budget.Arnulf - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
And 30+% the price. Why not go for the best price-performance at low overall price (which 6790 clearly isn't) when on extremely tight budget ?medi01 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
Yet another round of "uhm", "oh", "but", "duh" about AMD product.In other news, we compare three 350$ AMD cards vs 3 500$ nVidia cards.
Way to go, Anand.
Mecavity - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
Oh, yay. Wouldn't be a proper article without someone complaining about an nVidia bias.A) The most expensive card included is an AMD...?
B) The article is about a 150$ AMD card...? The case is being argued fairly, and the actual FOCUS is on comparing cards at the same level of pricing...?
C) Critique works better if you state what you'd like to see included...?
D) Derp.
medi01 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
The article is about 6790 and most of the conclusion page is about how 5830 sucks? (And how much did 5830 suck? Oh', they've dared to add more features while sacrificing a bit of performance and charge a bit more for it, how shameless... And this made it into the title of the product review. Pathetic.)strikeback03 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
I noticed they gave this the exact same title they did for the 550Ti - "Coming up short at $150". And really the criticisms are the same - it is overpriced compared to both internal and external competition.How would you suggest they get excited over this? And how do you claim bias when one of the products they keep pointing to is the 6850?
medi01 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
Jesus Christ, AMD 3x350$ cards vs 3x500$ nVidia cards, where is bashing of the latter? (expensive, under performing and power hungry)How about if bashing, then bash both (who was there "duking out for performance king" eh?) if using softer words, then for all?
Don't have balls to bash both anymore (stinky nVidia stories, *cough*)? DON'T BASH ANY!!!
Oh, and last time I've checked, 460 was 160-200$ card (with MSRP 190$). And that was today.
cknobman - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
I agree with ya.This article is focusing on the wrong things. Nvidia 460 768 MB is on the way out and has been publicly stated by Nvidia so that is going to leave a huge hole at $150 price point which is where the 6790 fits in. If you check out some of the other review sites the card performs pretty well (Anand your game library for benches sucks, HAWX - really? get with the times already!!!) plus the 6790 overclocks like a champ.
Sure this is not the perfect $150 card but its most likely going to be the best there is in the immediate future.
Im disappointed in this article.