Graphics The super special AMD 6870 and 6850 thread!

Not on 28nm. Northern Islands is strictly 40nm.

 

I guess we won't see 28nm till Q2 2011 with AMDs Southern Island.

 

SO many games can run fantastically with something like a GTX 260, and many of them are console ports (bad console ports are the exception) and it seems the only reason people feel the need to upgrade is for the 3 or 4 real gems that come out every year, like Civ 5 and New Vegas. Once those games have come and gone then it's time to upgrade again! Gone are the days where a £200 upgrade could get you through half a generation of games.

 

That's debatable though based on your opinion.

I've never really gotten into the Civ games, and as for Fallout, if I wanted to play a buggy and broken mess of a game I'd go play Alpha Protocol, but again, that's my opinion. My point is expensive upgrades are justified by just how many games you play and for how long - assuming you're into gaming.

 

Anandtech and bittech both have the 6850 a tie with the 460 1gb, however as widely mentioned, using a lot less power and being a little quieter. The 460 768mb performance-wise does everything I would possibly need it to do (with some nice overclocking room in to-boot) so unless the 1gb/6850 drop considerably before xmas (and make the jump worthwhile longevity wise) then I'll still be heading for the 768mb

 

Look what just came through my letterbox at 8AM this morning...

 

Dude, am jealous, get a camera and do a You Tube review for us, would love to see it going/hear it going....

 

I'm currently benchmarking Crysis with my current setup then the 6870. I'm going to create thread with the benchmarks and the advances in the last 18 months. Stay tuned

 

I hate you! Go away!

But before you do. How long is the card and how noisy is the stock cooler?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCW1YXOsVeM&feature=related

Just found this, its a sound test on this card with a Decibel meter...ouch 70db on 100%...or as noisy as a vucuum cleaner...i hope not.

 

ya but when will you ever run at 100%?

still...seems louder at 40-50% than my 5870...

 

Still its a stock cooler, will have to see what the others bring out.

 

well it looks to me that the 6850 is top dog, the reason that is £50 cheaper then the 6870
so for £90 more i could get another one which would greatly improve performance. but i don't have to do that now co it cold be a lot cheaper in 6 months to a year.

any one disagree?

 

This is from another thread:

Anyone with a 6850 have 1120 shaders? Is it just the result of binning or an error? Can the 6850 BIOS be flashed to unlock 1120 shaderrs?

 

Looking forward to this. And some subjective/relative noise info please.

 

I think its just an error, the perf is the same as card with 960 shaders.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6850/

"This review shows the correct performance numbers you should expect from a 960 shader HD 6850"

 

We may actually get a 28nm run card being the 67** as X bit labs reported then in H2 2011 we see southern islands which i think will be a big jump (full new arch rather than a hybrid which is northern islands).