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****Official 6850/6870 Reviews thread****

Some people out there are adamant that a 6870 is on par with a 5870, even when most reviews only have that happen with Metro 2033 and Lost Planet 2.

*sigh*

More frustrating is trying to people to realise that the 6850 is a "like for like" replacement of the 5830, and the 6870 that of the 5850, meaning that moving from one to the other is merely a side-step and pointless.

I tried to explain that if you have a 5830 you would need to upgrade to a 6870 for it to be worthwhile, and if you have a 5850 or 5870, you need to wait for the 69xx range, but they are just having none of it. :/
 
krooton said:
Some people out there are adamant that a 6870 is on par with a 5870, even when most reviews only have that happen with Metro 2033 and Lost Planet 2.

*sigh*

More frustrating is trying to people to realise that the 6850 is a "like for like" replacement of the 5830, and the 6870 that of the 5850, meaning that moving from one to the other is merely a side-step and pointless.

I tried to explain that if you have a 5830 you would need to upgrade to a 6870 for it to be worthwhile, and if you have a 5850 or 5870, you need to wait for the 69xx range, but they are just having none of it. :/
Click to expand...

Spot on!

I knew those cards where 5830 range just by looking at the technical specs and the price! As stated above.
 
krooton said:
More frustrating is trying to people to realise that the 6850 is a "like for like" replacement of the 5830, and the 6870 that of the 5850, meaning that moving from one to the other is merely a side-step and pointless.

I tried to explain that if you have a 5830 you would need to upgrade to a 6870 for it to be worthwhile, and if you have a 5850 or 5870, you need to wait for the 69xx range, but they are just having none of it. :/
Click to expand...
This.

The new naming convention doesn't help, but people are also ignoring the prices of the new 68xx cards. The 6870 is a fair bit cheaper than the 5850 and performs better. The 5850/5870 were pretty much a high end cards if you look at their selling price, so you can't directly compare them to the 68xx which is aimed at the mid-range.

As you say, the 69xx cards are the real replacements for the 5850/5870, and should trounce them quite convincingly.
 
my thoughts in no particular order (bear in mind i tend to favour the red side):

i was gonna go get another 5770 for CF when the system started to struggle, but was worried about it gulping down too much power (modxstream 500w). Seems like a single 6870 might be the better choice when the time comes, but perhaps not as fast on a perfectly CF optimized game.

Ive seen many people point out reasons for the naming scheme, but i think 6870 should be faster than a 5870. Period. A quote from one of the semiaccurate trolls sums it up quite nicely:

Spaceturd said:
- Naming fail. Srsly. When assigning names to my fecal deposits, you can bet your ass that Spaceturd 6800 is greater Spaceturd 5800 in size and aroma.
Click to expand...

however, now that i gather that the 5700s are simply being continued instead of being rebranded 6700s, ill let this branding debacle slip for the time being. (im also covering my ears and going lalala over the russian OEMS as well).

Ill reckon cayman should be pretty dam fast, and im looking forward to what it should bring, but sounds like it might get a tad hot...

my conclusion? bring on 28nm!
 
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Your 500w psu would be fine with crossfired 5770s btw. My system barely pulled 300w at load when I had them.
 
krooton said:
Your 500w psu would be fine with crossfired 5770s btw. My system barely pulled 300w at load when I had them.
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hmm, i think i would be fine as well, but didnt wanna risk it. the online calculators (which i know are exaggerated) were saying a worst case scenario (max poss overclock, full load, max capacitor aging etc) was 550w ish. I figured it would be roughly 175w oc cpu, 2x 110w graphics. talking 400w right there.


i dunno, ill see when the time comes...
 
Haven't been able to go through many of the reviews, but struggling to find a decent comparison of these cards to the 4870. Would have thought that was an obvious comparison for reviewers to do given how many like myself skipped the last generation.
 
Just pulled the trigger on a Sapphire 6850 1gb, should be here tomorrow hopefully. I don't need the extra performance of the 6870 versh as me gaming has dropped off a lot lately, just casual now.
I'm curious to know what this situation with some of the 6850 (His and sapphire) that are showing 1120 shaders like the 6870, and their performance appears really good. If these cards are better than other (later) items then its a bonus, not banking on anything though. It'll give summat to play with as well.:)
 
Well, after reading a couple of those reviews, here is the impression I'm getting:

The 6870 performs the same as the OC'd 800MHz 1GB 460 cards, and is priced the same too, at roughly £175 - £190.

The 6850 is outperforming the 460 at stock settings, and is cheaper than the 1GB nV cards by about £20.

I'm not quite sold on these new AMD cards tbh. If you achieve any sort of overclock on the 460s it seems you have a card that matches the new AMD offerings at both performance and price.

So it seems that whichever side will lower its prices yet further is going to be the winner - or if they both stay where they are there's not much in it.

I don't see how either side can proclaim outright victory atm, they both seem to be offering the same bang for buck.
 
I looked uo between 5xxx and 6xxx - it very small differeance but nothing else new like higher speed,etc.. as the 5870 look much excellent than 6870 and wee bit equal to 6970 - I keep my ASUS 5870 V2 cos it great card with good speed and wont buy the AMD Radeon 6xxx...

I also hear that Nvidia to release new GTX580 as well
 
FoxEye said:
Well, after reading a couple of those reviews, here is the impression I'm getting:

The 6870 performs the same as the OC'd 800MHz 1GB 460 cards, and is priced the same too, at roughly £175 - £190.
Click to expand...


Can pick up 460 1GB for £150, like the gigabyte with the excellent cooling.
 
  • Radeon 6850 - $189 (£139, although can be had for £133 on pre-order)
  • Radeon 6870 - $239 (£175, can be had for £179 now)

Aren't these great prices for cards that manage to compete with GTX 460 1GB and GTX 470 respectively? After all the consumers will benefit the most. And...

There's a good chance that we can see the Cayman cards priced as follows:

  • Radeon 6950 - $339 (£255 or so)
  • Radeon 6970 - $419 (£315 or thereabouts)
  • Radeon 6990 - $499 (£375, assuming that it's double the 6870 which is more than likely IMO)

Yes, I just made these figures up :)

On the side note, the 5830 was roughly the price of 6850 and couldn't manage to catch up with GTX460 768MB. Now we have the 6850 priced accordingly and pretty much beating (?) the 460 1GB. These are very good times for mainstream market indeed. Nvidia manages to compete price-wise as well which can only be good in the long-term run.
 
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