HIS Radeon HD 6870 1 GB

[Thefumigator]

Is AMD asking HD 5870's prices? If not, argument-fail, it's not a rip-off. Read the review, please, not just browse through pictures and graphs.

+1

I believe people will take a look at the price, 5870 is 360$ and the 6870 is only 240$...

It doesn't sound like "oh no! there's a trick here! go for the 5870, is way better than the 6870 and is worth paying the extra 120$"...

In my opinion, with this release, at this price range, the 5850 and 5870 are completely DEAD. Nobody is going to pay the extra cash for such a small performance increase. C'mon guys. Thinking about it, I believe its a very smart move from the AMD side. I think that in the long run everybody will agree with this desition.

 

[HXL492]

+1
the barts chip is also smaller and has less shaders resulting in a lesser power consumption. it's pretty impressive that it was able to perform close to the 5870 in my opinion.

by the way, Wizard can you include the S.T.A.L.K.E.R Call of Pripyat benchmark?

 

[lism]

Good review.

The nominal power usage (avg 100 to 125Watts) for this card (furmark excepted) is really good compared to its previous generations.

This is a fixed up chip compared to the older series, with better improvements on tessalation. I can't recall this chip being a actual rebrand rather calling it 6850. Please wait for the higher end cards to come out, they should rock your shoes.

Nvidia tends to rename what supposed to be the 490GTX towards 580GTX to compete against these new cards.

 

[Phxprovost]

Is AMD asking HD 5870's prices? If not, argument-fail, it's not a rip-off. Read the review, please, not just browse through pictures and graphs.

yea because that logic makes it an ok practice, im sure AMD is totally not banking on consumers missing the price differance and assuming that the number scheme thats gone on for 5 generations is still going strong
Ot:
Great review, shit business tactics by amd

 

[angelkiller]

AMD couldn't get this core on 32nm so they were forced to improve Cypress on 40nm. 57xx cards are going to stay on the market. AMD has planned another core planned that will have higher performance than Barts called "Cayman".

As far as naming goes, AMD is in a funky situation. They can't call it 67xx series because that'll be confusing with the still-on-the-market 57xx series. And these cards don't fit anywhere in the 5 series at all. AMD did the best they could imo. The price clearly reflects performance. To all the "I hate everybody's naming scheme" people, what should this card be called?

Obviously, we're going to have to wait to see a successor to the 5870 series. But I do like AMD's strategy. The 58x0 series was always expensive and that's why the GTX 460 was so good at $200. $200 is a really big market and the 58xx series missed that price point. Specifically targeting this price point is a good idea. Especially when you have another card that will fill the $300+ category.

 

[Phxprovost]

should this card be called?

5860?

 

[Wile E]

I have to admit, I am very surprised by the performance knowing this is the mid range part.

And I also think the naming change is bullshit, but it's hit is lessened a great deal by the price.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

Great review, packaging looks kinda weak, but is standard for HIS, preformence was meh IMO.

 

[btarunr]

yea because that logic makes it an ok practice, im sure AMD is totally not banking on consumers missing the price differance and assuming that the number scheme thats gone on for 5 generations is still going strong
Ot:
Great review, shit business tactics by amd

Price difference is close to $150, it really is hard to miss.

 

[bear jesus]

Great review as always, i love how you have decided to do the increased voltage overclocking section

To be honest i was a little supprised by how well the 6870 performs, it gives me a lot of hope that the 6970 will be the card that suits my needs.

 

[Wyverex]

Awesome review and awesome card!

And, non-informed people rarely buy high-end GPUs anyway, yet alone upgrade every generation, so it's not that shady of a practice.
In the end, screw the name - look at the Performance over power graphs!

 

[red1414]

Eric,
The only way that this renaming is a problem is if you are incompetent. if it was the same price, that would be an attempt at a swindle. but as you can plainly see...they are not. and besides, if you are considering spending a couple hundreds bucks on a VGA, have a care... and ya know...read a review or two. I realize you think everything should always stay the same forever, but she don't always work out that way in life.

 

[VulkanBros]

Yes ... great review

Is´nt it odd that they have´nt released new drivers for the 68xx - I mean optimized for the 68xx cards....especially before reviewers begin testing???

 

[kajson]

I'm not too happy about the changing in the numbering, just because it makes things less logical for people in here who give a damn about vid cards in the first place.

But as to consumer being misleaded, not really because most buying a high end vid card will know exactly what they are buying and people blindly buying these cards will have bought a card that at this moment has roughly 98% of performance for 70% of the price, which isn't really getting screwed is it. You still get premium updated newest technology(which 6 series implies), no 2007 cards being sold 2010 series numbering.

I am expecting these cards to perform equally to the 58xx equivalents and better at dx11 tasks after a couple of driver updates.



However from what I've read in the reviews, people coming here will mostly not buy one with a stock cooler on it. And in that matter AMD has made an error I think.
Also I would've expected the dx11 perfomance increase to be a bit bigger, as it was the clear weak point in the previous series.

 

[wahdangun]

wow great price/performance, lets the price wars II begin, its just like HD 48XX era again and i love it (although the new naming scheme was suck)

 

[burtram]

These are really nice looking cards, but i am glad i got my 460 when i did, it's a beast of an overclocker and the adobe suite seems to really like it, so it's quite nice. Though i am really looking forward to the 6950/6970 review. Going to build a new pc soon enough, would love to grab a 6950, if the price/performance is right.

 

[Bobington]

Did you bother to check if it's possible to overclock the cards while using more than one monitor; which could not be done with 5xxx until 10.5?

Did you run into the cursor bug, which is still a problem with the 5xxx line as of 10.9a. Run into any GSODs? Is AA or Vsync working on most games?

You want us to take it on faith that AMD magically fixed everything?

 

[Yukikaze]

Impressive little beasts. They did, however, reinforce my belief that buying my GTX470s when I was stateside was the right choice (instead of waiting for them and buying DX11 cards for 100% higher prices here).

 

[pantherx12]

Hey Wiz, can you do me something lovely, and let me know if the mounting holes are like 5770/4770 or if they are like 5870/4870 please.

Very important factor in my buying decision.

 

[W1zzard]

Hey Wiz, can you do me something lovely, and let me know if the mounting holes are like 5770/4770 or if they are like 5870/4870 please.

Very important factor in my buying decision.

grab my high res shots and overlay them in photoshop

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

460 power consumption with 470 performance... AMD really is a step ahead now.

Edit* Just saw the overclocking part... a $240 card that overclocks to 480 speeds BEFORE voltage tweaks? I'd still buy nvidia because of driver and feature preference, but damn does AMD make me feel like I'm missing out.

 

[Mescalamba]

Hm.. must say, its nice graphic card, but that naming scheme seriously sux.. AMD is fortunate that we kinda dont have that much choice.

Its either nVidia, which does this naming juggling all-the-time or AMD which it does now.. Can I have honest 3rd graphic card manufacturer please?

 

[pantherx12]

grab my high res shots and overlay them in photoshop

My rig is dead, I'm borrowing a crappy laptop.

Anyone willing to do this for me?

 

[bear jesus]

My rig is dead, I'm borrowing a crappy laptop.

Anyone willing to do this for me?

Just swapping between the high res 5770, 5870 and 6870 pic's in the TPU reviews they all look like they have different spacing on the mounting holes, is the spacing and location what you wanted to know?

 

[Valdez]

What are the idle clocks, idle power consumption and idle temps when overclocked?