Graphics How much have graphics cards advanced in 18 months? My own 6870 benchmarks inside.

1. the card is a few millimetres longer than your standard atx mother board

2. he said that it was inaudible

 

Did you bench Crysis on fresh installs of Windows for both your GTX 260 and 6870? I ask because you said you formatted before installing your AMD card, but implied that the GTX 260 was benchmarked under your old Windows install. I'm not sure what difference would be between a crusty old and fresh Windows install, but it could still have affected the results.

 

Regarding noise, I realise it's purely subjective, but I'm using a Titan Fenrir on the low setting combined with Gentle Typhoons in my case. So it's not a noisy computer, and I couldn't hear it above that. The card actually came with a decent amount of cables and connectors, will post a full list when I drag my ass out of bed. The goodies were:

DVI to VGA adaptor
Crossfire connector
2x PCI-E molex adaptors
HDMI cable
Displayport to Mini-Displayport adaptor

Not bad all things considered

Regarding fresh installs, the 260 GTX was not run on a total fresh W7 install. It was around 3 weeks old. However, the only things I tend to have installed on my gaming PC are games, Office 2010 and Winrar and little things like that. I don't have a huge amount of space (80GB + 64GB SSDs) so all the junk goes on my media PC. Your right that thats not as scientific as it could be, but I struggle to believe the results could be affected. Picture for fingers:

 

But that's good right?

Every hardware gets the same once the transistor budget opens up: CPUs, GPUs, ARM low power hardware. You can either push the thermal and power envelope or wait until you get more to do more.

Unfortunately now even 3Bn transistor GPUs and ~2Bn CPUs are not hugely faster because there's less pressure to optimise software these days.

 

I'm still using my 8800GT, I never thought it would last this long to be honest.

 

I guess this just goes to show how much
A) the 8800 was ahead of its time
B) how game developers have failed to push their software

Personally I am very disappointed with the 68xx series, and yes I am fully aware of where they fit in in the line-up. I checked the prices on Scan.

There is one XFX 6850 for 133, but it is out of stock. All the other manufacturers list their models at 157-159. There is something weird going on here. If the XFX pricing is the one that becomes the norm then this card is ok though nothing special. If the Saphire and co pricing prevails then this card is somewhere between average and terrible. You can have a Gigabyte GTX 460 1GB version for 152 pounds.

Same story with the 6870. XFX has the card for 178; MSI for 191, others 207-208 (sapphire in stock at 204). At XFX prices it is a decent card, though it still lacks the wow! factor; but at 200 pounds, no way. The OP got his card for 176 so that is a fair enough price, but it has to stay there. IF it creeps up any higher than that, than for me these cards become pointless.

Even at stock speeds the value comparison is not that great for the 68xx series. Since Bit-tech did not include OC'd values in benchmarks I had to look at ones from Overclock3d. Seems like OC'ing the 68xx gives very little performance increase. Since running a 460 at 800Mhz can be taken for granted (and often you can go higher than that) I really can't see how people can consider these cards to be good, regardless whether you are upgrading or buying a new rig.

And btw, I have a Radeon 4890 in my rig and I was really looking forward to these cards. Seems like I will have to wait for the 560/70 or the Radeon 78xx/79xx to really see something worth upgrading to :-(

 

To the above post - I was very clear that this thread is not about 6 series versus the 460 GTX. There are other threads if you wish to comment about that. This thread was about comparing graphics advances in 18 months at the same price. Please do not derail this thread into a pointless nVidia versus ATi thread.

 

I guess I should have underlined that I am writing this from the point of view of a 4890 owner and that I was really looking forward to replacing my GPU. I decided that the 460 did not offer enough of a performance jump to justify the expense, and it looks like the 68xx series is even less appealing. I guess my point was, that to someone with a GTX 260 or a Radeon 4870 then new mid range GPUs offer a viable upgrade path. One should have visibly higher FPS when switching cards, but to anyone on a GTX280+ or a Radeon 4890/4870x2 these cards are a bit meh. Sure I could spend 150-200 pounds to see a 25 % performance increase paired with a less noisy cooler and lower power usage, but 25% boost between two generations is a bit fail IMHO. I guess it just goes to show how good the 48xx series really were.

For anyone looking to upgrade to a DX11 GPU the 68xx and the 460 will be the main options. Just pointing out that neither of them are THAT attractive, and especially so with the 160 and 205 pound price points. It was not my intention to derail the thread, sorry if that was the result.

The numbers you posted are fairly impressive, but when you think about it, your SLI setup was faster than a single 6870. I understand you opted for the SATA card and that the power draw will be much lower now. But the difference on the bill will be a couple of pounds per year unless you are folding (which, I'm guessing you are not since you went from Nvidia to AMD), hardly worth mentioning for a normal user. It just seems to me that for people with a setup of 4770 CF, 260 SLI or stronger cards there is very little value in the market when it comes to upgrading.

My 2 cents.

 

You seem to over-estimating the performance of the 4890. That card is slightly faster than the 260 GTX and as fast as a 275 GTX. So you will see way way more than 25% increase in FPS.

 

Otherwise I think it's a damn good write and thanks for taking the time in doing this.

Waiting for the 6970 and I will sell both my 5870's to get this card.

 

No problem Kovo, its been good seeing peoples reactions I will definitely revisit this thread should I decide to go Xfire, to see what kind of scaling I get.

 

according to this http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...h-quality/Battlefield-Bad-Company-2,2466.html the difference between a non-OC'd MSI GTX 460 Hawk and a 4890 is 3 FPS. They don't include the 68xx series in the charts yet, but I would guess maybe another 3-4 FPS on top of that for the 6870 looking at its position in the bit-tech review relative to the 460. Different games, at different res and quality settings will give different results obviously, so idk whether my example is representative or just lucky (I don't feel like going through all the benchmarks to compare). Still, in this particular case we are talking 37 vs 43-44 FPS. Definitely not "far more than 25%"

Still, I would say it is a good idea to buy one of these if you are building a new rig, just no point in upgrading to those from 4890s, 275s plus or any SLI/CF setup stronger than 4770CF or 260 SLI.

IMHO, it is disappointing if both AMD and Nvidia cards from 2/3 generations back can keep up the pace.

Though one thing that AMD did manage to get right in this one is CF scaling. First reviews across the web suggest that adding a second card scales much better than in the 4xxx and 5xxx series. Looking forward to your CF update if you get your hands on another one of these cards!

Oh and for the record, I can't wait for the 69xx cards, though after the 68xx my expectations are not as high as they used to be. Still, hoping for some major performance boosts.

 

Just to recheck - you said that you were aware of the intended market placement of these cards. But i'm not sure you are. AMDs intention was to compete with 460 by bringing the 5850/5870 performance down to mid range prices, and they have done that. You already know what kind of improvement the 5870 offers over the 4890 so why are you surprised/disappointed? I think it's successful to offer the same performance as your previous high end card for near half the price, which bodes very well for the 6900 series.

 

To be fair, a more honest comparison would be between a 4890 and a 6970/6990, eg. a last-gen heavyweight versus a next gen "lightweight" isn't completely fair. Wait for the 69** cards, hopefully they should make your 4890 upgrade-worthy.

 

Ive had the gtx260 and im actually getting the HD6870 soon when i sell my GTX 465 that unlocks (anyone interested?)

 

I still think that waiting for the HD7xxx is best. The 69xx's are gonna blow away the competition but in terms of tech - elegance of architecture - that will only come next year with the 28nm die.

 

I agree completely, although I think that like Fermi, the new 28nm is going to be a novelty and thus very expensive instead of cheaper like you'd expect, I could be wrong though. I'm desperate now though, my GTX 260 has to go, so the 6970 is the way forward until 28nm matures and becomes better value for money. Here's hoping it'll be a decent performer.

 

Thanks for the pic Ph4zed, reassuring to know it would fit in either of my cases without surgey.

+rep.

 

How does the performance difference feel generally in other games you've tried? Is it quite dramatic in comparison to the 260?

 

The performance is very significantly higher, especially when you crank up the settings. The 260 just didn't have the juice for 1920x1200 and AA, whereas the 6870 sails through. My FPS used to crumble in BC2 when there was a lot of smoke and dust, the 6870 copes with that fine even with higher settings. The numbers in Crysis also tell it's own story so yes, I'm very happy. I can drop in another down the road too.