Radeon HD 6970 And 6950 Review: Is Cayman A Gator Or A Crock?
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Page 1:Radeon HD 6970 And 6950 Arrive
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Page 2:Building Cayman By Improving Cypress
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Page 3:AMD Acknowledges That Geometry Matters
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Page 4:Adding Value Through Anti-Aliasing, Eyefinity, And Video
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Page 5:PowerTune: Changing The Way You Overclock
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Page 6:Meet Radeon HD 6970 And Radeon HD 6950
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Page 7:Test Setup And Benchmarks
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Page 8:Benchmark Results: 3DMark Vantage (DX10)
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Page 9:Benchmark Results: Metro 2033 (DX11)
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Page 10:Benchmark Results: Lost Planet 2 (DX11)
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Page 11:Benchmark Results: Aliens Vs. Predator (DX11)
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Page 12:Benchmark Results: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (DX11)
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Page 13:Benchmark Results: DiRT 2 (DX11)
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Page 14:Benchmark Results: Just Cause 2 (DX11)
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Page 15:Multi-Card Scaling In 3DMark
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Page 16:Multi-Card Scaling In Metro 2033
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Page 17:Multi-Card Scaling In AvP
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Page 18:Multi-Card Scaling In Battlefield: Bad Company 2
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Page 19:Multi-Card Scaling In DiRT 2
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Page 20:Multi-Card Scaling In Just Cause 2
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Page 21:Power Consumption And Noise
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Page 22:Conclusion
Multi-Card Scaling In Battlefield: Bad Company 2
In what is becoming a familiar story, the two Radeon HD 6970s claim first-place finishes in all three resolutions, with the 6950s and 570s trading places below. AMD’s Radeon HD 6870s in CrossFire serve up playable performance across the board, but they’re much slower than the other three configurations tested here.
I chose 2560x1600 as the best resolution to compare scaling performance because, if you’re spending $700 or $800 on graphics, you should probably be running a 30” screen or a trio of 23” displays in Eyefinity or Surround. The fact that we’re still seeing 80 and 90 frames per second on average at the highest settings Battlefield: Bad Company 2 offers at that resolution affirms just how much graphics muscle is at our disposal.
The Radeon HD 6900-series cards handle it in stride. A pair of Radeon HD 6950s achieves what can only be described as idea scaling performance, while the 6970s fare just a tad worse than Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 570s. Meanwhile, the 1 GB Radeon HD 6870s put down less compelling numbers—most likely a result of that frame buffer inhibiting performance.
- Radeon HD 6970 And 6950 Arrive
- Building Cayman By Improving Cypress
- AMD Acknowledges That Geometry Matters
- Adding Value Through Anti-Aliasing, Eyefinity, And Video
- PowerTune: Changing The Way You Overclock
- Meet Radeon HD 6970 And Radeon HD 6950
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: 3DMark Vantage (DX10)
- Benchmark Results: Metro 2033 (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: Lost Planet 2 (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: Aliens Vs. Predator (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: DiRT 2 (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: Just Cause 2 (DX11)
- Multi-Card Scaling In 3DMark
- Multi-Card Scaling In Metro 2033
- Multi-Card Scaling In AvP
- Multi-Card Scaling In Battlefield: Bad Company 2
- Multi-Card Scaling In DiRT 2
- Multi-Card Scaling In Just Cause 2
- Power Consumption And Noise
- Conclusion
Pricing is in line.
Gives AMD only hold outs buying options, Nvidia already offered
Merry Christmas
"This helps catch AMD up to Nvidia. However, Intel has something waiting in the wings that’ll take both graphics companies by surprise. In a couple of weeks, we'll be able to tell you more." and now i'm fixated to weather or not intel's gpu's can actually commit to proper playback.
But it is quite ironic that AMD has had a tesselator in their cards way before anybody supported the feature (let alone Nvidia), and now Nvidia does better tessellation than AMD.. they should really address that problem.. well, now the only way is to redesign the chip... at 28nm.
28nm it is then, the next big excitment.
What I would really like, now that the HD6xxx lineup is here (dual GPU still missing, but that is a niche product), is that AMD now focuses on fixing bugs in their drivers.
As rightly stated, 'reality hits'.
Actually, in Hardocp review overall 580 has some edge over 6970 as well. Only in F1 6970 is ahead. 6970 is great value though.
If intel entered the graphics market and provided a half-decent dedicated GPU, that would definitely make ANY GPU company shake in their boots.
But in all honesty i hope Intel does enter the market for graphics, making AMD and Nvidia push harder and faster for better products.