AMD’s Radeon HD 6870 & 6850: Renewing Competition in the Mid-Range Market
by Ryan Smith on October 21, 2010 10:08 PM ESTThe 3rd game in the STALKER series continues to build on GSC Game World’s X-Ray Engine by adding DX11 support, tessellation, and more. This also makes it another one of the highly demanding games in our benchmark suite.
STALKER is a game that seems to have gone back and forth some with driver optimizations. In the latest round if anything the NVIDIA cards seem to have a slight edge against the 6870. Here the 6870 is competitive with the EVGA GTX 460, however it’s nearly 10% behind the GTX 470. Meanwhile the 6850 is far more normal, more or less tying with the GTX 460 1GB and enjoying the usual lead over the 768MB version. Meanwhile compared to the 5800 series the 6800 series does rather poorly here, as Stalker is another game that’s shader-bound; the 6870 only takes a slight lead over the 5850, and is several frames per second behind the 5870.
As for our Crossfire cards, they have once again performed another miracle. Being shader bound doesn’t stop the 6870CF from beating the 5870CF while the 6850CF ties the 5850CF.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
197 Comments
View All Comments
Super_Herb - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
I love it - "as a matter of policy we do not include overclocked cards on general reviews"..........but this time nVidia said pretty please so we did. But because our strict ethical policy doesn't allow us to include them we'll just tell you we did it this one special time because a manufacturer specifically sent us a special card and then our integrity is still 100% intact......right? Besides, the "special" card nVidia sent us was so shiny and pretty!Back to [H]ard to get the real story.
Super_Herb - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
I love it - "as a matter of policy we do not include overclocked cards on general reviews"..........but this time nVidia said pretty please so we did. But because our strict ethical policy doesn't allow us to include them we'll just tell you we did it this one special time because a manufacturer specifically sent us a special card and then our integrity is still 100% intact......right? Besides, the "special" card nVidia sent us was so shiny and pretty!Back to [H]ard to get the real story.
Super_Herb - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
I love it - "as a matter of policy we do not include overclocked cards on general reviews"..........but this time nVidia said pretty please so we did. But because our strict ethical policy doesn't allow us to include them we'll just tell you we did it this one special time because a manufacturer specifically sent us a special card and then our integrity is still 100% intact......right? Besides, the "special" card nVidia sent us was so shiny and pretty!Back to [H]ard to get the real story.
Super_Herb - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
"As a matter of policy we do not include overclocked cards on general reviews"..........but this time nVidia said pretty please so we did. But because our strict ethical policy doesn't allow us to include them we'll just tell you we did it this one special time because a manufacturer specifically sent us a special card and then our integrity is still 100% intact......right? Besides, the "special" card nVidia sent us was so shiny and pretty!Back to [H]ard to get the real story.
Will Robinson - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
Its amazing how many sites have used the FTW overclocked card as their NVDA comparison card.Think its a fluke?....even websites in Sweden were sent one with directions from NVDA to use it.....too bad the FTW card isn't even available in that country.....
mcnels1 - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
On the power use page, the article states :Because we use a 1200W PSU in our GPU test rig our PSU efficiency at idle is quite low, leading to the suppression of the actual difference between cards.
Actually, an inefficient power supply has the opposite effect, increasing the apparent difference. If the power supply were 100% efficient, then each additional watt used by the graphics card would show up as one additional measured watt used. But if the power supply is only 50% efficient, each additional watt used by the graphics card is measured as two additional watts.
JEEPMON - Sunday, October 24, 2010 - link
Please lose the 'Mexican Standoff' Just use standoff, much more professional and politically correct.Wolfpup - Monday, October 25, 2010 - link
Regarding texture filtering/mip map levels-is it possible this deficiency has existed since at least 2005 in AMD parts? I notice that in a LOT of Xbox 360 games.Sabresiberian - Monday, October 25, 2010 - link
I'm a gamer, video is a far second for me, but AMD just put the crown firmly on their head and if that's what I was after I'd be thrilled with these cards at these prices.;)
DarkUltra - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Have you checked in-game texture quality during motion? My GeForce GTX 285 have shimmering textures at max texture quality and 16xAF which are very noticeable when walking around in a game. As the GTX 285 have same type of AF quality, is this shimmering also present on the 480 or the 6870?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVjM_vrsBO8