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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Stuka87 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Why does every single ATI card get the EXACT same FPS in Civilization 5? Did the company that made it get paid off by nVidia to put a frame cap on ATI cards or what? It makes zero sense that 2 year old ATI cards would get the same FPS as just released ATI cards.So... What gives?
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Under normal circumstances it's CPU limited; apparently at the driver level. Just recently NVIDIA managed to resolve that issue in their drivers, which is why their Civ 5 scores have shot up while AMD's have not.Stuka87 - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
Hmm, interesting.WhatsTheDifference - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
please forgive me, Ryan, as I know this sounds abrasive and a little too off-topic from your response here. but speaking of 'score', what's the absolutely mind-boggling delay with including the 4890. quite frankly, if even one of any performance test over the relevant life of the 285 had not the 285 in it, nvidia would burn this site to the ground right after your nvidia-supporting readers did some leveling of their own. so honestly, for every 2xx series that finds its way into a benchmark, where in the world is ATI's top pick of that generation? site regs have posted about anandtech's nvidia-leaning ways, say, a few times, and this particularly clear evidence rather deserves an explanation - in my opinion. or, my spotty attendance contributed to missing at least one fascinating story.7Enigma - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
4870 has been in most of the tests (see launch article) which can be used as a slightly lower-performing card. Use that as a guide.erple2 - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - link
I agree with 7Enigma - the difference between the 4870 and 4890 are no longer significant enough to warrant inclusion in the comparison. I seem to recall that the performance of the 4890 was between the 4870 (shown) and the nvidia 285 (also shown). Couple that with the relative trouncing 30%+ increase in performance) that the newer cards deliver to the GTX285, plus that the frame rates of the GTX285 isn't that high (+30% of 20 fps is 26 fps, which is still "too slow to make it relevant"), I'm not sure that it becomes relevant anymore.cheese319 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
It should be easily possible to unlock the card through manually editing the bios to unlock the extra shaders (like what is possible with the 6950 2gb) which is a lot safer for the ram as well.mapesdhs - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Talk about not being consistent. :\ Here we have a review that
includes an oc'd 6870, yet there was the huge row before about the 460
FTW. Make your minds up guys, either include oc'd cards or don't.
Personally I would definitely like to the see the FTW included since
I'd love to know how it compares to the new 560 Ti, given the FTW often
beats a stock 470. Please add FTW results if you can.
Re those who've commented on certain tests reaching a plateau in some
cases: may I ask, why are you running the i7 at such a low 3.33GHz
speed?? I keep seeing this more and more these days, review articles on
all sorts of sites using i7 CPU speeds well below 4, whereas just about
everyone posting in forums on a wide variety of sites is using speeds
of at least 4. So what gives? Please don't use less than 4, otherwise
it's far too easy for some tests to become CPU-bound. You're reviewing
gfx cards afterall, so surely one would want any CPU bottleneck to be
as low as possible?
Any 920 should be able to reach 4+ with ease. And besides, who on earth
would buy a costly Rampage II Extreme and then only run the CPU at
3.33? Heck, my mbd cost 70% less than a R/II/Extreme yet it would easily
outperform your review setup for these tests (I use an i7 870 @ 4270).
For a large collection of benchmark results, Google "SGI Ian", click
the first result, follow the "SGI Tech Advice" link and then select, "PC
Benchmarks, Advice and Information" (pity one can't post URLs here now,
but I understand the rational re spam).
Lastly, it's sad to admit but I agree with the poster who commented on
the use of 1920x1200 res. The 1080 height is horrible for general use,
but the industry has blatantly moved away from producing displays with
1200 height. I wanted to buy a 1920x1200 display but it was damn hard
to find companies selling any models at this res at all, never mind
models which were actually worth buying (I bought an HP LP2475W HIPS
24" in the end). So I'm curious, what model of display are you using
for the tests? (the hw summary doesn't say, indeed your reviews never
say what display is being used - please do!). Kinda seems like you're
still able to find 1200-height screens, so if you've any info on
recommended models I'm sure readers would be interested to know.
Thanks!!
Ian.
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Our 920 is a C0/C1 model, not D0. D0s can indeed hit near 4GHz quite regularly, but for our 920 that is not the case. As for our motherboard, it was chosen first for benchmark purposes - the R2E has some features like OC Profiles that are extremely useful for this line of work.As for the monitor we're using, it's a Samsung 305T.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
Ryan writes:
> Our 920 is a C0/C1 model, not D0. D0s can indeed hit near 4GHz quite
> regularly, but for our 920 that is not the case. ...
Oh!! Time to upgrade. ;) Stick in a 950, should work much better. My point
still stands though, some tests could easily be CPU-bottlenecking when
things get tough.
> As for our motherboard, it was chosen first for benchmark purposes - the
> R2E has some features like OC Profiles that are extremely useful for this
> line of work.
So does mine. :D No need to spend oodles to have such features. Your's
would of course be better though for 3-way/4-way SLI/CF, but that's a
minority audience IMO.
> As for the monitor we're using, it's a Samsung 305T.
Sweeeet! I see it received good reviews, eg. on the 'trusted' of the
'reviews' dot com.
Hmm, do you know if it supports sync-on-green? Just curious.
Ian.