# ASUS Radeon HD 6870 CrossFire



## W1zzard (Oct 21, 2010)

In this review we will put the dual card CrossFire configuration of the AMD Radeon HD 6870 in the spotlight. It promises higher performance than a Radeon HD 5970 at only a fraction of the price. But is this enough to make CF a recommendation?

*Show full review*


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## Spaceman Spiff (Oct 22, 2010)

Yikes. The scaling is not too great. Ill keep my 4890s for a while. Power consumption isnt bad though. Good review Wiz. Could have used some Crossfire 5850, 5870, and SLI 460, 470, and 480 for some extra comparison.


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## DanishDevil (Oct 22, 2010)

I wonder why this review and Guru3D's crossfire review are in stark contrast of each other. Must investigate...after dinner!


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## alexsubri (Oct 22, 2010)

DanishDevil said:


> I wonder why this review and Guru3D's crossfire review are in stark contrast of each other. Must investigate...after dinner!



Maybe different CPUs and Motherboards, etc etc etc


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## wolf (Oct 22, 2010)

fantastic review as always W1zzard, worth staying up till 4am for 

great cards for the price, but I think what we all want to see is Cayman


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## DanishDevil (Oct 22, 2010)

Knew that already. They're using an i7 965 @ 3.75GHz with 6GB of 1500MHz RAM. Very similar systems actually.


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## fullinfusion (Oct 22, 2010)

Should I say it?

Ok I will, the 6870 x-fire stomp's!!!

So now to the Green team to counter with there re-branded card's 

Thanks Wizz, great review


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## DanishDevil (Oct 22, 2010)

AHA! They used Catalyst 10.10, while W1zz used Catalyst 10.7. Maybe 10.10 gives much better crossfire scaling performance.

W1zz, any chance you could do a quick test on 10.10 for a 5870 Crossfire to see if it has improved?


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## fullinfusion (Oct 22, 2010)

DanishDevil said:


> Knew that already. They're using an i7 965 @ 3.75GHz with 6GB of 1500MHz RAM. Very similar systems actually.


Nice quick edit DD


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## fullinfusion (Oct 22, 2010)

DanishDevil said:


> AHA! They used Catalyst 10.10, while W1zz used Catalyst 10.7. Maybe 10.10 gives much better crossfire scaling performance.
> 
> W1zz, any chance you could do a quick test on 10.10 for a 5870 Crossfire to see if it has improved?


Oh stop blaming the driver and except the new red gpu kicks azz!!!! 

god I see someone's a tad desperate lol


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## alexsubri (Oct 22, 2010)

DanishDevil said:


> AHA! They used Catalyst 10.10, while W1zz used Catalyst 10.7. Maybe 10.10 gives much better crossfire scaling performance.
> 
> W1zz, any chance you could do a quick test on 10.10 for a 5870 Crossfire to see if it has improved?



The 10.10's will be release tomorrow

Ay, W1zzard ...I gotta silly question..what do you do with all those 6850 and 6870s? Do/Can you keep them or you have to ship them back


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## fullinfusion (Oct 22, 2010)

alexsubri said:


> The 10.10's will be release tomorrow


There out now


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## alexsubri (Oct 22, 2010)

hehe..They've released them early then  

Via Twitter from CatalystMaker:



> RT @Kinleyb: @CatalystMaker Hey man! Know ur busy..But i just wanted to know if 10.10 was gonna Release today or tomorrow? ME - Tomorrow


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## dir_d (Oct 22, 2010)

Good review thx w1zz. If i didnt have a 5870 these cards would be the ones to buy.


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## alexsubri (Oct 22, 2010)

I know, I'm glad I stuck with my 5850s..They both perform as well as one 5970. Next month we will see the 69xx series ..those are the ones I am really waiting for. I plan on buying a pair early next year


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## DrunkenMafia (Oct 22, 2010)

love those crossfire scores.  2 6870's are $100 + cheaper than a 5970 in aussie.

Yet again we inch one step closer to 100fps in Crysis


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## n-ster (Oct 22, 2010)

Ummm... they scale good in a couple of games, but mostly at high setting at high resolution with AA, hich is my use so I'm happpy  LOOK AT METRO 2033


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## fullinfusion (Oct 22, 2010)

alexsubri said:


> I know, I'm glad I stuck with my 5850s..They both perform as well as one 5970. Next month we will see the 69xx series ..those are the ones I am really waiting for. I plan on buying a pair early next year


Are you sure about that?

Maybe you need to check my benche marks in the Vantage thread!


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## fullinfusion (Oct 22, 2010)

n-ster said:


> Ummm... they scale good in a couple of games, but mostly at high setting at high resolution with AA, hich is my use so I'm happpy  LOOK AT METRO 2033


Well at a tiny rez all cards rule, but till you up the res these gpu's shine... Put it this way.... An engine can only pump out the demand for power. 

put a load on these cards and watch the performance show what they can do.


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## n-ster (Oct 22, 2010)

I meant in scaling... as in in a certain game that you already get 110fps, don't be surprised to get 140fps only... but when you on get 39fps, these beasts can get you 76 fps


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## CDdude55 (Oct 22, 2010)

fullinfusion said:


> So now to the Green team to counter with there re-branded card's





fullinfusion said:


> Oh stop blaming the driver and except the new red gpu kicks azz!!!!



Alright now lets just calm down now..

Your inner fanboy is being unleashed heavily.

Definitely some good scaling in some games, but lacking in some others.


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## n-ster (Oct 22, 2010)

but they lack only in high fps games (ie: ow res and/or low demanding games), so who cares! look at 1920x1200 where most ppl will be using these cards... look at metro 2033 and crysis etc... practically 100%, about 90+%

just incredible IMO


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## chaotic_uk (Oct 22, 2010)

would have liked to have seen crossfired 5870's in the tests with crossfired 6870's beating the 5970 in most tests , just out of interest


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## Delta6326 (Oct 22, 2010)

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon_HD_5870_CrossFire/images/crysis_1920_1200.gif http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon_HD_6870_CrossFire/images/crysis_1920_1200.gif
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon_HD_5870_CrossFire/1.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon_HD_6870_CrossFire/1.html
now start comparing its not the newest but its the quickest way to get a estimate


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## n-ster (Oct 22, 2010)

Delta6326 said:


> now start comparing its not the newest but its the quickest way to get a estimate


so they can see faster

Wait, a 5870 CF under a 5970? not that helpful lol

but by doing 5870 CF / 5870 normal from the first and multiplying that by the 5870 on the 2nd gives 48.847, or to round up, 48.9 fps for the 5870 CF


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## BraveSoul (Oct 22, 2010)

impressing numbers here, and best is yet to come 
_____________________________





Antec1200 filter project


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## HXL492 (Oct 22, 2010)

crossfire scaling is not too impressive...

No wonder they kept it at a maximum of 2 cards lol


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## n-ster (Oct 22, 2010)

Don't just look at the overall guys, look at the demanding games and high resolution... The crossfire scaling is EXCELLENT

Do you really need to play Supreme Commander 2 at 1280x1024 at more than 120fps?


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## bear jesus (Oct 22, 2010)

Even though the scaling is not that awesome in many games the fps are still great and makes me wonder how well a pair of these do with eyefinity.

Will TPU be able/willing to do some eyefinity benchmarks with crossfire 6870 eyefinity?


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## pantherx12 (Oct 22, 2010)

Bad scaling?

Stop trippin' balls guys!

Pretty much 100% in the games where you actually need the scaling!

Freaken epic!

XXDDDD hold on for 5970 or two of these puppies!?


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## bear jesus (Oct 22, 2010)

pantherx12 said:


> Bad scaling?
> 
> Stop trippin' balls guys!
> 
> ...



how about 2 6970's?


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## W1zzard (Oct 22, 2010)

bear jesus said:


> Will TPU be able/willing to do some eyefinity benchmarks with crossfire 6870 eyefinity?



send me some monitors


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## bear jesus (Oct 22, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> send me some monitors



 yea that's why i said able, i didn't think you would just happen to have 3 of the same kind of monitor just laying around.

I Would happly send you some monitors... if you send me your review sample of the 6970


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## pantherx12 (Oct 22, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> send me some monitors



Borrow some friends ones 

Also if scaling is as good with 6970 then I might just do that


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## Coffeinfreak (Oct 22, 2010)

Hey,

power Consumption for the crossfire setup?


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## DaedalusHelios (Oct 22, 2010)

Good review. I was hoping a 6870 could beat a GTX 480 somehow but it doesn't by a longshot. I figured the performance would be like this though. It is more like a tier of the 5 series than performance to justify another series designation. Lets hope Nvidia doesn't do the same. This reminds me of 9 series Nvidia's "updated GPU means new GPU logic".


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## pantherx12 (Oct 22, 2010)

DaedalusHelios said:


> Good review. I was hoping a 6870 could beat a GTX 480 somehow but it doesn't by a longshot. I figured the performance would be like this though. It is more like a tier of the 5 series than performance to justify another series designation. Lets hope Nvidia doesn't do the same.





Could be trippin major balls, but this is a better jump than 4770-5770 

Think of these cards as 6770 in your head and BAM instantly the best jump so far


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## DaedalusHelios (Oct 22, 2010)

pantherx12 said:


> Could be trippin major balls, but this is a better jump than 4770-5770
> 
> Think of these cards as 6770 in your head and BAM instantly the best jump so far



 6870 can't even beat a GTX 480 though. Thats a shame. Probably going to get a second GTX 480 now.


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## bear jesus (Oct 22, 2010)

DaedalusHelios said:


> 6870 can't even beat a GTX 480 though. Thats a shame.



But when was the last time a new mid range card beat the current worlds most powerful single chip card?
The 6970 is the one that should beat the 480, it makes sense as well, high end vs high end instead of mid range vs high end.


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## dj-electric (Oct 22, 2010)

wow.... just wow.... the scaling is EPIC!!!!!


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## pantherx12 (Oct 22, 2010)

DaedalusHelios said:


> 6870 can't even beat a GTX 480 though. Thats a shame. Probably going to get a second GTX 480 now.





Again, why would you expect it to, its a MIDRANGE CARD 

Did the 5770 beat nvidias last most powerful single gpu card? 

Nope......

Did atis top end offering? ( 5870) yes!

So I expect the 5970 is the card you are after.

Come on man don't expect the world when it's never happened before


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## motasim (Oct 22, 2010)

DaedalusHelios said:


> 6870 can't even beat a GTX 480 though. Thats a shame. Probably going to get a second GTX 480 now.



... wow, that's really clever! you were expecting a $240 card to beat a $470 card !?! ... be patient; that's the 6970 job   ...


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## dj-electric (Oct 22, 2010)

Hell yeah 
my mind is just blowing when i think  about HD6970 CFX, that thing must be used by chuck norris or something


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## Melvis (Oct 22, 2010)

Wow the scaling of these cards is just amazing, very impressed. They just pulled off a Nvidia GTX460 in Sli beater. Well done ATi 

And the GTX460 was Nvidia's life line, not anymore.


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## DaedalusHelios (Oct 22, 2010)

bear jesus said:


> But when was the last time a new mid range card beat the current worlds most powerful single chip card?
> The 6970 is the one that should beat the 480, it makes sense as well, high end vs high end instead of mid range vs high end.





pantherx12 said:


> Again, why would you expect it to, its a MIDRANGE CARD
> 
> Did the 5770 beat nvidias last most powerful single gpu card?
> 
> ...





motasim said:


> ... wow, that's really clever! you were expecting a $240 card to beat a $470 card !?! ... be patient; that's the 6970 job   ...



6970 = dual gpu right?

I was expecting high end single gpu against the other. When you argue apples to oranges you are changing the game in my opinion. Also these are of different generations too. 

*You guys sure get angry and insulting when others see it differently. You guys beat your wives on your free time?* 

I was simply hoping for something more impressive performance wise. Cost isn't as much of a concern for me right now as much as performance is. I would like to see 6970 SLi to see what it offers. 

In a nutshell, what I was hoping for was higher performance and assumed it would come with higher prices on the cards offered. What it brought was low prices with pretty good performance but not enough to make me want to buy one.


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## dj-electric (Oct 22, 2010)

DaedalusHelios said:


> 6970 = dual gpu right?


No...
the HD6950 and HD6970 are single GPUs
the HD6990 is a dual one.
the HD6970 will probably kick GTX480's A*s 'till sh*t will come out of his d*ck


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## DaedalusHelios (Oct 22, 2010)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> No...
> the HD6950 and HD6970 are single GPUs
> the HD6990 is a dual one



Ahh! Maybe that will be what I am interested in then. I was unaware that they changed the naming scheme. Too busy these days to keep up with consumer tech toys like I once did.


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## bear jesus (Oct 22, 2010)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> the HD6970 will probably kick GTX480's A*s 'till sh*t will come out of his d*ck



 what a pleasant way of putting it 



DaedalusHelios said:


> Ahh! Maybe that will be what I am interested in then. I was unaware that they changed the naming scheme. Too busy these days to keep up with consumer tech toys like I once did.



This is why so many people have complained about the renaming, unless you know about it then it's easy to assume the 6870 is the current top end card from AMD when it's really only the mid range.


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Oct 22, 2010)

pantherx12 said:


> Borrow some friends ones


teehee


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## mdsx1950 (Oct 22, 2010)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> No...
> the HD6950 and HD6970 are single GPUs
> the HD6990 is a dual one.
> *the HD6970 will probably kick GTX480's A*s 'till sh*t will come out of his d*ck*




HAHAHAHAHAH xD

Wonder what the 6990 will do to the GTX480 and GTX 580.


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## dj-electric (Oct 22, 2010)

Im asuming that the HD6950 will be 28-32% faster then the HD6870, the HD6970 will probably be faster then the HD6950 in 18-20%

so yeah, add an imaginary 40-50% to the HD6870

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6870/images/perfrel_1920.gif


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## bear jesus (Oct 22, 2010)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> Im asuming that the HD6950 will be 28-32% faster then the HD6870, the HD6970 will probably be faster then the HD6950 in 18-20%
> 
> so yeah, add an imaginary 40-50% to the HD6870
> 
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6870/images/perfrel_1920.gif



From those numbers would you not agree that it could be around the speed of the 5870 and 6850 crossfire for the 6970 and 6950?

I'm really hoping for around that or even a little more with some overclocking, if the 6970 can do that without using too much power then it's the card for me.


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## OneCool (Oct 22, 2010)

Why is everyone screaming about scaling?


They look like their scaling better than the 5xxx series or am I wrong?


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## dj-electric (Oct 22, 2010)

The scaling is near perfect


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## n-ster (Oct 22, 2010)

scaling is so bad!!! on 640x480 it only scales 60% and in a game that does 200fps on a single, it only does 300fps in CFX!!!

Who cares about metro 2033 or Crysis r any of those demanding games... who cares about the 95% scaling in the modern games that play less then 100fps?


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## dj-electric (Oct 22, 2010)

[/Nvidia fanboy]


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## Hayder_Master (Oct 23, 2010)

ohhh, they kill 5xxx with this


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## Vipeax (Oct 23, 2010)

What happened here (note the 5970 & 6870 Crossfire performance)?

GTX 460 review:






6870 Crossfire review:


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## Super XP (Oct 23, 2010)

DanishDevil said:


> I wonder why this review and Guru3D's crossfire review are in stark contrast of each other. Must investigate...after dinner!


They better be different results. Looking at both reviews and comparing them together side by side, WIZ used different quality settings than Guru3D. We are talking about complete different video settings. 

That is why the results from both sites differ. There's nothing wrong with transparency, the HD 6870 Crossfire X setup on both sites slaughtered anything and everything along with having the best price/performance ratio IMO.  

This get’s me to think how much faster can the HD 6900 series be if the HD 6800’s scale good in Crossfire X.


Vipeax said:


> What happened here (note the 5970 & 6870 Crossfire performance)?
> 
> GTX 460 review:
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_460_HAWK/images/wow_2560_1600.gif
> ...


That must be a typo or something. Maybe something went wrong with the setup just like what n-ster said bellow me.


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## n-ster (Oct 23, 2010)

crossfire can cause loss of performance at 2560x1600 if the game is not optimized well for it


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## W1zzard (Oct 23, 2010)

Vipeax said:


> What happened here (note the 5970 & 6870 Crossfire performance)?
> 
> GTX 460 review:
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_460_HAWK/images/wow_2560_1600.gif
> ...



using directx 11 now. i rebenched all cards in wow for that. and crossfire does not properly support wow so the performance sucks


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## Vipeax (Oct 23, 2010)

It's the part where it (it = 5970) was getting 125.4 FPS so recently and now 54.9. So DX11 in WoW means byebye X-fire?


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## W1zzard (Oct 23, 2010)

Vipeax said:


> It's the part where it (it = 5970) was getting 125.4 FPS so recently and now 54.9. So DX11 in WoW means byebye X-fire?



looks like it


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## filip007 (Oct 23, 2010)

You should update Heaven to 2.1 and Catalyst 10.10a hotfix, what's the hold up if you please!

Where is the power consumption?


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## Crazykenny (Oct 23, 2010)

ASUS get of your ass and build us a HD6990 ARES II.


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## MikeX (Oct 24, 2010)

Crazykenny said:


> ASUS get of your ass and build us a HD6990 ARES II.



no Asus will came up with HD6999 AresII


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## CDdude55 (Oct 24, 2010)

MikeX said:


> no Asus will came up with HD6999 AresII



Or the Asus Super 6999 X2 Extreme Ares II....Ultra Edition


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## bear jesus (Oct 24, 2010)

CDdude55 said:


> Or the Asus Super 6999 X2 Extreme Ares II....Ultra Edition



Hmm with a name like that i'm sure that has to be the 16gb version, the Asus Super 6999 X2 Extreme Ares II would of corse only have 8gb of ram


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## CDdude55 (Oct 24, 2010)

bear jesus said:


> Hmm with a name like that i'm sure that has to be the 16gb version, the Asus Super 6999 X2 Extreme Ares II would of corse only have 8gb of ram





The Ultra Edition can also do 4-way crossfire for some Octo GPU action.


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## pantherx12 (Oct 24, 2010)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> Im asuming that the HD6950 will be 28-32% faster then the HD6870, the HD6970 will probably be faster then the HD6950 in 18-20%
> 
> so yeah, add an imaginary 40-50% to the HD6870
> 
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6870/images/perfrel_1920.gif



If the new shader architecture scales well, the most we can expect from these cards is a 70% improvement over the 6870.


which would be freaken epic.


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## bear jesus (Oct 24, 2010)

CDdude55 said:


> The Ultra Edition can also do 4-way crossfire for some Octo GPU action.



 of corse, they could hardly call it ultra without the ability to run 4 dual chip cards... although maybe they are waiting for pci-e 3 to come out 



pantherx12 said:


> If the new shader architecture scales well, the most we can expect from these cards is a 70% improvement over the 6870.
> 
> 
> which would be freaken epic.



If that is the case i will happly dump the 2 6870's that i have not even recived yet and get one... or maybe two 6970's


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## Delta6326 (Oct 25, 2010)

would be sacaring to see 3 or 4 way fire with how great the scaling is to bad you can only do 2 way. i bet 6950-70 can do 4 way!


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## jasper1605 (Oct 25, 2010)

n-ster said:


> scaling is so bad!!! on 640x480 it only scales 60% and in a game that does 200fps on a single, it only does 300fps in CFX!!!
> 
> Who cares about metro 2033 or Crysis r any of those demanding games... who cares about the 95% scaling in the modern games that play less then 100fps?



The only reason I'm going to quadfire my 6990s is to hit 1k fps on solitaire so it's buttery smooth after i dominate it.  If it can't scale to get that then it is not worth anything to me...


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## n-ster (Oct 25, 2010)

wh cares if it does 0.5fps in WOW  Solitaire FTW!


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## jasper1605 (Oct 25, 2010)

Something I've never understood about the framerate deal.  Who cares after it passes 60?  Monitors only refresh at 60-85hz correct?  After 90 the human eye can't tell and it goes into the subliminal message world.  Having said that, it does not detract from my previous statement that I want 1,000 fps in solitaire.  And 500 fps in farmville.


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## CDdude55 (Oct 25, 2010)

jasper1605 said:


> Something I've never understood about the framerate deal.  Who cares after it passes 60?  Monitors only refresh at 60-85hz correct?  After 90 the human eye can't tell and it goes into the subliminal message world.  Having said that, it does not detract from my previous statement that I want 1,000 fps in solitaire.  And 500 fps in farmville.



Some people can actually see a pretty significant difference from going above 60 frames, though i have yet to see it..


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## bear jesus (Oct 25, 2010)

jasper1605 said:


> Something I've never understood about the framerate deal.  Who cares after it passes 60?  Monitors only refresh at 60-85hz correct?  After 90 the human eye can't tell and it goes into the subliminal message world.  Having said that, it does not detract from my previous statement that I want 1,000 fps in solitaire.  And 500 fps in farmville.



To me it's about the frame rate drops, if the average is above 60 that's great but if it drops down to like 20fps during cirtain parts of a game then it really messes with the experiance.
As most sites give the average fps the higher the better as it lowers the chance of getting annoying fps drops.


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## jasper1605 (Oct 25, 2010)

CDdude55 said:


> Some people *claim to* actually see a pretty significant difference from going above 60 frames, though i have yet to see it..



fixed it for ya 

edit: good call bear.  Didn't think of it that way.


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## n-ster (Oct 25, 2010)

minimum fps is what is important


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## jasper1605 (Oct 25, 2010)

n-ster said:


> minimum fps is what is important



indeed.  like when my ps3 drops to about 8 fps on super star dust hd in the 3d mode after beating the final planet.  I had a lol when I saw how slow it got


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## nt300 (Oct 27, 2010)

Benchmark results are very similar to other review sites, Good Job Wiz, and super fast HD 6870 Crossfire performance, better than HD 5970 monster too


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## Tatty_One (Oct 27, 2010)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> The scaling is near perfect



Lol, near perfect at 52% at 19XX res?, try half perfect, or 20% less than GTX460's at the same res (72%).  I love the performance figures, especially for some reason with the HD 6850's in crossfire, however I fundemenatally have an issue with any setup that in effect means I flush 48% of the value of the 2nd card down the toilet.


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## bear jesus (Oct 27, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> Lol, near perfect at 52% at 19XX res?, try half perfect, or 20% less than GTX460's at the same res (72%).  I love the performance figures, especially for some reason with the HD 6850's in crossfire, however I fundemenatally have an issue with any setup that in effect means I flush 48% of the value of the 2nd card down the toilet.



I think he is refering to the fact that multiple games get 100% scaling and other are at 80/90%+

Really the scaling percentage at the end of the review seams to be much lower than what would be expected when looking at the frame rate increase it gets with most games. 
In the 6850 crossfire review comments thread it's been pointed out that the scaling percentage of the games does not match up to the ingame numbers, i really have to wonder how the end percentage is worked out for it to be so much lower than expected when multiple games get upto 90 to 100% scaling


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## bear jesus (Oct 27, 2010)

Also zero wing did the same for the 6850 review thread, his results are whats quoted below.

"Scaling boost with Games (no Bench) @ 1920x1200 in crossfire 2 x 6850 config, (excluding call of juarez 2 for relevant driver issue) is +84,12%!

Scaling Boost including everything: Games,Bench, and also Call of Juarez 2, is: +75,8%"

I fail at working out percentages when it comes to something like this thus why i have not done it myself but it seams that either the numbers on both reviews or wrong or everyone is missing something that was included in the reviews that caused the numbers to be so much lower.

*edit*
i'm assumig the point still stands when you are done panther


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## pantherx12 (Oct 27, 2010)

Sorry for deleting my post, realised I messed up quite badly in a few places,was doing the maths last night as I was falling asleep lol

Gime 10mins and accurate figures will be up.


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## HTC (Oct 27, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> Lol, near perfect at 52% at 19XX res?, try half perfect, or 20% less than GTX460's at the same res (72%).  I love the performance figures, especially for some reason with the HD 6850's in crossfire, however I fundemenatally have an issue with any setup that in effect means I flush 48% of the value of the 2nd card down the toilet.



With the 6850, it was pointed out the 19XX res numbers were off, by quite a bit. Let's see if i can add it up:







97.4% increase here.






89.8% here.






99% here.






83.5% here.






-2% here: this game clearly doesn't scale @ all.






96.6% here.






80.5% here.






79.2% here.






100.9% here.






97.5% here.






84.6% here.






88.2% here.






70.9% here.






16% only here.






52.4% here.






45.5% here.


Does this not add up to 73.5%, *including Call of Juarez 2*? 78.5% if not.






Dunno where that 52% came up from but it seems that W1zz's math has had some problems: that or my math sucks.


EDIT

Adding remaining benches to the calculations:






90.7% here.






21.1% here.






22.1% here.






99.3% here.

All benches included, i get an average of 70.7%.


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## pantherx12 (Oct 27, 2010)

I Can't be bothered correcting this entire post, see correct numbers here  AMD Radeon HD 6870 CrossFire and 
here if you want 3dmark/unigine added to my calculations  AMD Radeon HD 6870 CrossFire


Here's my numbers corrected
27.1 - 53.5 AVP 97.41% scaling
52.9 - 100.4 BF:BC 89.79% scaling
42.7 - 85.0 Battleforge 99.06% scaling
115.8 - 212.5 COD4 83.50% scaling 
30 - 59 Crysis 96.66% scaling
112.9 - 203.8 DAWN of war 2 80.51% scaling
84.1 - 150.7 dirt 2 79.19% scaling
67.9 - 136.4 farcry 2 100.88% scaling
99.1 - 195.7 HAWX 97.47% scaling
20.1 - 47.1 metro2033 134.32% scaling
55.7 - 104.8 Riddick 88.15% scaling
41.3 - 70.6 stalker cs 70.94% scaling
148.2 - 225.9 UT3 52.42 scaling
67.7 - 98.5 wow 45.49% scaling

81.2 - 94.3 sucom 2 16.13% scaling
96.3 -98.3 COJ2 2.07% scaling

Will confirm average in just a moment : ]

Average excluding sucom2 and COJ2 86.842%

77.12% scaling including the them.


Also if you exclude UT3 and WOW ( tbh honest, why are these games in a crossfire review? lol)

93.15% scaling.


Just in-case I messed up again I used this tool http://www.csgnetwork.com/averagecalc.html and this one http://www.onlineconversion.com/percentcalc.htm to triple check everything.


Correct me if wrong of course!


Does seem wizz's graph is wrong though eh.


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## HTC (Oct 27, 2010)

pantherx12 said:


> Here's my numbers corrected
> 27.1 - 53.5 AVP 97.41% scaling
> 52.9 - 100.4 BF:BC 89.79% scaling
> 42.7 - 85.0 Battleforge 99.06% scaling
> ...



The one i marked out is wrong: it's 20.1 to 37.1 FPS.


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## bear jesus (Oct 27, 2010)

The increases within the benchmarks are what got me to order a pair of 6870's (arriving on friday ) if i had only looked at the scaling resluts at the end i would have never once even considered crossfire.

I really want to know why the reviews have it so much lower than everyone is working out, is there something included in the review that everyone is missing?


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## HTC (Oct 27, 2010)

bear jesus said:


> The increases within the benchmarks are what got me to order a pair of 6870's (arriving on friday ) if i had only looked at the scaling resluts at the end i would have never once even considered crossfire.
> 
> *I really want to know why the reviews have it so much lower than everyone is working out, is there something included in the review that everyone is missing?*



Dunno, really: maybe we're doing it wrong? My math skills aren't very good but i think i did this particular math properly.


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## bear jesus (Oct 27, 2010)

HTC said:


> Dunno, really: maybe we're doing it wrong? My math skills aren't very good but i think i did this particular math properly.



I really don't expect w1zzard to have got something wrong thus why i want to know if we are all missing something as multiple people are all working the numbers out to be higher than is listed on the scaling page of the review.


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## pantherx12 (Oct 27, 2010)

cheers for pointing that out, must of typod whilst editing and missed it.
we working things out then  lol


Okay with that in mind, excluding the games that don't scale well ( ut3 and below)
89.01% scaling
with wow/ut3 83.28 % scaling

Including all games 74.015% scaling.


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## HTC (Oct 27, 2010)

pantherx12 said:


> cheers for pointing that out, must of typod whilst editing and missed it.
> we working things out then  lol



No prob.

Just thought of something: what if he's including the 3DMark benches in his average increases?


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## pantherx12 (Oct 27, 2010)

HTC said:


> No prob.
> 
> Just thought of something: what if he's including the 3DMark benches in his average increases?





Adding that to calculations now : ]


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## Tatty_One (Oct 27, 2010)

yes I make it 73.5 ish, although I have rounded down to 100% on those couple that said slightly over 100, not quite sure how you can get 2 cards in crossfire performing more than twice as well as a single card.  it does seem strange how the calculation is made, although I am assuming the process would have been the same for the 460's in SLi.


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## pantherx12 (Oct 27, 2010)

Including all bench marks ( unigine and all 3d marks) scaling is 70.8685%

Although to be honest, considering games scaling so well and 3dmark doesn't to me shows it's no longer a relevant benchmark.


These are the numbers used for calculation
% scaling
97.41 AVP ( all these ones are in same order as tests)
89.79
99.06
83.5
96.66
80.51
79.19
100.88
97.47
84.57
88.15
70.94
52.42 UT3
45.49 WOW


16.13 sucom 2
2.07 COJ2


90.65 3d04
21.1 3d05
22.1 3d06
99.28 Unigine


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## discy (Oct 27, 2010)

bear jesus said:


> Even though the scaling is not that awesome in many games the fps are still great and makes me wonder how well a pair of these do with eyefinity.
> 
> Will TPU be able/willing to do some eyefinity benchmarks with crossfire 6870 eyefinity?



http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/ATI_Radeon_6870_6850_-_Featured_Review


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## nt300 (Oct 28, 2010)

HXL492 said:


> crossfire scaling is not too impressive...
> No wonder they kept it at a maximum of 2 cards lol



Umm, Crossfire scaling for the HD 6870 and HD 6850 is much better than Evergreen. Most if not all benchmarks including other sites they score almost double performance in Crossfire vs. the single HD 6870 card.


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## zekans (Nov 1, 2010)

Vipeax said:


> What happened here (note the 5970 & 6870 Crossfire performance)?
> 
> GTX 460 review:
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_460_HAWK/images/wow_2560_1600.gif
> ...



I believe the drivers are at fault, as far as I know these benchmarks where Crossfire destroys FPS were done with Catalyst 10.10 whilst the others were 10.7 or something.

Sadly I cant get 10.5-10.9 working on my new 6870 crossfire setup so I am stuck with rather bad FPS in WoW because of it. Hopefully AMD/ATI will pull the finger out and fix these drivers before I end up returning these and getting a 460 SLi setup.... if that turns out to be better I won't be returning to ATi anytime soon :S.

10.11 better fix it :/


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## W1zzard (Nov 1, 2010)

zekans said:


> I believe the drivers are at fault, as far as I know these benchmarks where Crossfire destroys FPS were done with Catalyst 10.10 whilst the others were 10.7 or something.



my 6850 and 6870 numbers were done on the 10.10 driver. if the 10.10 driver were magically doing something for cf then you would see that in the scores, which you apparently dont

we are using wow dx11 in this round of benchmarks, so maybe that caused the problem


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Nov 1, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> my 6850 and 6870 numbers were done on the 10.10 driver. if the 10.10 driver were magically doing something for cf then you would see that in the scores, which you apparently dont
> 
> we are using wow dx11 in this round of benchmarks, so maybe that caused the problem



Sorry if you explained this somewhere already, but I wondered how do you get a consistent testing environment for wow?


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## zekans (Nov 1, 2010)

You misread. I said that the 10.10 drivers are the cause of the FPS loss.

I've tried running my WoW in both dx9 and dx11 with no difference in fps when crossfire is enabled, like your benchmarks my 6870 crossfire setup actually performs worse than a single 6870.

However when I had my 5970 on 10.5 catalyst, I was getting far higher framerates than with this setup... My conclusion is the 10.10 are at fault, sadly I can't backdate drivers as they arent compatible with the 6 series cards it seems.


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## pantherx12 (Nov 1, 2010)

I think what's caused the problem, is WOW being crappy.

@ above guy, it must be something other than drivers, the nividia cards have taken a dive to.


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## zekans (Nov 1, 2010)

pantherx12 said:


> I think what's caused the problem, is WOW being crappy.
> 
> @ above guy, it must be something other than drivers, the nividia cards have taken a dive to.



The hit the Nvidia cards have seen are probably due to the new Liquid engine from patch 4.0.1 - it will obviously hinder fps abit, but nowhere near as much as the crossfire benchies are suggesting.

It's 10.10, typically ATi have screwed up yet another driver release, as I said 10.11 better be working as intended or the competition will be getting tougher for ATi.


Powerful hardware is great, but when you cant utalize that hardware then whats the point? :\


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## motasim (Nov 1, 2010)

zekans said:


> Powerful hardware is great, but when you cant utalize that hardware then whats the point? :\



... I have a great idea; how about AMD asks nVidia to code their drivers for them, and in return AMD can teach nVidia how to manufacture proper GPUs? ...  genius, right?  ...


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## Loosenut (Nov 1, 2010)

^


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## zekans (Nov 2, 2010)

So I just uninstalled catalyst 10.10 and installed the 10.10c hotfix - FPS in WoW has now doubled ))


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## N3M3515 (Nov 4, 2010)

Guys, for anyone interested to see eVGA GTX460 FTW SLI vs HD6870 CF here you go:
link


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## bear jesus (Nov 4, 2010)

N3M3515 said:


> Guys, for anyone interested to see eVGA GTX460 FTW SLI vs HD6870 CF here you go:
> link



It seams like most 6870's can get 1ghz core with a little more voltage, i wonder what the results would be like if both are overvolted to get the max clocks.


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## AsRock (Jan 14, 2011)

n-ster said:


> Don't just look at the overall guys, look at the demanding games and high resolution... The crossfire scaling is EXCELLENT
> 
> Do you really need to play Supreme Commander 2 at 1280x1024 at more than 120fps?



I just hope the 6970 can do about or better .  Any date on that yet ?.


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## wrongwei (Feb 6, 2011)

does anyone know about how this card scales in crossfire in a x16/x4 setup? i heard with some cards its pretty negligible like in that article about the 5870, while with other cards its even worse than just running a single card at x16. 
Running a 5870 at x4 offered 95% of the performance of a 5870 running at x16:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/25.html


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## n-ster (Feb 7, 2011)

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/25/gtx_480_sli_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x4x4


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## AsRock (Feb 7, 2011)

Shame there is no power consumption charts. Wish i had $50 to give w1z so he could get a ZM-MFC2 even if is total system usage at least there be some numbers then..  Maybe even a kilawatt .


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## Steevo (Feb 7, 2011)

AsRock said:


> Shame there is no power consumption charts. Wish i had $50 to give w1z so he could get a ZM-MFC2 even if is total system usage at least there be some numbers then..  Maybe even a kilawatt .



http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6950/27.html


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## AsRock (Feb 7, 2011)

Steevo said:


> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6950/27.html



umm. That just a single card though


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## n-ster (Feb 7, 2011)

In crossfire, can't you say the Maximum would just be double that of a single card? Same thing for idle.


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