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AMD's New Flagship HD 6970 Tested

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the more-pixels-please dept.

I.M.O.G. writes "Today AMD officially introduces their newest flagship GPU, the Radeon HD 6970, hot on the heels of the Radeon HD 6870 released at the end of October, then the NVIDIA GTX 580 in early November, which is Nvidia's current flagship card. Initial testing and overclocking results are publishing at first tier review sites now. While the HD 6970 is a strong performer and the price point is outstanding for consumers, the GTX 580 retains the flagship crown while the AMD 5970 keeps the single card performance crown with its dual GPUs on a single card."

28 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Confusing naming by Sonny+Yatsen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These video card naming schemes are just a confusing mess of numbers now. Are the 6000 series better than the 5000 series, or are they parallel series for different market segments?

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    1. Re:Confusing naming by KillaGouge · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I agree 100%, I recently purchased an ATI 6850 with my new system, but it seems that the 5970 still outperforms it. They need to either stick with an incremental naming system, or start adding Good, Better, Best next to whatever name they can come up with.

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    2. Re:Confusing naming by space_jake · · Score: 2

      Sort them by price descending on Newegg. But yes the 5970s seem to outperform the 6870s and (I haven't RTFA yet) 6970s.

    3. Re:Confusing naming by Sonny+Yatsen · · Score: 2

      I understand that, but that isn't what I meant. I was wondering why they couldn't make a naming scheme that makes sense.

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    4. Re:Confusing naming by jgtg32a · · Score: 2

      Honestly the naming/numbering conventions have never really bothered me, because I'm going to look up a lot of reviews before I buy a video card.

      And to answer your question yes they are more powerful, but as long as you are comparing apples to apples. 6000 --> ABCD. The A is the series the 6's being the latest and greatest; B is the "class" the launch of the series (A) there will be an 8 and a 5(IIRC) 8 being more powerful than the 5 and then later they will add a 9, 7, the 9's being two of the 8's glued together and the 7 being have about 90% of the power of the 8 but cost about 66% as much and a 3(which isn't really for gaming, just video); C is usually a 5 or a 7 and that is low and high. D is always a zero.

      That's the basics of the naming/numbering conventions of ATI/AMD video cards, I make NO claims of accuracy of that but it does reinforce my previous statement of don't worry about it and look up the damn reviews.

    5. Re:Confusing naming by hokiealumnus · · Score: 2

      For comparison purposes, AMD has increased the 'hundreds' number by one. In their product tiers for the new generation (roughly speaking), 69xx = 58xx and 68xx = 57xx This is definitely a change from the last three generations, where the top-of-the-line were 38xx, 48xx and 58xx. Those were ATI though and now it's AMD, so they did make a numbering change when they took over. Another change will be the new dual-GPU card, which will is rumored to also be a 69xx number, where previously, the 59xx was dual-GPU only. It's a bit confusing, but not too bad once you know what to look for. The 5970 is still the fastest GPU on the market, but it's a dual GPU card and is rumored to be replaced with another dual GPU card in the 1st quarter of 2010. The GTX 580 is currently the fastest single-GPU card on the market.

    6. Re:Confusing naming by 91degrees · · Score: 2

      It does make sense.

      Anything starting with a 6 uses the same basic technology. They may have features disabled and/or use a different number of pipelines but the various parts are extremely similar. The second digit is a sub-version number and indicates which of these variants apply, and the third digit is a per-sub-version speed classification.

      It may not relate directly to speed, but it does give a better indication of whether a given chip will have certain features. Speed is somewhat application dependent, and so it's possible that a slightly faster chip from a different family will be slower in some cases.

    7. Re:Confusing naming by h4rm0ny · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah, it's really not that confusing. The first number is the generation. So a 6xxx card is newer than a 5xxxx card. But a new low-end card is not necessarily better than last year's high-end card.

      --

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    8. Re:Confusing naming by rwa2 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Unless you have some sort of performance chart you can't tell shit.

      http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ gives a pretty comprehensive overview of just about every video card out there... this new AMD/ti video card will probably be added within the next few days. It's a great starting point before heading over to http://tomshardware.com/ or http://anandtech.com/ to read about all the details, caveats, and more comprehensive benchmark results.

      Also, it tends to be the only good resource out there when trying to make comparisons between different market segments (what notebook GPU could keep up with my desktop GPU?) or completely different generations (would this cheap embedded GPU actually be a decent upgrade from my ancient media player box?)

    9. Re:Confusing naming by MadTinfoilHatter · · Score: 3, Funny

      ...and a 9xxx card is older than either of them. It's all perfectly logical. :-)

  2. Drivers! by Bigbutt · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As long as AMD's driver writers can't come up with stable drivers, picking up an AMD is still a crapshoot.

    [John]

    --
    Shit better not happen!
    1. Re:Drivers! by armanox · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Haven't had issues with ATi drivers since 2007.

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    2. Re:Drivers! by hokiealumnus · · Score: 2

      I've used AMD drivers since early catalyst 8.xx and haven't had problems with any of them that I can recall, FWIW.

    3. Re:Drivers! by ndege · · Score: 2

      Man, I haven't had any issues with ATI either, since about 2004 when I decided to go with nVidia. [ducks!]

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    4. Re:Drivers! by ThatMegathronDude · · Score: 2

      As a counterpoint to your anecdote, every time I buy an Nvidia card (best bang/buck gets my buck usually), I have to deal with awful driver issues.

  3. Actual AMD user here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Haven't had a driver related problem in a while.

  4. Additional coverage by MojoKid · · Score: 2

    HH has a ton of datapoints and additional coverage on the new AMD GPUs: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Radeon-HD-6970--6950-GPU-Reviews-Enter-Cayman/ - Fill rate and memory bandwidth goes to AMD, while Tesselation (for DX11) advantages are strong in NVIDIAs architecture.

  5. Excellent... by tygerstripes · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just what I need to get my PC through a cold winter.

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  6. Linux Support? by Lord+Byron+II · · Score: 3, Interesting

    After a terrible Linux driver experience a few years ago with AMD, I switched to NVidia and have been fairly happy ever since. But these latest cards have me thinking of switching back on my next upgrade. How is the AMD Linux driver?

    I currently have two NVidia cards driving three monitors; does anyone have experience doing the same thing with the AMD driver?

    1. Re:Linux Support? by crabboy.com · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have a 5770 driving three monitors on Kubuntu and everything works as you would expect. Of course, I did have to pay an extra $100 for the active DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter...

      --
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    2. Re:Linux Support? by Per+Wigren · · Score: 2, Informative

      Does "everything" include hardware accelerated video playback, multichannel LPCM-audio over HDMI and 64-bit support?

      I haven't looked at the state of AMD video card support in Linux for a while but as recently as a couple of years ago, NVidia was the pretty much the only usable option for media centers.

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    3. Re:Linux Support? by GooberToo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hardware acceleration is available for both AMD and NVIDIA but is largely limited by whatever software you're running. So for example, flash is only accelerated on 32-bit NVIDIA for now.

      Generally speaking, NVIDIA still provides a superior driver experience and NVIDIA still have the far, far superior OpenGL implementation. AMD has come a long, long ways but it will likely be a year or two, or perhaps even more, before AMD can really challenge NVIDIA in both performance and quality on OpenGL/Linux.

      For the foreseeable future, NVIDIA is still the only sane option for 3D+Linux. Unless, of course, you're the gambling type.

    4. Re:Linux Support? by oranGoo · · Score: 2

      AMD went a long way in supporting linux and it seems that they will stick to it for newer cards (Mobility HD 5650 running stable as a rock on Ubuntu 10.10; with Catalyst Control Center).

    5. Re:Linux Support? by daid303 · · Score: 2

      Really depends on the card, don't buy something random from AMD and expect it to work in Linux.

      I have a laptop with a 1720 mobility something card, not a powerful thing. Windows works, but linux the closed source drivers refuse to do anything. And the open source drivers work, until you do anything 3D more complex then glxgears, then they just crash and burn X.

      If you want linux support you just better stick to NVidia right now, my desktop uses an NVidia card and stability and performance are the same for windows and linux.

    6. Re:Linux Support? by dstyle5 · · Score: 2

      I had issues with my ATI 1650 (yes, a true powerhouse) in Fedora 9 and 10 attempting to use my 24" display or two smaller displays at once. I recently updated to Fedora 14 and decided to try again and much to my surprise I can now use my 24" and 22" display with the old 1650. I'm not using ATI drivers though since they stopped supporting my card a few years ago.

    7. Re:Linux Support? by cbhacking · · Score: 2

      Or if you want to support a company that releases specs for their hardware that enable open-source drivers. The proprietary-blob nVidia drivers are good on Linux, but the reverse-enginered OSS drivers are awful. ATI/AMD hardware has rapidly developing OSS drivers, although they're not yet better than nVidia's proprietary blobs.

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  7. Ummm, kinda by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Informative

    They went more confusing than normal this time around. So let me try and break it down for you:

    The 6000 series are the replacements to the 5000 series. As time goes on, the 5000 series will be faded away. They use the same fabrication technology (TSMC 40nm) but are a redesign that is capable of accomplishing more on the same amount of silicon, mostly thanks to redesigned shaders.

    Ok clear enough? However the problem is they fucked with the in-generation naming. Previously the 5870 was the highest end single GPU card, now the 6970 is. As such the situation you have is:

    5750->6850
    5770->6870
    5850->6950
    5870->6970

    In each case the 6000 series part is faster by a reasonable bit, say 20ish%, than the 5000 series part it replaces. All features are supported by both generations of cards they are both DirectX11/Shader Model 5.0 cards.

    So the 6000 series is just a minor refresh, getting more out of the same amount of material basically, which is really nice. The confusing part is the change in making. If you buy a 6870 to replace a 5870, you'll be disappointed to find you have a small performance decrease because the 6870 is actually analogous to the 5770 part.

    As a practical matter if you already own a 5000 series card and are happy with it, keep it. The new cards are a bit faster but not so much as to be worth buying. If you are looking at a new card, then look at the 6000 series as they give you more performance at a given die size. If you are looking at a used or cheaper card, then maybe look at a 5000 series since people are in fact getting 6000 series cards and dumping their 5000 series.

    Either way you have a fully current part, one that supports all the latest graphics tech.

  8. It's not so bad today by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2

    Now I'm speaking as a Windows user here, can't help you on Linux. However ATi's Windows drivers are acceptable. They are not as good an nVidia's, but it is mostly minor things or ease of use things, not any sort of major problems. I have a 5870, and have had it for a year now, and it is a stable card. I don't get BSODs or lockups from it. Initially it did have gray screen crashes, but they fixed that about a month in and it has never returned.

    I still like nVidia better, and if nVidia's offerings are good when I'm next looking to buy I'm switching back, however ATi is acceptable these days, I don't have reservations about using or recommending them.

    Currently they are the way to go if you want lower end cards, or if you want mid-high cards. In the low end, nVidia has nothing current. The 5400 series and so on are the best way to get current graphics technology, just cheap and low power. In the midrange, nVidia becomes competitive, their GTX460 is a great card and competes real well against ATi's offerings. Higher up, they aren't so good. The 470 and 480 are competitive, but run WAY too hot for what they do. Mid-high end 5000 or 6000 series are a better choice. At the high end, nVidia is again competitive the 570 and 580 are good cards, and nothing ATi has can touch the 580.

    So depending on where you want to buy depends on which to get. I have a personal preference for nVidia for sure and were I to buy a new card personally today it'd be a 570 or 580. However ATi works fine. Their Windows drivers are good enough that you should be happy.