*** The Official ATI Radeon HD 6970 & 6950 Reviews, Discussion and Overclocking Thread ***

[Sidney James]

So a 6970 is 15% slower than a 580 but the 580 costs up to 54% more " going on OCUK prices " sorry but that makes the 6970 a great buy over a 580.

Aaah but I take it that you aren't going to change to one?

 

[Rapido!]

The problem is that GTX 570 and 6970 have almost identical performance, and the 570 is cheaper.

That is an Nvidia win.

By all means though, feel free to rationalise away that little fact with the kind of wilfull leaps of logic and lies the AMD faithful is famous for. I'd expect nothing less.

 

[Flanno]

Just for anyone calling this card a failure:

6970: £150 cheaper and within 5 - 10% of the GTX 580.
6950: £50 cheaper and within 5 - 10% of the GTX 570.
Less power, cooler, quieter too...

Not to mention probably superior Xfire scaling due to the massive lump of memory on each card.

Nvidia have to drop their prices to compete. End of.

While the GTX 580 no doubt uses more power under load, according to reviews on Anandtech, HardOCP and Guru3D there is not a lot in it in terms or temps and noise when comparing the GTX 580 and AMD 6970. If anything it looks like the GTX 580 is superior.

The GTX 580 runs 1 degree hotter under load compared to the 6970 according to Anandtech
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/24

But acording to HardOCP, the GTX 580 runs cooler by about 3 degrees
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/13

Also, only 1db in it comparing noise levels in the GTX 580's favour
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-6950-6970-review/13

I don't get why people are saying the 6970 runs cooler and quieter

 

[RavenXXX2]

Aaah but I take it that you aren't going to change to one?

Nah, my 480 is faster than all the current GPU's doing the rounds. Still considering 6950 crossfire though, think it's overkill at 1680x1050....

 

[Marine-RX179]

Just for anyone calling this card a failure:

6970: £150 cheaper and within 5 - 10% of the GTX 580.
6950: £50 cheaper and within 5 - 10% of the GTX 570.
Less power, cooler, quieter too...

Nvidia have to drop their prices to compete. End of.

Talk about providing misinformation...the 6970 is the same noise level as the GTX580:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6970/28.html

And it consume only as little as 3-12W lower than GTX570:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6970/27.html

GTX580 is charging high price preimum for being the fastest single GPU card; whereas the 6970 is only equal to/slower than GTX570 at 1920 res or below, but faster at 2560 res or above.

 

[555BUK]

The 580 is the fastest GPU on the planet. As far as I am aware all cards which have held this position have demanded a premium over all lesser cards. Any top card, coffee maker, camera, car, bike, boat, private jet etc. fetches an inproportionate premium over and above the additional performance it provides. AMD fans please stop winging about GTX580 value for money and concentrate on real battle, 6970 vs GTX570.

 

[Yamahahahahaha]

Flanno did you even look at the Anand's review you just pasted?
Idle is 7w and 9w higher respectively.
Crysis Load is 21w and 49w higher.
Furmark Load is 85w and 129w higher.

The temps come down to the quality of the cooler, obviously Nvidia have spent more on theirs.
The Furmark temps are 5C and 6C higher respectively, but the benchmark is very unrealistic.

Idle noise levels are fairly similar.
The load noise levels are significantly higher for the 580, and a tad louder for the 570.

Talk about providing misinformation...the 6970 is the same noise level as the GTX580:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/H...D_6970/28.html

And it consume only as little as 3-12W lower than GTX570:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/H...D_6970/27.html

GTX580 is charging high price preimum for being the fastest single GPU card; whereas the 6970 is only equal to/slower than GTX570 at 1920 res or below, but faster at 2560 res or above.

Seems like their data disagrees with Anand's quite significantly. I wonder what could make up the discrepancy?

 

[Triggaaar]

Just for anyone calling this card a failure:

6970: £150 cheaper and within 5 - 10% of the GTX 580.
6950: £50 cheaper and within 5 - 10% of the GTX 570.

I agree that calling it a failure is silly fanboy stuff, but I also don't think your comparison is fair: Why compare the 570 to the cheaper 6950, when there's the 6970 to compare it to?
At the moment, the £570 is £20/£30 cheaper than the 6970, and about the same performance - and the 570 is £30 more than the 6950 (not at OCUK, but cheapest prices).

So a 6970 is 15% slower than a 580 but the 580 costs up to 54% more " going on OCUK prices " sorry but that makes the 6970 a great buy over a 580.

And yes, you pay a hefty premium for the fasted card. The 580 isn't for most of us, but it is the fastest. No need to include it in comparisons as it muddies the waters.

Compare the 570 and 6970 for a fair comparison, and you see that neither manufacture = EPIC FAIL! nonsense.

 

[GJ02]

what is the purpose of the dual bios switch
what exactly does it do ?

 

[Duff-Man]

Seems like their data disagrees with Anand's quite significantly. I wonder what could make up the discrepancy?

The massive difference in the anandtech Furmark load is due to power containment being active on the AMD cards (clocking the GPU down to 600Mhz on the 6970 according to anand), and disabled on the 570 / 580.

The gaming loads should be comparable, and the difference (12W on TPU vs 21W on anandtech) is not so large.

 

[Yamahahahahaha]

And yes, you pay a hefty premium for the fasted card. The 580 isn't for most of us, but it is the fastest. No need to include it in comparisons as it muddies the waters.

Or tri-Xfire 6970 for the price of SLI 580s?

The massive difference in the anandtech Furmark load is due to power containment being active on the AMD cards (clocking the GPU down to 600Mhz on the 6970 according to anand), and disabled on the 570 / 580.

The gaming loads should be comparable, and the difference (12W on TPU vs 21W on anandtech) is not so large.

Yes, I completely forgot about one of the biggest features of the card, my bad.

 

[muterobert]

So a 6970 is 15% slower than a 580 but the 580 costs up to 54% more " going on OCUK prices " sorry but that makes the 6970 a great buy over a 580.

Stock clocks, anywhere up to 20+% and why would you use OCUK prices unless they shifted the numbers in your favour..... oh, wait.

You always pay a premium for the best, and as someone who obviously bought a GTX480 pre price drop your sudden obsession with 'value for money' is beyond hilarious. You of all people should be familiar with the laws of diminishing returns.

I'm also assuming that the ceiling for overclocking is lower given the higher temps the 6970 runs at, the GTX 580 is a stonking overclocker.

I personally think the 69xx cards are a great shift in evolution for GPUs from AMD. But right now, if you don't game at insane resolutions (or even if you do) - GTX580 is the fastest out there unless you resort to GPU-multifail of course.

 

[GJ02]

to you think the voltage tweek on the asus card will make a bit of a diffrence ?

 

[Mr Krugga]

The 580 is the fastest GPU on the planet. As far as I am aware all cards which have held this position have demanded a premium over all lesser cards. Any top card, coffee maker, camera, car, bike, boat, private jet etc. fetches an inproportionate premium over and above the additional performance it provides. AMD fans please stop winging about GTX580 value for money and concentrate on real battle, 6970 vs GTX570.

Technically the GTX580 is a graphics card, GF110 is the GPU.

 

[Flanno]

Flanno did you even look at the Anand's review you just pasted?
Idle is 7w and 9w higher respectively.
Crysis Load is 21w and 49w higher.
Furmark Load is 85w and 129w higher.

The temps come down to the quality of the cooler, obviously Nvidia have spent more on theirs.
The Furmark temps are 5C and 6C higher respectively, but the benchmark is very unrealistic.

Idle noise levels are fairly similar.
The load noise levels are significantly higher for the 580, and a tad louder for the 570.

Seems like their data disagrees with Anand's quite significantly. I wonder what could make up the discrepancy?

Yes I did read the reviews, and I never claimed the 580 uses less power, exactly the opposite. So I am not disagreeing with what you posted above. What I said was the 580 runs cooler or as cool as the 6970. And noise wise they looks to be about the same under load. I'm talking about games, not furmark which I don't play Therefore saying the 6970 runs cooler and quieter then the 580 which is what you said, does not seem accurate. At least according to the reviews on Anand, HardOCP and Guru3D which are the only ones I bothered to read. My point anyway, is the 6970 running cooler and quieter compared to a 580 should not be a selling point for the AMD card.

 

[Helios1234]

Just for anyone calling this card a failure:

6970: £150 cheaper and within 5 - 10% of the GTX 580.
6950: £50 cheaper and within 5 - 10% of the GTX 570.
Less power, cooler, quieter too...

Not to mention probably superior Xfire scaling due to the massive lump of memory on each card.

Nvidia have to drop their prices to compete. End of.

The difference between the GTX570 and HD6950 is more than 10%. I personally found the GTX480 to lead by 15-20% overall and if the GTX570 is the new equivalent card, then the difference should be the same.

I haven't read other reviews though so can't comment on them.

 

[555BUK]

It's all quite funny really. If AMD released the 6950 & 6970 one month before GTX570 and GTX580 everyone would have called it a big success. Unfortunately for AMD, NVidia struck first and did so with minor revisions to old hardware. It must be guiling for AMD that NVidia tweaked as much additional performance and effeciency savings from their "old technology" as AMD themselves have done out of a redesign. I have a feeliing that either a) AMD underestimated what was achieveable with Fermi, b) AMD overestimated Cayman's 4D shader config and optimisations, or c) both of the aforementioned.

A month or two can make a big difference.

 

[Yurihyuga]

Flanno did you even look at the Anand's review you just pasted?
Idle is 7w and 9w higher respectively.
Crysis Load is 21w and 49w higher.
Furmark Load is 85w and 129w higher.

The temps come down to the quality of the cooler, obviously Nvidia have spent more on theirs.
The Furmark temps are 5C and 6C higher respectively, but the benchmark is very unrealistic.

Idle noise levels are fairly similar.
The load noise levels are significantly higher for the 580, and a tad louder for the 570.


Seems like their data disagrees with Anand's quite significantly. I wonder what could make up the discrepancy?

I prefer to look at gurus reviews always honest and never biased. However looking at there results it makes the 6970 look loud and hot compared to the competition.

They said the 6970 is on par in sound with a pair of 570's in SLI and the heat is the same as a pair of 570's running in SLI.

Now that compared with performance makes the 6970 a poor card for the price which is unusual for ATI and on top of that the 6900 series seem to be very poor clockers.

 

[RavenXXX2]

lol guru3d, they are terrible.

 

[555BUK]

Guru is always the first site I visit, followed Anand. Probably because they have been around a long time and have seen me through successive swings to and from ATI/NVidia products. I have never noticed them to be bias one way or the other, but I will take heed if others provide proof/examples otherwise.

Edit: Just because Guru doesn't rave about the 6900's, doesn't mean they are bias towards NVidia. It could just mean that the 6900's do not warrant raving about.