AMD's Radeon HD 6790: Coming Up Short At $150
by Ryan Smith on April 5, 2011 12:01 AM ESTCivilization V
Civilization 5 is 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.
Civilization V is another title that we don’t use MSAA on at 1680 due to the game’s already low performance and the additional strain of MSAA. This works to the advantage of the 6790, giving it some of the best results relative to the 6850 of our entire test suite. Here the two cards are in fact virtually tied, and Barts’ improved tessellator gives it 20% over the 5770. However NVIDIA’s continued strong showing here means that the 6850 is largely tagging out for the GTX 460 768MB here, which is why the GTX 460 is nearly 20% ahead, and even the GTX 550 isn’t too far behind. If more games were like Civilization V the 6790 would be in better shape, but the rest of the Barts lineup wouldn’t be doing nearly as well.
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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.