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AMD's New Flagship HD 6970 Tested
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."
Just what I need to get my PC through a cold winter.
Meta will eat itself
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.