AMD HD 6950 and 6970 released

[Zangetsu]

so which is cooler card in ATIHD6XXX series????

 

[tkin]

@ aby geek

Well buddy the 5970 is a dual gpu and its made up of two 5850's on a single pcb. The ares is a customized card made by asus which is a combination of two 5870's. Now since both these cards are dual gpu's, you cannot compare them with a 6970 as its a single card. Crossfiring a 5970 or ares means 4 gpu's running simultaneously against two gpu's of a 6970cf. So a 5970cf or ares cf will beat 6970cf(they won't scale as good as 6970cf) but it will take up costs way beyond especially with ares.

They can be compared against amd's upcoming 6990(read antiles) which is a dual gpu and will be definitely powerful than a 5970 or ares.

Nvidia is also coming up with their dual gpu solution still unnamed but hopefully GTX 595. Early leaks and rumors suggest it of having two gf110 chips most probably the gtx 580.

HD5970 is two full HD5870 GPUs(i.e 1600 shader cypress) in one pcb, the clock speeds are lowered to HD5850 levels but shader count remains same.

 

[vickybat]

@ tkin
Yes buddy you're right. The 5970 has 1600x2 sp's but clocks are down and on par with 5850. Thanks again.

 

[topgear]

Here's some more : ( all results based on guru3d and the prices are lowest as found on newegg for each gpu and GTX 580 is out of stock as of now ) So Let's beging comparing more :

Radeon HD 5970 $499.99

GTX 580 $509.99 ***

GTX 480 $429.99

HD 6950 $299.99

Refer to these posts before :

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/technology-news/135044-amd-hd-6950-6970-released-4.html#post1312641

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/technology-news/135044-amd-hd-6950-6970-released-4.html#post1312976

CFX Benchmark comparison of HD 6950 :

DX9: Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2

GTX 580 > ( GTX 465 SLi > ) HD 6950 CFX > HD 5970

DX10: Far Cry 2

( GTX 480 SLi > )HD 6950 CFX > GTX 580 > HD 5970

DX10: Anno 1404 - Dawn of Discovery :

HD 5970 > ( HD 6870 CFX > ) HD 6950 CFX > GTX 580

DX10: Crysis Warhead :

( GTX 580 SLi > )HD 6950 CFX > GTX 580 > HD 5970

DX10: 3DMark Vantage :

( GTX 570 SLi > )HD 6950 CFX > HD 5970 > GTX 580

DX11: Metro 2033 - The Last Refuge :

( GTX 480 SLi > )HD 6950 CFX > HD 5970 > GTX 580

DX11: Colin McRae DiRT 2 :

( GTX 480 SLi > )HD 6950 CFX > HD 5970 > GTX 580

DX11: Battlefield Bad Company 2 :

( GTX 480 SLi > )HD 6950 CFX > HD 5970 > GTX 580

DX11: 3DMark 11 :

HD 6950 CFX > HD 5970 > GTX 580

Power Consumption :

HD 6950 ~ 329W ( 89C )

HD 5970 Single : ~ 245W CFX ~539W ( 83C )

GTX 580 Sngle : ~ 280W SLI ~ 530W ( 87C )

GTX 480 ~ 500W SLI ( 95C )

So what you guys think about all these ?? Share your views !

 

[Faun]

^^6850 is better.

 

[Gmith]

First a little Specs :

*images.techtree.com/ttimages/story/113790_specs_1.jpg

image courtesy of techtree.com

One more with prices and better comparison with it's cousins :

*i51.tinypic.com/2h8bchz.gif

used infos from anandtech.com for this one.

HD6950 has TDP of 140 W and HD6970 has TDP of 190 W

The duos : ( good old design ! )

*www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=27894

*www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=27897

images courtesy of guru3d.com

One more tiny detail :

*www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=27892

image courtesy of guru3d.com

What's That New Switch?

If you look at the photo below you'll notice a tiny micro-switch next to the two CrossfireX connectors. The R6900 cards now have one firmware flashable dual-BIOS and one (non flashable) default BIOS, with the switch you can select BIOS 1 or 2.

AMD implemented the feature likely to prevent the RMA rate. They know very well that the enthusiast community often re-flashes their cards, often unsuccessful after which they enter a very expensive RMA procedure at AMD's cost.

So this feature is a bit of a failsafe. However for the real tweakers it's an advantage. You could overclock and over-volt the product based on a predetermined set of preferences of your choice, flash it into the BIOS and with the flick of a switch you can have either a performance or default BIOS at your disposal.

It's definitely not a bad thing to have on any graphics card really and we certainly appreciate the implementation.

The top 3 reviews : ( IMO )

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

Radeon HD 6950 & 6970 review

AMD's Radeon HD 6970 & Radeon HD 6950: Paving The Future For AMD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

The First ever Review : iXBT.com: AMD Radeon HD 6950/6970: ÷óòü ñëàáåå GeForce GTX 570/580, íî è äåøåâëå

iXBT.com: AMD Radeon HD 6950/6970: îïèñàíèå âèäåîêàðòû è ðåçóëüòàòû ñèíòåòè÷åñêèõ òåñòîâ

Duplicate Finder

Game Benches : iXBT.com: AMD Radeon HD 6950/6970: ðåçóëüòàòû çàìåðîâ ïðîèçâîäèòåëüíîñòè â èãðàõ è äðóãèõ 3D-òåñòàõ è îáùèå âûâîäû

More reviews of HD6970 and HD6950

AMD Radeon HD 6970 & HD 6950 Review - Page 1 - Introduction

AMD Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 Review

AMD HD 6970 and HD 6950 Review - Overclockers Club

Overclock3D :: Review :: HIS HD6970 & HD6950 Review :: Introduction and Technical Specifications

Introduction - AMD Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 Video Card Review | [H]ard|OCP

XFX Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 tested

Rage3D.com : AMD Cayman HD 6970 & HD 6950 Launch Review [ AMD Cayman HD 6970 & HD 6950 Launch Review ]

HD 6970 Reviews :

Techtree.com India > Reviews > Peripherals > Graphics Accelerators > AMD HD 6970 (Cayman) Review

HIS Radeon HD 6970 2 GB Review - Page 1/33 | techPowerUp

AMD Radeon HD 6970 Review - TechSpot

ATI Radeon HD 6970 2GB Review | bit-tech.net

AMD Radeon HD 6970 Video Card | Radeon HD 6970,Review,Video Card,Performance,AMD,Graphics,Benchmarks,Olin Coles,AMD Radeon HD 6970 Video Card Graphical Benchmark Performance Test Review by Olin Coles

AMD Radeon HD 6970 review from TechRadar UK's expert reviews of Graphics cards

HD6950 Reviews :

AMD Radeon HD 6950 Review - PCWorld

AMD Radeon HD 6950 review from TechRadar UK's expert reviews of Graphics cards

Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB DDR5 DX11 Video Card Review-Hi Tech Legion-Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB DDR5 DX11 Video Card Review

HIS Radeon HD 6950 2 GB Review - Page 1/33 | techPowerUp

Waaaaaaaooooooo! Amazing!

 

[aby geek]

umm guys is there any diff between crossfire and crossfirex?

 

[Piyush]

umm guys is there any diff between crossfire and crossfirex?

i dont think so
and if there is something like that then someone shed some light on it

 

[asingh]

umm guys is there any diff between crossfire and crossfirex?

Just nomenclature. Official is ATI CrossFire X.

 

[mohiuddin]

See, what 69xx have hidden under their cfx.

AMD Radeon HD 6970 2GB Video Card in Crossfire - Unigine Heaven Benchmark :: TweakTown USA Edition

 

[vickybat]

See, what 69xx have hidden under their cfx.

AMD Radeon HD 6970 2GB Video Card in Crossfire - Unigine Heaven Benchmark :: TweakTown USA Edition

Seems like a biased review to me. None of the nvidia cards are slied. So with whom are they comparing with? We all know that current cards scale better in their multigpu avatars so nothin new here.

And considering single gpu , the 570 beats 6970 most of the time and a 570 sli can stand neck to neck with 6970cf.

The most value cf setup would be a 6850cf.

 

[mohiuddin]

Seems like a biased review to me. None of the nvidia cards are slied. So with whom are they comparing with? We all know that current cards scale better in their multigpu avatars so nothin new here.

And considering single gpu , the 570 beats 6970 most of the time and a 570 sli can stand neck to neck with 6970cf.

The most value cf setup would be a 6850cf.

see it...again ,will u say biased?

Overclock3D :: Review :: Powercolor HD6970 Crossfire Review :: Up Close

 

[Ishu Gupta]

It beats 580SLI in Crysis.

The review needs a 570SLI to compare.

 

[vickybat]

see it...again ,will u say biased?

Overclock3D :: Review :: Powercolor HD6970 Crossfire Review :: Up Close

Buddy crysis and crysis warhead are old games now. They responded to 6970's large frame buffer and thats why the increment in crysis. Now adding two 6970's the vram increased to 4gb and took the limelight.

But look the results in metro2033. Totally the opposite. When small amount of tessalation came into play, the nvidia cards shine and took a significant performance leap.

Same thing gonna happen with crysis2 as it will incorporate tesselation and dx11 features which might or will work on nvidia's architecture better.

But no doubt 6xxx series are scaling much better and almost twice which is very good. Expect the same with nvidia with new and improved drivers. Future games will work better on nvidia cards as things stand currently.

I said that review was biased because they had no sli setups in their test.

 

[topgear]

^^6850 is better.

I think you meant to say HD 6950.

 

[Ishu Gupta]

Now adding two 6970's the vram increased to 4gb and took the limelight.

Eh? VRAM doesn't stack on CF/SLI.
Info stored on the VRAM has to be the same on both the cards.

So its still 2GB.

 

[vickybat]

@ ishu

Yes it does not get stacked but each card uses its own vram. In this case each 6970 uses its 2gb.

 

[asingh]

^^
Almost correct. Each card will use its VRAM, but the over all system (game) will only see 2GB from the master card. Each memory stripe is mirrored to both sets of GPU memories, so technically the HD6970 XFireX subsystem only has 2 GB to work with. So saying that HD6970 has advantage of 4GB vram is not right since it is not working in that manner. If textures have to be pre-loaded to vram they only have 2GB of space available, going like wise for similar vram requirements, they DO NOT have a 4GB playing field.

 

[topgear]

Heard that GTX 560 is going to be released on Jan 2011. I think it will be a real competitor to the HD 6950.

 

[clear_lot]

^ Amen!
read somewhere that a 560 can be OC'ed to be comparable to a 570/480.