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Hardware ATI Radeon HD 6850 Review

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Guest-16, 22 Oct 2010.

  1. impar

    impar Minimodder

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    Greetings!
    No. Just gets cross talk between threads.
    Warhead:
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/...renewing-competition-in-the-midrange-market/6
    Lizard justifies Crysis removal:
    http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=2457630#post2457630
    +1
     
  2. Claave

    Claave You Rebel scum

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    Hey Senilex. Obviously we hear what you're saying, but all the branding around the card and it's driver is ATI rather than AMD. Also, far more people Google search for ATI Radeon than AMD Radeon at the moment, and as we want as many people to read our reviews as possible we choose to call these cards ATI Radeons.

    We're planning to drop the ATI brand from our articles when AMD launches Fusion, so you have until then to change AMD's driver branding and everyone's search habits! :)
     
  3. LeMaltor

    LeMaltor >^_^

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    No Crysis benchmark, ow dear ow dear
     
  4. TWeaK

    TWeaK Minimodder

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    I feel quite sorry for AMD here, because if it wasn't for TSMC failing to deliver both these cards would be cheaper and trounce Nvidia. Still, at least some board partners are managing to price to a good budget.

    Those wearing tinfoil hats might think that Nvidia pulled an Intel with TSMC to cut AMD of at the source.
     
  5. javaman

    javaman May irritate Eyes

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    On page 1:
    Should it be 6850?

    On page 3:
    That sentence doesn't totally make sense.

    So this is just a refresh with a few new added features and a new generation name?I wonder how the 32nm Node would of changed things. Possibly higher clock speeds and better power numbers? Unless ATI improve folding performance my next setup will be Nvidia and ill hold out to their next generation when the midrange gets a bit of extra performance.
     
  6. Xir

    Xir Modder

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    Shame that that doesn't allow to put the performance into (retro)perspective
     
  7. Fizzban

    Fizzban Man of Many Typos

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    Except most people are playing Fallout New Vegas and COD2 which both run on about the same as an asthmatic hamster in a wheel. Crisis might be 3 years old but look at Fallout. Using the same graphics as Oblivion..which came out not long after the xbox 360.

    One reason you cite for not using Crysis is it not being very popular (not selling well). And ARMA II is? Seems like a very niche game to me. Only a small minority like mill-sims quite that hardcore.

    Don't worry, I do agree with you for not including it. I just find some of the reasoning behind it flawed.
     
  8. enikmaster

    enikmaster What's a Dremel?

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    in portugal, for know, the best price for this card is some astonishing 207€... and 270€ for the 6870... I hate this... :(
     
  9. ADJB

    ADJB What's a Dremel?

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    Point 1 - So by this logic you should be using Sims 3 and WoW as standard games. Looking at the weekly sales charts both are immensely popular both in sales and player numbers.

    Point 2 & 3 - I feel is a slippery slope. If you are only going to use an optimised game for comparison there is (and in fairness it is always pointed out in reviews) always going to a bias towards one card or another. When I buy a card I don't consider what it will play today from the review but use those numbers to try and project what it will play tomorrow. Yes, Crysis may be badly optimised and have poor driver support but as a measure of brute force graphics processing I would contend that makes it fairer and better all round test of a card and thus give me a better idea of the capabilities of a card on a level, non manufacturer influenced, playing field.

    No it isn't. A review should tell us what a card can do.

    If I am playing a game with no issues on my machine then reading a review about another card that will also play the game isn't going to tempt me into buying the card. Why should I?, no gain for a large outlay. If however I have a game I can't play then (A) I was stupid to buy it in the first place. (B) Does this card give me enough future proving to be worth while investing in?. If the review card can just get playable frame rates on Game X then the chances are I won't bother because my prediction would be that the game I buy in 3 months time will cripple that card again. If however it gives good frame rates, say 60fps or better then I can have a good guess that there is 18 months or better of life for cutting edge games in that card. Unlike yourselves I don't get freebie cards to play with and cutting edge kit so I have to weigh my purchases more carefully and give thought to how long something is going be useful.

    I would contend that Crysis is a very good measure of a cards ability for exactly the opposite reasons you state.

    Still time moves on and things change but it would have been nice if you could have dropped Crysis when the question "But can it play Crysis?" was a moot point rather than a still useful measure for many people.
     
  10. General_Confusion

    General_Confusion Now Where was I?

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    Since most of my gaming cards become folding cards when I upgrade (or when im not using the system they fold) I would need a compelling reason (price) to get a card that performs about the same but folds like rubbish...(or has there been a break through to get better folding performance from the Radeon camp?)
     
  11. KidMod-Southpaw

    KidMod-Southpaw Super Spamming Saiyan

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    Awsome card, 900 and something stream cores.Pre ordered from scan
     
  12. Zurechial

    Zurechial Elitist

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    +1 for Crysis' re-inclusion in benchmarks.

    Crysis may not have sold well, but let's be honest; A large portion of hardware enthusiasts have it whether they bought it or not (and those who don't have it probably still tested with the timedemo at some point for reference); While the hype surrounding the game made it the must-have benchmarking title even for people who thought the game was crap. Sales figures aren't really relevant in this topic, I feel.

    Whenever a graphics card review goes up on bit-tech the first thing I do is check for Crysis benchmarks, then I go back to read the rest of the review. The reason for this is that Crysis has consistently been performance-intensive and demanding regardless of whether it's well-optimised/supported or not and most of us who follow reviews and benchmarks have a good idea of how different cards perform at our preferred resolution and settings in Crysis. Bear in mind that many of us bought G80 or G92 cards on the merit of their performance in Crysis and many people still use their venerable 8800GTXs and 8800GTs even now while considering their upgrade path.
    Other benchmarks in niche titles like ARMA II mean absolutely nothing to me apart from showing the competition between current-gen cards. I look at the benchmarks to compare them to my own experiences of the games and decide whether my older, not-listed card can last for a little longer or if the new card being benchmarked is worth the upgrade - THEN I compare the current-gen offerings to each other to see where I'll get the best bang-to-buck ratio.

    When it was a case of deciding whether to get a 4890 or a GTX 275 then benchmarking across a number of games was great for getting a fairer, broader view of the performance of the cards and drivers; but we as consumers aren't solely interested in the competition between two or more current-gen cards. It's a factor, of course, when we've actually reached the online store; but the real comparison that matters to many readers is that of the upgrade path from their current hardware - Hardware which was more than likely bought on the grounds of its performance in the top-dog benchmarking title: Crysis.

    I'm not saying Crysis should be held onto indefinitely and we can't expect you to test a range of 30 different cards every time a new one comes out just to give us all a chance to compare our current hardware to a new release and of course the benchmark titles have to be refreshed as technology moves on, but keeping Crysis in the benchmarks for the sake of providing a consistent comparison is more than justifiable when it's still capable of stressing the hell out of just about any card on the market at the right settings.

    I don't think the argument against Crysis on the grounds of a lack of modern relevance really holds up when so many people regard it as their ideal benchmark for cards.
    I can see *why* bit/CPC has taken this stance, but I don't agree with it and graphics cards reviews that omit Crysis benchmarks are simply less useful to me as a reader.

    (Hopefully that doesn't come across as too much of a rant - I'm not raging about the omission of Crysis benchmarks; but a bit-tech review without them simply doesn't deliver the same level of comparitive information that I've come to expect and appreciate.)
     
    Last edited: 22 Oct 2010
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  13. KidMod-Southpaw

    KidMod-Southpaw Super Spamming Saiyan

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    I had the same choice too, still can't decide.
     
  14. mute1

    mute1 What's a Dremel?

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    Bit-tech guys,
    I've read elsewhere that some people have been able to enable the extra shaders on the 6850, thus getting a sort of 6870 card for free.
    Could you please try this with your card? I'd like to see how if it works on more than a couple of cards.

    EDIT: a couple of links:
    http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/item/20604-hd-6850-with-1120-shaders-went-to-reviewers
    http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6850/

    Also, I think it would be good for you to test Crysis. Since you and other sites have used it for so long, it allows a good comparison to older cards that a lot of people still own, and I'm still waiting to see a card that can play it at 2560x1600 maxed out.
    Or at least use Metro 2033. It doesn't matter whether you like the game or not - it's really the engine that matters.
     
    Last edited: 23 Oct 2010
  15. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

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    I don't see the point of these cards. If AMD want to squeeze nVidia in the sub £200 market, why don't they drop the price on the 58x0 cards when they introduce the 69xx as a top end.

    The new naming scheme seems like a deliberate attempt to catch out the unwary, by making them think an 68x0 is an improvement on a 58x0.

    This is an annoyance to me, as I was getting ready to retire my 4870 1GB with the launch of the 6000 series.
     
  16. impar

    impar Minimodder

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    Greetings!
    A HD5870 has 334mm^2 die size, this new HD6870 has a die size of 255mm^2, the HD5770 has a die size of 170mm^2.
    Almost perfect scale.

    There is no reason to place a 334mm^2 chip competing with nVidia if you can make a worthy competitor with only 255mm^2.
    Just wait for the HD6900s series, then.
     
  17. HourBeforeDawn

    HourBeforeDawn a.k.a KazeModz

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    Ya I have to agree old game or not I would pick one game out of the list to use for all reviews and the rest of the games could change as you feel so that there is at least one baseline and well crysis would have been a decent one to go with.
     
  18. general22

    general22 What's a Dremel?

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    What's the point of doing separate reviews like this except for making the graphs smaller. Also can we get a confirmation that these numbers were run on 960 shader parts?
     
  19. Claave

    Claave You Rebel scum

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    hey general. The graphs are the same in both reviews, they're not shorter and didn't take less time to do or anything like that. We just wanted to focus each article on the relative merits of each GPU/card and avoid confusion between the two.

    Our HD 6850 had the usual 960 stream processors. It's interesting that others have unlocked the full 1,120 and we'll look into this hopefully sometime this week.
     
  20. PlayedStation

    PlayedStation Possessed like an apostrophe

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