AMD’s GTX 560 Ti Counter-Offensive: Radeon HD 6950 1GB & XFX’s Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition
by Ryan Smith on January 25, 2011 12:20 PM ESTFinal Words
AMD’s GTX 560 Ti counter-offensive leaves us with a few different thoughts, none of which have much to do with the GTX 560 Ti.
First and foremost we have the newly launched Radeon HD 6950 1GB. Having 2GB of VRAM does have its advantages, but at this point in time there aren’t any games that can exploit this advantage at the common resolutions of 1920x1200, 1920x1080, or 1680x1050. It’s only once we get to 2560x1600 or similarly large Eyefinity resolutions that we see the 1GB 6950 fall behind its 2GB counterpart.
In the long run (e.g. a year or longer) I believe having that extra 1GB of VRAM is going to make a difference at resolutions like 1920x1200, but amidst my prognostics we’re effectively making an argument on the futureproofness of a product, which is a difficult argument to make even in the best of times. Perhaps the best argument is one of price: the 6950 1GB starts at $259, while the 6950 2GB can be found for as little as $269, putting a $10 premium on the extra 1GB. For $10 I would suggest taking the plunge, however if your budget is absolutely critical then it’s clear under most games right now you will never notice the difference between a 1GB 6950 and a 2GB 6950.
Our second card presents a more interesting scenario. The factory overclock on the XFX Radon 6870 Black Edition is not very high, but then neither is the effective price of the overclock. Instead this is a story about a custom cooler, and whether at about $10 over the average price of a reference Radeon HD 6870 it’s worth the price. While I would not call the reference 6870 loud, I also would not call it quiet by any stretch of the word; if anything I would call it cheaply built. If you don’t care about noise then the Black Edition brings little to the table, but in a suitable case those of you with sensitive ears will be in for quite a surprise. Thus while the XFX 6870 comes up short as a true GTX 560 Ti competitor as AMD would seem to be hoping for, it clearly has other redeeming values.
With AMD’s latest cards squared away, our final thought is on today’s launch in general. If nothing else, hopefully today’s write-up has entertained you, and with any luck we’ve imparted upon you a bit of practical wisdom about how the GPU industry operates. As far as we can gather AMD went through quite a bit of effort to launch a viable GTX 560 Ti competitor today – a feat they appear to have succeeded at. The GPU industry is competitive from top to bottom, but there’s something special about the $200-$300 price range that brings out the insanity on all sides. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.
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GeorgeH - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
There is no bias at Anandtech, only well documented arguments and conclusions that you're free to disagree with. If you want to abandon one of the best tech review sites on the planet in favor of one that panders to your personal delusions about the fuzziness of a multinational corporation, knock yourself out.prdola0 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
I do not want to invalidate the arguments and facts in the article. No problem there. Just that they didn't include the OCed GTX560, which is going to be a major player.sinPiEqualsZero - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Find me a factory-overclocked GTX 560 that is currently available in the market. Then we can have that discussion. Anandtech is testing what is currently available - something I'm not sure you understand. All of these reviews are snapshots of a moment in time.My searching shows one as "OC" on newegg, but no details about the core clock. That isn't a sign that the site is biased, it's called reality.
prdola0 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
There are two already available (in Europe anyway): one from Asus and one from Gigabyte.omelet - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
They're working on a review for the overclocked card. I don't think they've ever released benchmarks for factory overclocks the same day that the card comes out, at least not in recent history, so it's not unexpected for them not to have included overclocked GTX 560 data yet. Wait for the 560 overclocked article in a few days.Melted Rabbit - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
The 850MHz GTX460 rarely ever in stock at online retailers during its lifespan, at times, the 810MHz GTX460 was even hard to find. The overclocked GTX460s that had even lower clocks were generally available. With these previous supply constraints in mind, why should any review site review another highly overclocked card like the 900MHz GTX560 Ti, when its predecessor was a low volume card created specifically to deceptively improve the perceived benchmarks and perceived value of the rest of the cards in its series?I have no issue with anandtech or other websites reviewing or including in reviews a 900MHz GTX560 if the variant is still readily available in four to six weeks. It would mean the card existed in reasonable quantities and was not just another Geforce 8800 Ultra card that showed up for the reviews and then was never actually in retail.
On the other hand, the 6870 Black is a modest overclock of the 6870 from AMD, who has not had and has no supply problems with the 6870 cards.
GeorgeH - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
My personal experience is that EVGA's ~850MHz 460s have never impossible to find, although it has occasionally been difficult to find ones that weren't the less desirable external exhaust model. I've never had any difficulty finding ~810MHz cards.I didn't do much shopping around Christmas/New Years, though, so my experiences might not be representative of the average.
GeorgeH - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
GTX 560 cards are going to be a major player? Really? You know this how? Because your talking points memo from Nvidia marketing told you so?If you honestly care about 560 OC results, here's what you can say - "Hey Ryan, will you be getting a chance to test any overclocked 560's soon? How do you think they will perform?"
Instead, here's what you went with - "OMG!! They didn't include every freaking card on the planet! BIAS! Sweet baby Jesus, I weep for the Anandtech that was!"
The only thing really missing from this article was the inclusion of an overclocked 460, which from previous benchmarks should be very competitive for $50 less. Unfortunately the ridiculous shitstorm from the last time it was included means we can't have nice things anymore.
prdola0 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
The Gigabyte and Asus OCed cards were available even before stock clocked cards. How is that in any way "temporary" or "uninterresting"? You are trying to downplay it really hard, but for apples-to-apples comparison, there should be the overclocked competition as well.GeorgeH - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Quotation marks - they do not mean what you think they mean. Nowhere on this page has anyone used either the words "temporary" or "uninteresting", nor any synonyms that I can see.No one is downplaying anything other than your ridiculous claim that AT and Ryan are biased because in two weeks they didn't manage to benchmark and write up every single card in the universe that might be relevant to your interests.