AMD's Radeon HD 6790: Coming Up Short At $150
by Ryan Smith on April 5, 2011 12:01 AM ESTBattlefield: Bad Company 2
Now approaching a year old, Bad Company 2 remains as one of the cornerstone DX11 games in our benchmark suite. Based on the Frostbite 1.5 engine, it will be replaced in complexity by the DX10+ only Frostbite 2 engine (and Battlefield 3) later this year. As BC2 doesn’t have a built-in benchmark or recording mode, here we take a FRAPS run of the jeep chase in the first act, which as an on-rails portion of the game provides very consistent results and a spectacle of explosions, trees, and more.
Bad Company 2 is the 3rd and final game we don’t use MSAA on for 1680. Here the 6790 can hit 77.3fps at that resolution, while it drops to a barely playable 41.1fps at 1920. Even without MSAA weighing the card down however, the 6850 still has 14% on it and the GTX 460 has 10%. It’s only against its underpowered competition that we see a victory, and even then while it’s 13% ahead of the GTX 550 it’s only 11% ahead of the 5770.
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Ryan Smith - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
As a matter of editorial policy I don't like to base my conclusions around future card availability; the only thing for sure about the future is that it's not what I expect it to be."Discontinued" cards are normally available for quite a long time after they're launched, and for the time being the GTX 460 768MB is readily available online and at retail for very good prices.
silverblue - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
You only have to think of other "discontinued" products to remember how popular they were for a good time after they were no longer produced - the Radeon HD 4850, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 250 and the AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE spring to mind.jabber - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
...simply install another 5770.Well its what I did.
Wonder how the 5770 stacks up to the 6790 with 900/5000+ OC.
marc1000 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
I would love to see some RECENT tests with the 5770 CF... all reviews available are from the time of launch, comparing it with the 5870 only and in old games.it would be nice to have a recent comparison of CF/SLI from previously mainstream cards (5770/460)
:-(
fingerbob69 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
...this card plays most games with all the effects on full. I want to change it but can't see the point.I think the HD7xxx are gonna be game changers though with the bump in performance quite huge compared to HD4xxx and HD5xxx levels.
As to wether any games are about to test the "*nm cards is another question.
fingerbob69 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
"*nm should read 28nm.jabber - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
Yeah I feel the 5XXX series were a major improvement that probably did far better than AMD expected, especially as they are still largely an attractive buy, two years later.So I saw the 6XXX series as merely a refresh of the 5XXX series. I was in no hurry to buy.
Hopefully the 7XXX series will be the one to watch out for.
Hrel - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
Prices have already "crept up". The GTX460 768MB was available for 130 after rebate for quite a while. Or at least 150 on more expensive brands. Now 150 is the cheapest I can find it. Also, every time you say the GTX460 768MB or the HD6850, if you're getting a 6850 you can get a 1GB GTX 460 for the same price. Just sayin', seems like you're unfairly giving more attention to the AMD product.In general though it seems like the GPU manufacturers had a secret meeting where they all got together and decided to start raising prices (profit margins) on all their GPU's. Cause based on performance and past prices the 550ti should be real real close to 100. The 560ti should be basically 200 bucks; 200 is where I'd start recomending that card to people. The GTX460 768MB should be 130 and it should stay there; 1GB should be about 150. And the same can be said for the AMD variants; 6850 would be about 150 and so on.
Hrel - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
hmm, just checked prices. Cheapest 1GB 460 I'd buy is 170, gigabyte, cheapest 6850 I'd buy is 155, XFX. So I kinda sorta rescind my statement; but not really. You guys still seem like you root for AMD regardless of who they're compared to. I'm not saying you skew your results and test unfairly; that's why I come here, it just seems like you're all kinda rooting for AMD to get on top in every market. Ofcourse if they did maybe you'd start rooting for Intel and Nvidia... we'll probably never know.H8ff0000 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
I know this is unrelated to the article, but does anyone know when AnandTech is going to do some P67 reviews? I'd like to see the Sabertooth P67 Rev 3 reviewed, possibly with some other boards for comparison.