HIS Radeon HD 6870 1 GB

[CDdude55]

User: Eric Cartman

eVGA GTX 460 768MB overclocked to 815Mhz Core 975Mhz Memory


User: Qubit


Zotac GTX 285


The two Nvidia assclowns in the thread are crying about a well published rename name change for a new series of card, where you get more for less? Amazing.

What kind of video cards they own shouldn't determine whether or not they're fanboy's. Then again, i have considering you a heavy fanboy before and your system is all AMD, so maybe there is some truth to it lol.

The new naming scheme is in fact shit for those how have gotten used to the older naming scheme for the past 3 generations, but really it's not that bad once you get used to it. It's just a matter of adjusting to it.

 

[bear jesus]

What kind of video cards they own shouldn't determine whether or not they're fanboy's. Then again, i have considering you a heavy fanboy before and your system is all AMD, so maybe there is some truth to it lol.

The new naming scheme is in fact shit for those how have gotten used to the older naming scheme for the past 3 generations, but really it's not that bad once you get used to it. It's just a matter of adjusting to it.

I agree that just because you own a brand of hardware does not make you a fanboy.
I was pissed at AMD for the name change and still kind of disagree that it was a good idea but It's something i'm rapidly getting used to... even more so as i have ordered 2 6870's
I may have owned a lot of AMD hardware recently but i don't consider myself a fanboy, i keep swapping between intel, AMD, nvidia also ati and 3dfx before they were eaten by AMD and nvidia it just happens that AMD has given me what i wanted recently.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

I usually judge fanboyism on absurd skewering of available information. For instance I did find qubit basing an argument on a 1% performance difference between the 6870 and 470 a bit silly. Personally I'll rip on both companies for what they deserve to be ripped on for. AMD for driver and card batch issues, nvidia for architecture problems and forcing the industry away from standards, hurting the consumer with crap like "physx".

 

[Steevo]

What kind of video cards they own shouldn't determine whether or not they're fanboy's. Then again, i have considering you a heavy fanboy before and your system is all AMD, so maybe there is some truth to it lol.

The new naming scheme is in fact shit for those how have gotten used to the older naming scheme for the past 3 generations, but really it's not that bad once you get used to it. It's just a matter of adjusting to it.

I wasn't saying anything about Nvidia, other than the people who are ripping AMD for this move have no intention of buying, using, or trying these cards, they are posting just for the sake of being a assclown.

I owned almost all Intel systems since my first coppermine, and the only reason I switched was the damn P4 presshott bullshit. I built all C2D systems untill AMD got their pricing right, and use Nvidia cards where I find them a better option, and my first AMD build was based on a Nforce chipset, and I loved it.



I use AMD as when I was going for my build it was the biggest bang for the buck, longest supported platform (AM2 socket) and my 4850 1GB was enough to play my game of choice (GTA4) well.

Since I have replaced a CPU, GPU and still have all the same hardware, minus I upgraded RAM too.

Fanboi? No, dictated by what my wallet will allow. I won't pay the extra for a delusional benefit like CUDA/Physx. Currently my system does everything I want it to, better than the competition.


I was saving for a 480, but when the delays, lies, and other shit came down. I bought my 5870 for cheap and have never been happier.

 

[dir_d]

I agree that just because you own a brand of hardware does not make you a fanboy.
I was pissed at AMD for the name change and still kind of disagree that it was a good idea but It's something i'm rapidly getting used to... even more so as i have ordered 2 6870's
I may have owned a lot of AMD hardware recently but i don't consider myself a fanboy, i keep swapping between intel, AMD, nvidia also ati and 3dfx before they were eaten by AMD and nvidia it just happens that AMD has given me what i wanted recently.

oh bear....you really should have got the 6850's and OCed them to 950+

 

[Bobington]

I usually judge fanboyism on absurd skewering of available information. For instance I did find qubit basing an argument on a 1% performance difference between the 6870 and 470 a bit silly. Personally I'll rip on both companies for what they deserve to be ripped on for. AMD for driver and card batch issues, nvidia for architecture problems and forcing the industry away from standards, hurting the consumer with crap like "physx".

Except the things you're ripping Nvidia for are false.

 

[erocker]

The posts pointed towards others, going into nuances about the competition and general "fanboy" talk will end now. Let this be a post warning all of those heading down this path. This is a review for the HD 6870, please keep your posts on the topic of the review and/or the card being reviewed.

Thank you.

 

[streetfighter 2]

This thread is a train wreck. :shadedshu

I still haven't received an answer to my question earlier in the thread. Does anyone know what kind of MOSFETs this board is using? I can't read the labels even with the huge picture and they clearly aren't power MOSFETs or digital VRMs. I'd really like to know because I've never seen power chips that looked like that before.

Will Barts replace the current Juniper in mobile high end too?

That's a damn good question and I certainly hope so. The extra power savings of Barts over the Cypress core makes them a logical replacement for the aging fleet of Juniper based Mobility cards. On the other hand it's not like they could directly drop any existing Barts chip into a mini-PCIe card without suffering a huge clock speed loss.

I'd love to hear from ATI about their plans to update the Mobility series. My best guess is that AMD will wait to switch to 32nm (or less) and then die shrink Barts for the Mobility series.

 

[Jaffakeik]

only thing i can say about HIS company dont buy it,becuase I had 1 HIS 4870X2 it broke down,than they sended me another one and it broke down aswell after month.

 

[T3kl0rd]

I paid less than this for my GTX 470s. Glad I bought them. Interesting cards but the naming scheme can be confusing to some. HD 69xx series is the one to watch for me.

 

[bear jesus]

oh bear....you really should have got the 6850's and OCed them to 950+

I could have but the only ones avalible were the non blower style cooers and that was something i really wanted as i can stand a bit of noise for good cooling, i wanted the extra vrm phase and 6 pin connector in the hope that it will help me get to 1ghz or even a little more if i'm lucky. Along with the extra 360 sp's it was worth the extra £40 to me.

Also I hope the extra 360 sp's will help out a little with running at 5040x1050.

 

[imperialreign]

First off - great review w1z, as always!

The price argument fails.
Because it isn't that hard for the consumer to see the higher price and just assume it is either price wrong, or priced high because it is from the previous generation.

Look at the GTX 285 it is priced higher than the GTX 460 despite being a weaker card.

Simply because it is left over from the previous generation where it carried a high price tag.

Everyone is saying this is a mid-range card like I don't know that.

My point is that it is not NAMED like a mid-range card.

It is named like a high end card.

The first number always tells us the generation which is 6 in this case with the previous generation being 5.

The second number tells us if it is mid-range high end or low end.

An 8 signifies high end.

If there are 9 numbers 1 through 9, then 8 and 9 are the high end while 5 6 and 7 are mid-range.

Anyone that can count can figure out why that is.

Naming a mid-range card with a high end name is deceptive.

I'm just curious . . . but how did you feel when ATI changed from their X1000 and X100 naming schemes to the current HD nomenclature?

Surely, the move from X1000, X1300 and X1600, to HD2400 and HD2600 and X1800 and X1900 to HD2900 must've been confusing? Then another change-up to for the HD3000 series, right (HD2900 to HD3870). Not to mention numerous sub-sets of card models that were dropped entirelly. The list of X1000 series cards is extensive as hell, and there were quite a few incarnations for the HD2000 series; and that's not even taking into account the X700 and X800 series, and how those carried over. The current naming scheme didn't come about until the HD3000 series, which was only a couple of years ago.

Companies need to revise their product naming now and then, and many times that involves restructuring the current naming scheme to make room for newer models. The current HD scheme (carrying over from the HD5000 series) now includes a HDx9xxx bracket - which is aimed at being the high-performance models. To make room for that, everything gets bumped down one notch.

It's not rocket science, nor is it a reflection of a company trying to dupe any customers via using confusing tactics. Quite honestly, if one thinks about it for a quick second, it's the only solution that makes sense without having to try and devise a whole new naming scheme - which could actually be even more confusing than changing up the current listings. All things considered, it's nowhere near as bad as the constant rebadging lineup shuffles of some other hardware manufacturers.

 

[wolf]

That's a damn good question and I certainly hope so. The extra power savings of Barts over the Cypress core makes them a logical replacement for the aging fleet of Juniper based Mobility cards. On the other hand it's not like they could directly drop any existing Barts chip into a mini-PCIe card without suffering a huge clock speed loss.

I'd love to hear from ATI about their plans to update the Mobility series. My best guess is that AMD will wait to switch to 32nm (or less) and then die shrink Barts for the Mobility series.

Getting faster and faster chips into any system is always good IMO, but I think it will take a die shrink for AMD to consider a mobility barts option. IMO a Juniper based mobility chip in a laptop is a butload of horsepower as it is, especially for 1600x900 and smaller res's. currently I use a redwood based mobility 5650 (half of juniper and no GDDR5) and I can play just about any game maxxed with AA @ 1366x768.

I do await the day you can just rock up at a lan with a reasonable, not over the top, gaming laptop and just plow hardcore competitive games. I think Barts could do just that.

problem is even Barts pro, in the vicinity of ~125w is still way too high to go mobility, they need to shave that down to something like 50w, for the whole board, which to me means 28nm and sacrificing clockspeeds somewhat greatly.

 

[MikeX]

wow It beats gtx 460 with less transistorz and it is cheaper than 5870 only that getting beat by 5870 only a couple times in a tiny bit
I think overclock limit is just too low

 

[Hayder_Master]

nice to see BFBC2 in tests w1z , awesome work

 

[wolf]

wow It beats gtx 460 with less transistorz and it is cheaper than 5870 only that getting beat by 5870 only a couple times in a tiny bit
I think overclock limit is just too low

It is a pity about the 6870 overclocks, but it's pretty much just like Cypress, the 5870 and 5850 can generally speaking, overclock to roughly the same clockspeeds, making the cheaper/slower card, the more attractive option.

and remember that not all of a GTX460 core is active, and Nvidia went for lower clocks than they couldhave, most likely saving that as their new answer to the 6800's whhich we will seen soon enough IMO with higher default clockspeeds, and 384 sp's instead of 336.

a cursory glance at the numbers suggests that a GF104, with all 384 sp's active, clocked around 750mhz roughly matches the on-paper numbers of a GTX470, and they could price it easily between $199 and $239.

the next 3-6 months are going to ROCK if you love your GPU's

 

[Super XP]

It's nice to see the HD 6870 keep up quite well with the HD 5870 and beat out the HD 5850 completely. Good job ATI... Now bring on the HD 6900 series.

 

[btarunr]

The new naming scheme is in fact shit for those how have gotten used to the older naming scheme for the past 3 generations, but really it's not that bad once you get used to it. It's just a matter of adjusting to it.

People who "have gotten used to the older naming scheme for the past 3 generations" (which means they're buying video cards since 2006) are smart enough to understand video cards, their market positioning, can choose their own video cards, and won't care what it's named.

 

[air_ii]

Why all the fuss about the naming? It's not like they renamed Juniper to 6870... It might be confusing for some, but then you have reviews, which people tend to read before a buy like this.

I'm not a fan of the new naming myself, but you can't compare it to 8800->9800 case, as it's actually a new product naming scheme, not renaming an old product.

Anyway, why not focus on the card instead? It is a worthwile option if you're moving to DX11 world, isn't it?

 

[CDdude55]

People who "have gotten used to the older naming scheme for the past 3 generations" (which means they're buying video cards since 2006) are smart enough to understand video cards, their market positioning, can choose their own video cards, and won't care what it's named.

That's a bit of an over generalization actually, people who have been buying cards since '06 know that scheme by heart because it's what they're used to, not everyone who has followed hardware that long can easily adjust to a sudden name change with a sudden performance difference(believe it or not). And again, read the rest of my post. It's really just a matter of getting used to it to it and adjusting. Also people who have been buying videos card since '06 doesn't somehow mean they understand the naming scheme or performance of the cards, i've seen people by video cards for years and yet they since don't comprehend what video card is what, they just want the one that's cheap and sounds like it can play games, as that's all they care about, and they know if the number is higher it's got to be better.

 

[bear jesus]

To me (just recently remembering) the x900, x1950 and 2900 it seams ati started with x9xx as the top end then switched it to x8xx when they stopped aiming for an all out king of the hill chip and it's now going back to x9xx.... could that mean something?

 

[erocker]

To me (just recently remembering) the x900, x1950 and 2900 it seams ati started with x9xx as the top end then switched it to x8xx when they stopped aiming for an all out king of the hill chip and it's now going back to x9xx.... could that mean something?

That was just the point I was about to make. AMD just fixed the naming scheme that ATi broke back in late 2007. Again, if you make any purchase without doing a bit of research (in the age of internetz) your purchasing "mistake" is on you.

 

[bear jesus]

That was just the point I was about to make. AMD just fixed the naming scheme that ATi broke back in 2008.

The thing that makes me wonder though is did ATI dropped it down to x8xx when they stopped aiming for the most powerful single chip as if they did it kind of makes sense that AMD are going back to the x9xx if they are going for a really powerful single chip this time?

 

[erocker]

The thing that makes me wonder though is did ati drop it down to x8xx when they stop aiming for the most powerful single chip as if they did it kind of makes sense that if amd are going back to the x9xx if they are going for a really powerful single chip this time?

This is what I'm thinking.

 

[bear jesus]

This is what I'm thinking.

I really hope that's right, i dislike dual card setups so i wont be holding on to my 6870's for long and i really want the 6970 be more powerful than a pair of 6870's, if not then i really hope the 580 is something special (that can also do 3 monitors on one card)