Hardware ATI Radeon HD 6870 Review

Cheers impar.

@Lizard

That reasoning is fine with one caveat. I assume that people will be playing Crysis 2 when it comes out, which I'm also assuming will be a good replacement for the first (benchmark wise). Could you really not benchmark Crysis 1 until that point? And if not, could you at least do a performance comparison when Crysis 2 comes out so we can see how to judge it.

Thanks.

 

Greetings!

It makes sense to order by minimum FPS if all the cards dips on the same benchmark the same times, the same order of magnitude.
I ask you both, on my previous example*, which card would be ranked best? And why would it be ranked lower than the worse card?

Its not a matter of "last time Crysis was played", its a matter of consistency. Players know Crysis, everybody played it, old reviews show Crysis numbers, they dont show Arma II numbers, making comparisons between old cards and new cards impossible.

*- "A card that has 50 FPS average and one dip to 20 FPS, gets ordered bellow a card that has 40 FPS average and ten dips to 25FPS?"

 

I'd hesitate to commit bit-tech to testing a game that hasn't even been released yet, so for now the jury is out on Crysis 2.

That said, we will of course keep an eye on Crysis 2, so if it's popular and hardware intensive (and therefore revelant) we will include it in the benchmarks suite.

 

A little note: see how confused everyone is in this thread with these ridiculous naming schemes from ATi and Nvidia? Also a quick look around all the other popular sites reveals exactly the same issues with the naming. Nvidia and ATi need to stop it now and just stick to one theme for a long while. It's beyond a joke. And bloody annoying.

Another note: I use a 4870x2 and after a quick scan of replies just to this thread, others are using: 4870 (crossfired), 4890 (crossfired), 260GTX (SLi'd), X1800XT (Xir ... upgrade?! lol), and then you have other using 460's 470's etc. But in the comparisons you don't include: 4870, 4870x2, 4890, 260GTX and certainly not the X1800XT (!). So how do we know how these new cards compare to our old?

Can you guys devise a way to include previous results? Obviously the test rigs would need to stay the same between different cards.

 

I'm all for not using the "Crysis Test". That game isn't a good indication of performance, not because it's such a graphically intense game but because it's just really badly coded and poorly optimised.

If modern cards still struggle with a 3yo game, there's something wrong with the game, not the hardware.

As to the hardware reviewed, for that money they look like an awesome buy. What's especially promising is that AMD seem to have finally gotten their crossfire scaling right, the performance of 2x 6870 is amazing. Bet nVidia are worried, and not just at the high end, the £130 segment should now belong to AMD too.

 

Greetings!

 

For me I stopped using Crysis as the benchmark of benchmarks a while ago seeing how Metro 2033 with all the eye candy on with full Tessellation can only be run by a GTX 480 SLI set at 33 FPS.

Granted Crysis did raise the bar but being DX10 it's no longer the bar as the DX11 Metro 2033 takes the crown as of now.

I just don't understand why so many people are confused about the new AMD naming scheme? As if Bit-tech needs to give these guys a crayon colored chart showing....... awe just forget it here...................

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...g_units#Northern_Islands_.28HD_6xxx.29_series

Memorize it as there be a test in the morning

 

Performance was a bit of a let down, price is rather optimistic. Thanks for the article BT. I think AMD should've just dropped the prices of their current 5xxx series with more numbers saving the 6xxx for 32nm fabbing. I do look forward to their 28nm stuff.

Thanks BT.

 

I'm not confused. It seems pretty simple to me that they've gone back to their naming scheme from 2 generations ago, so the 6870 is the equivalent, albeit with a significant performance upgrade, to the 4870.

If you only look back one generation, you may be confused, but I think most people here have longer memories than that.

 

It's a pretty poor decision by Bit-Tech then to continue to call them by a name that is WRONG. It doesn't matter if internal workings of their driver still says ATI the cards are AMD Radeon. Period. Every other major Hardware site refer to them by their correct name of AMD Radeon. By referring to them as their correct name, you wont be confusing your reader you will be educating them.

 

So why did BT not replace Crysis for Metro as ultimate benchmark for DX11 hardware.

To me it seems this is another card into the crowded 'midrange' section that competes with 20 other cards for give or take 4 frames per second of game play.

I hope all other cards that are made before 2010 will drop 30/80 euro in price now or just die..

 

Yah...I've been waiting for a year for the 5870 pricing to move...
Which it didn't, so a year ago would have been a great time to buy one.
With this 6870 "Mainstraem" card and the upcoming enthousiast cards...looks like I'll be waiting for about three months more

Now you Understand why I haven't played Crysis...yet.

Speaking of which

it's not good for playing, but great for comparing

 

Lot's of bitching in this thread. What's going on ? Are the stars aligned in a bad way ? Or are people actually bitching because the reviews they've been reading for years (for free!) are not written the way they want them to be ?

 

Sorry, I am absolutely idiotic, I typo'd 6870 rather than 6970, sorry for the hassle of having to write that out

 

I'm not confused at all. I got used to daft naming policies when I got interested in PC components. And this makes more sense than some.

5770 is similar in performance to a 4870. You can work it out from there. Just read the reviews man.

 

Cus it's a rubbish game and we don't want to play it?
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2010/03/26/metro-2033-review/1

 

I flogged my two 5870's in expectation of a price drop this month and am now waiting impatiently for the 6990 to arrive! Pleasantly surprised in the interim at how well the gtx280 I bought for a €120 s/h for physx is now holding up as my main gpu at decent res'

6870 - Mid range card that is almost on par with a 5870. That's job done imo. Now give us the high end before I spend the money!

 

MLAA support sounds really interesting. Might be a good way to add AA to all those UE3 games that don't have basic AA support.

Tom's Hardware had a quick look... http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-hd-6870-radeon-hd-6850-barts,review-32028-4.html