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- 5 Jul 2011
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I've noticed quite a few threads recently discussing various HD 6870 cards and performance vs. similar priced cards. Probably helped by the growing number of excellent deals on these cards (seen as low as £120 this week).
I've recently bought an MSI HAWK 6870 and thought I'd start a thread to log benchmarks and performance experience. Hopefully others will join in and it will be a useful guide for those trying to decide if this is the right card for them.
...
Ok, results from first overclocking session:
Unlocked my Phenom X2 555 BE to quad core and overclocked to 3.6 GHz all voltages at stock. Ran Prime 95 for about 1 hour - system and temps stable.
Used MSI Afterburner to OC 6870 to 975/1150 at stock voltages (worked up core from 930->950->975 just went straight for 1150 memory!). Furmark burn-in test stable with max card temps of 61 degrees at 55% fan speed.
Unigine benchmark score of 946 using 1650 x 1050 res, shaders high, tesselation normal, AF 4x, AA 4x as per the Official Unigine Heaven benchmarking thread below:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18249292&page=29
Pretty pleased with that score as it places it above several 6950s, beats all 5850s and is almost on par with the lower GTX 470 scores. Not bad for an AMD processor system!
Games Performance:
Bad Company 2: Initial playthrough before overclocking system showed choppy performance on Ultra with HBAO enabled. Disabling HBAO led to smoothish gaming. It was suggested to me that my processor was bottlenecking performance hence the above unlock to quad and overclock to 3.6 GHz. Game now runs very smooth on Ultra with HBAO and looks amazing at 1080p.
F1 2010: Played through a 13 lap Catalunya grand prix last night on Ultra settings (but with post processing reduced by one notch - can't stand the ultra blooming effects otherwise). Ran super smooth and looked amazing at 1080p. However, after a few laps started stuttering. Stuttering got worse and worse towards end of the race to the point that I went off the track a few times. Not sure if this is system stability or a bug. I might try experiment tonight with upping voltage a little on my CPU and also on the HAWK 6870.
Batman Arkham Assylum: Looks amazing from the very start on highest settings on 1080p. However, I noticed a strange bug in the opening scenes where the floor appeared to have water reflections appearing in patches. Again, not sure if this is a bug or not - I will investigate further.
I am aware that these descriptions are fairly subjective and am open to suggestions on benchmarks / frame rate tools to use to provide a more scientific report on the card performance.
In summary - initial impressions are that the card is fantastic! Looking forward to playing around with it some more. I think Core speed of 1GHz and memory of 1250 MHz might be achievable with some voltage tweaking...
I've recently bought an MSI HAWK 6870 and thought I'd start a thread to log benchmarks and performance experience. Hopefully others will join in and it will be a useful guide for those trying to decide if this is the right card for them.
...
Ok, results from first overclocking session:
Unlocked my Phenom X2 555 BE to quad core and overclocked to 3.6 GHz all voltages at stock. Ran Prime 95 for about 1 hour - system and temps stable.
Used MSI Afterburner to OC 6870 to 975/1150 at stock voltages (worked up core from 930->950->975 just went straight for 1150 memory!). Furmark burn-in test stable with max card temps of 61 degrees at 55% fan speed.
Unigine benchmark score of 946 using 1650 x 1050 res, shaders high, tesselation normal, AF 4x, AA 4x as per the Official Unigine Heaven benchmarking thread below:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18249292&page=29
Pretty pleased with that score as it places it above several 6950s, beats all 5850s and is almost on par with the lower GTX 470 scores. Not bad for an AMD processor system!
Games Performance:
Bad Company 2: Initial playthrough before overclocking system showed choppy performance on Ultra with HBAO enabled. Disabling HBAO led to smoothish gaming. It was suggested to me that my processor was bottlenecking performance hence the above unlock to quad and overclock to 3.6 GHz. Game now runs very smooth on Ultra with HBAO and looks amazing at 1080p.
F1 2010: Played through a 13 lap Catalunya grand prix last night on Ultra settings (but with post processing reduced by one notch - can't stand the ultra blooming effects otherwise). Ran super smooth and looked amazing at 1080p. However, after a few laps started stuttering. Stuttering got worse and worse towards end of the race to the point that I went off the track a few times. Not sure if this is system stability or a bug. I might try experiment tonight with upping voltage a little on my CPU and also on the HAWK 6870.
Batman Arkham Assylum: Looks amazing from the very start on highest settings on 1080p. However, I noticed a strange bug in the opening scenes where the floor appeared to have water reflections appearing in patches. Again, not sure if this is a bug or not - I will investigate further.
I am aware that these descriptions are fairly subjective and am open to suggestions on benchmarks / frame rate tools to use to provide a more scientific report on the card performance.
In summary - initial impressions are that the card is fantastic! Looking forward to playing around with it some more. I think Core speed of 1GHz and memory of 1250 MHz might be achievable with some voltage tweaking...
