Crysis: Warhead

Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead, still one of the toughest games in our benchmark suite. Even three years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and for three years the answer was “no.” Dual-GPU halo cards can now play it at Enthusiast settings at high resolutions, but for everything else max settings are still beyond the grasp of a single card.

Unlike NVIDIA, AMD doesn’t advertise their cards around specific resolutions, however from Crysis it’s quickly apparent that the 6790 is better suited for 1680 than it is for 1920, particularly when anti-aliasing is involved.

Overall the 6790 is quite competitive with the 5830, the GTX 285, and the GTX 460 768MB here; 36.9fps at 1680 isn’t great, but it’s going to be playable. The problem for the 6790 is that the 6850 is 20% faster for around $10 more, and this is going to be a repeating scenario. If AMD dropped the price by $20 it would be a much better fit between the 6850 and 5770, and it would easily vanquish the GTX 550 Ti at that price.

The story with minimum framerates is much the same as it is with the averages. The 6790 actually manages to edge out the 5830 here, but the 6850 is still 20% ahead.

The Test BattleForge
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  • deputc26 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link

    On the last page.
    "and it would make NVIDIA think long and hard about what to do with what to do with the GTX 460 768MB"

    Oh and this comments section never remembers me despite always ticking the "remember me" box, (W7 Chrome)... annoying
  • Belard - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link

    Why not just reduce the price of a 6850 a bit more... And calling it the 6830 wouldn't have hurt that much - since AMD totally screwup the model names of the entire 6000 series.

    Pretty much everyone knows the 6800s are cheaper and slightly updated 5800s.

    Think I'll wait until the 7000s come out... but that maybe in 2012.
  • enterco - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link

    So, 6790 looks like a 5770 with a little performance improvement. For a 5770 / 450 owner it doesn't make any sense. Maybe for a new computer build on a specific tight budget.
  • Arnulf - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link

    And 30+% the price. Why not go for the best price-performance at low overall price (which 6790 clearly isn't) when on extremely tight budget ?
  • medi01 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link

    Yet another round of "uhm", "oh", "but", "duh" about AMD product.
    In other news, we compare three 350$ AMD cards vs 3 500$ nVidia cards.

    Way to go, Anand.
  • Mecavity - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link

    Oh, yay. Wouldn't be a proper article without someone complaining about an nVidia bias.

    A) The most expensive card included is an AMD...?
    B) The article is about a 150$ AMD card...? The case is being argued fairly, and the actual FOCUS is on comparing cards at the same level of pricing...?
    C) Critique works better if you state what you'd like to see included...?
    D) Derp.
  • medi01 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link

    The article is about 6790 and most of the conclusion page is about how 5830 sucks? (And how much did 5830 suck? Oh', they've dared to add more features while sacrificing a bit of performance and charge a bit more for it, how shameless... And this made it into the title of the product review. Pathetic.)
  • strikeback03 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link

    I noticed they gave this the exact same title they did for the 550Ti - "Coming up short at $150". And really the criticisms are the same - it is overpriced compared to both internal and external competition.

    How would you suggest they get excited over this? And how do you claim bias when one of the products they keep pointing to is the 6850?
  • medi01 - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link

    Jesus Christ, AMD 3x350$ cards vs 3x500$ nVidia cards, where is bashing of the latter? (expensive, under performing and power hungry)

    How about if bashing, then bash both (who was there "duking out for performance king" eh?) if using softer words, then for all?

    Don't have balls to bash both anymore (stinky nVidia stories, *cough*)? DON'T BASH ANY!!!

    Oh, and last time I've checked, 460 was 160-200$ card (with MSRP 190$). And that was today.
  • cknobman - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link

    I agree with ya.

    This article is focusing on the wrong things. Nvidia 460 768 MB is on the way out and has been publicly stated by Nvidia so that is going to leave a huge hole at $150 price point which is where the 6790 fits in. If you check out some of the other review sites the card performs pretty well (Anand your game library for benches sucks, HAWX - really? get with the times already!!!) plus the 6790 overclocks like a champ.

    Sure this is not the perfect $150 card but its most likely going to be the best there is in the immediate future.

    Im disappointed in this article.

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