HD 6870 & HD 6850 vs. GTX 460 1GB: An Overclocking Study

[RavenXXX2]

I had a 5870 its fan ramped up way earlier than the 480's to keep temps in check, custom fan profile to the rescue.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Obviously this thread has been hijacked by the "Why isn't the GTX 470 in this thread" massive but I wondered is there any chance we could return to the topic when your all done discussing whats loud and whats not loud etc etc

So if the uBer clocked nVidia® Geforce™ GTX 460 1GB was the same price as the AMD® Radeon™ HD 6850 would that change anything?

Benches in post #1

 

[TheRealDeal]

Its only 1 site thats done some testing so not really a lot to take from it. The gtx460 overclocked is on par with a 6870 game dependant but looking at those games from other reviews most of them are games where nv do well but a decent selection none the less. Like i say in my posts above the dirt 2 scores are dubious at best, my stock card beats out there stock card by around 10fps. That to me puts the other results into doubt. I don't play any of the other games to test and see what i come up with. Whats also weird is my minimum fps is the same as the stock 6870 but my average of 74 is 1 higher than the 1021 core 6870. I worked it out that my average is around 13% higher than theres which is a pretty big margin on machines that are similar.

 

[Helios1234]

I could swear my review from back at launch covered all that. Why are other sites doing these tests now...

Edit: *my bad, their article IS from launch.

Unfortunately for AMD, the GTX460 1GB came out top in the majority of games. The HD6850 could only grab a lead in Crysis Warhead, Resident Evil 5, Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Mafia. In those 4 games, it lead by approximately 7% at both stock speed and when overclocked. In other cases, the Nvidia card lead by around 10%. For an overall figure, the GTX460 1GB performed 4% better and it exceeded the HD6850 when it came to tessellation performance by 7-10%. AMD might be right in targeting the 768MB GTX460 with their HD6850 but pricing will have to come down to make it a worthy competitor. The main advantage of the Barts core is its power efficiency drawing an impressive 75W less at stock speed.

It’s also important that we look at the relative performance to the GTX460 which is the HD6870’s primary target. At stock speed, the HD6870 rarely loses out and on average holds a healthy 17% lead although that does range from 5%-35% based on games. The ones that favour Nvidia include Far Cry 2, Unreal Tournament 3 and Dirt 2. Overclocked, the performance gap reduces by a large amount thanks to the GTX460’s excellent overclocking ability and headroom. On average the HD6870 still leads by 10% but in the three above mentioned game, the GTX460 takes a 5% lead. Most notably is tessellation performance where again, the HD6870 takes the crown at stock speed but loses it overclocked. The winner of the two comes down to pricing. The cheapest GTX460 1GB can be found at around £150, 25% less than the HD6870, making it tremendous value for money and actually better in terms of performance/price than the HD6870. The low pricing is no doubt Nvidia’s response to AMD’s new card release but no matter the situation, it is the consumers that win. One advantage that AMD holds is the HD6870’s lower power consumption. On that basis, it is quite hard to choose between the two cards; on the one hand the GTX460 is marginally better value for money but on the other hand, power consumption favours AMD. My advice would be based to choose the card with the feature set that most suits the user’s needs.

ASUS EAH6850 Review

MSI R6870 Review

 

[chmielu1258]

I got mine gigabyte windforce up to 950/1145, (so far )

 

[wolvers]

We can all slam aircooling when our cards are watercooled lol, the fact is they are not loud at all.

Well of course, I have a water cooled machine and don't own any other PCs and have, in fact, only ever water cooled PCs since time began. LOL

 

[dave_beast]

I could swear my review from back at launch covered all that. Why are other sites doing these tests now...

Edit: *my bad, their article IS from launch.


ASUS EAH6850 Review

MSI R6870 Review

Technically, the 6850/70 series is not a replacement for the 57** series, as they are continuing to manufacture those cards as there isn't a replacement. Anyone who quotes that is clearly an Nvidia fanboy

 

[Helios1234]

Technically, the 6850/70 series is not a replacement for the 57** series, as they are continuing to manufacture those cards as there isn't a replacement. Anyone who quotes that is clearly an Nvidia fanboy

Fanboy?? LOL

 

[chaotic_uk]

The 6870s are cheaper than the 470s.

not today they are not