AMD's Radeon HD 6970 & Radeon HD 6950: Paving The Future For AMD
by Ryan Smith on December 15, 2010 12:01 AM ESTBattleForge: DX10
Up next is BattleForge, Electronic Arts’ free to play online RTS. As far as RTSes go this game can be quite demanding, and this is without the game’s DX11 features.
With BattleForge the situation immediately reverses for AMD and then some. The GTX 570 takes a commanding lead over both AMD cards; worse, the 5870 and the 6950 are effectively tied. We routinely see BattleForge show up as a shader-bound benchmark, so it stands to reason that the potential loss in shader performance on the Cayman architecture would hurt AMD here. This would certainly explain why the 6950 can’t gain any ground on the 5870.
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Ryan Smith - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
AMD rarely has Linux drivers ready for the press ahead of a launch. This is one such occasion.MeanBruce - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Great job on the review Ryan, hope you will cover the upcoming Nvidia 560 and 550 when they arrive. Peace Brother!gescom - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Please Anand make an update with a new 10.12 driver. Great review btw.knowom - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Until you keep into consideration1) Driver support
2) Cuda
3) PhysX
I also prefer the lower idle noise, but higher load noise than the reverse for Ati because when your gaming usually you have your sound turned up a lot it's when you aren't gaming is when noise is more of the issue for seeking a quieter system.
It's a better trade off in my view, but they are both pretty even in terms of noise for idle and load regardless and a far cry from quite compared to other solutions from both vendors if that's what your worried about not to mention non reference cooler designs effect that situation by leaps and bounds..
Acanthus - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
AMD has been updating drivers more aggressively than Nvidia lately. (the last year)Anecdotally, my GTX285 has had a lot more game issues than my 4890. Specifically in NWN2 and Civ5.
Cuda is irrelevant unless you are doing heavy 1. photoshop, 2. video encoding.
PhysX is still a crappy gimmick at this point and needs to offer real visual improvements without a 40%+ performance hit.
smookyolo - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
PhysX may be a gimmick in games, but it's one of the better ones.Also, guess what... it's being used all over the 3D animation industry.
And guess where the real money comes from? The industry.
fausto412 - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
physx is a gimmick that has been around for some time and will never take hold. when physx came around it set a new standard but since then developers have adopted havok more commonly since it doesn't require extra hardware.it's all marketing and not a worthy decision point when buying a new card
jackstar7 - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Alternately, my triple-monitor setup makes AMD the obvious choice.beepboy - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Agreed on triple-monitor setup. You can make the argument that 2x 460s are cheaper and nets better performance but at the end of the day 2x 460s will be louder, use more power, more heat, etc over a single 69xx. I just want my triple monitor setup, damn it.codedivine - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - link
Any info on cache sizes and register files?