AMD Radeon HD 6850/6870 Graphics Cards
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Performance tests
Testbed:
- Intel Core i7-975 3340 MHz CPU
- ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard on the Intel X58 chipset
- 6GB of 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM from Corsair
- WD Caviar SE WD1600JD 160GB SATA HDD
- Tagan TG900-BZ 900W PSU
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, DirectX 11
- 30" Dell 3007WFP monitor
- NVIDIA Drivers 262.99/260.99
- ATI CATALYST 10.10
Testbed:
- Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft) -- DirectX 10.0, Shaders 4.0 (HDR), built-in benchmarking utility (the Middle level), maximum settings.
- CRYSIS Warhead (Crytek/EA) -- Cargo, DirectX 10.0, Shaders 4.0, Very High settings, batch file, timedemo available by e-mail request.
- Colin McRae: DiRT 2 (Codemasters) -- DirectX 10.0/11.0, Ultra High settings, run the benchmark as follows: "dirt2.exe -benchmark example_benchmark.xml".
- Metro 2033 (4A Games/THQ) -- DirectX 11.0, Super High settings, PhysX disabled, benchmark is run from the game.
- Just Cause 2 (Avalanche Studios/Eidos Interactive) -- DirectX 11.0, Super High settings, run the benchmark from the in-game menu.
- Aliens vs. Predator (Rebellion/SEGA) -- DirectX 11.0, Shaders 5.0, Very High settings, run the benchmark from the in-game menu.
- Tropics Benchmark 1.3 (Unigine) -- DirectX 10.0, High settings.
- Heaven Benchmark 2.0 (Unigine) -- DirectX 10.0, High settings.
- Heaven Benchmark 2.0 (Unigine) -- DirectX 11.0, High settings.
- 3DMark Vantage 1.02 (FutureMark) -- DirectX 10.0, Shaders 4.0, multitexturing, Extreme settings.
- RightMark3D (iXBT.com) -- DirectX, a synthetic benchmark, Shaders 2.0/2.0b/3.0.
We'd like to thank Unigine for helping us set up their benchmarks.
Long ago we proved how unreliable were test results obtained with the FRAPS utility. Sadly, this only leaves us benchmarks built into games. For this reason we prefer to use a small number of tests, but all of those are transparent and precise. What's more important, they accurately show the correlation of graphics card performance.
Far Cry 2
Crysis Warhead, Cargo
Colin McRae: DiRT 2
Metro 2033
Just Cause 2
Aliens vs. Predator DirectX 11.0
Unigine Tropics Benchmark
Unigine Heaven Benchmark DirectX 10.0
Unigine Heaven Benchmark DirectX 11.0
3DMark Vantage Graphics Marks
Conclusions
AMD Radeon HD 6870 1024MB performs similarly to or a bit slower than GeForce GTX 470. This upper mid-end product of AMD catches up with the lower high-end solution of NVIDIA. So, despite being a bit slower, Radeon HD 6870 also consumes less power, meaning that it's also cooler and quieter. Five interfaces are also a plus. If Radeon HD 6870 is cheaper than GeForce GTX 470, it will sell well.
AMD Radeon HD 6850 1024MB competes well with the numerous variants of GeForce GTX 460. It also successfully dislodges the previous Radeon HD 5830, offering higher performance and five interfaces. Of course, much will also depend on pricing as well.
Note that the Radeon HD 68xx series is not a replacement for the Radeon HD 58xx one. In fact, it's closer to HD 57xx, so naming the new series "Radeon HD 67xx" would've been far more reasonable. Well, that's marketing for you.
On a side note, we'd like to say a few words about CATALYST drivers. They work fine when installed, but the installation itself can be quite troublesome. Maybe the situation will change, if this issue gains enough publicity.
Speaking of specific problems, in some situations it may take the installer 15 minutes to do whatever it does and then report that installation has failed. In other situations, the installer finishes successfully, but then you reboot and see a message that the driver hasn't actually been installed. Another bothersome issue is messages about missing INF files, although older CATALYST versions may have had no problems with this very graphics card. Sometimes it seems that driver developers at AMD just ignore all criticism and do what they want.
Anyway, experienced users know that drivers can be installed manually by means of INF files, while the installer can be used to get the rest of the software. Yes, and we have to do this often. But even then the installation may take too long and Windows may just abort it due it's own timeouts. Besides, most users don't bother with searching for INF files, they just run the installer. And that's when it might get depressing.
Once again, AMD graphics cards are fine, what we're complaining about is the software. And we hope that some day it will be fixed.
We express gratitude to AMD for the provided graphics card. The PSU is provided by TAGAN, the monitor is provided by NVIDIA.
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