Radeon HD 6970 And 6950 Review: Is Cayman A Gator Or A Crock?

Multi-Card Scaling In Just Cause 2

AMD’s Radeon HD 6970 and 6950 take first- and second-place finishes at each of our three resolutions, trailed by the GeForce GTX 570 in SLI and AMD’s Radeon HD 6870.

At 1680x1050, the GTX 570 and 6870s perform similarly. However, as resolution increases, the 6870 cannot keep up, leading the Nvidia card to close the gap on AMD’s Radeon HD 6950.

AMD continues demonstrating excellent scaling here. Though CrossFire can’t achieve a perfect doubling of performance, averaging a 90% gain is quite respectable, especially since Nvidia is only able to add 74% more frame rate with a second GeForce GTX 570.

Before wrapping up the CrossFire and SLI scaling, you’ll notice that we didn’t include Lost Planet 2 in our comparison. Nvidia prevents us from running the same 8x MSAA setting on both Radeon and GeForce boards, instead exposing its coverage sampled anti-aliasing technology. It simply wouldn’t be an apples-to-apples comparison. Why does it enable 8x MSAA in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and in Just Cause, but not Lost Planet? Good question.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
  • terror112
    WOW not impressed.
    Reply
  • Annisman
    Thanks for the review Angelini, these new naming schemes are hurting my head, sometimes the only way to tell (at a quick glance) which AMD card matches up to what Nvidia card, is by comparing the prices, which I think is bad for the average consumer.
    Reply
  • rohitbaran
    These cards are to GTX 500 series what 4000 series was to GTX 200. Not the fastest at their time but offer killer performance and feature set for the price. I too expected 6900 to be close to GTX 580, but it didn't turn out that way. Still, it is the card I have waited for to upgrade. Right in my budget.
    Reply
  • tacoslave
    imagine when this hits 32nm?
    Reply
  • notty22
    AMD's top card is about a draw with the gtx 570.
    Pricing is in line.
    Gives AMD only hold outs buying options, Nvidia already offered
    Merry Christmas
    Reply
  • microterf
    Why drop the 580 when it comes to the multi-gpu scaling??
    Reply
  • IzzyCraft
    Sorry all i read was this
    "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.
    Reply
  • andrewcutter
    but from what i read at hardocp, though it is priced alongside the 570, 6970 was benched against the 580 and they were trading blows... So toms has it at par with 570 but hard has it on par with 580.. now im confused because if it can give 580 perfomance or almost 580 performance at 570 price and power then this one is a winner. Sim a 6950 was trading blows with 570 there. So i am very confused
    Reply
  • sgt bombulous
    This is hilarious... How long ago was it that there were ATI fanboys blabbering "The 6970 is gonna be 80% faster than the GTX 580!!!". And then reality hit...
    Reply
  • manitoublack
    I'd have to say wait until the christmas new years dust settles
    Reply