HIS Radeon HD 6970 2 GB

[Benetanegia]

Wow. I bet Charlie Demerjian is having a coronary right now trying to figure a way to spin this.

lol +1

 

[qubit]

I'm so disappointed. It can't even beat the hot and bothered last gen GTX 480. :shadedshu It looks like AMD needs to hire some better engineers.

I was hoping that it would be very competitive with the GTX 580, so that the price of this card would come down and we might see a price war. Can't see this happening now.

 

[Lionheart]

Words cannot describe these cards are fail in my eyes big time nah just kidding, they are not exciting performance but it looks like crossfire is where its at, seems more like a new architecture experiment to me, oh well Im glad I don't have to wait anymore for the reviews, I can finally decide on what card I want

Great reviews Wizz

 

[DarkOCean]

Being a new architecture i bet it would get better and better with new drivers remember gtx 480 when it was out for the the first time it barelly beat a 5870 or even get beaten by it ; anyway 6950 looks the better one in therms of efficiency .
28nm for me.

 

[Red_Machine]

Oh my god, that's the funniest thing I've seen all month.

Thanks for giving the big thimbs up to the 580, W1zz!

 

[streetfighter 2]

I find it amusing that the w1z didn't use his own utility, Sapphire TRiXX, to increase the voltage. (I'm sure there are legal/business reasons why but it's still kinda ironic.)

I know everyones disappointed that it isn't the performance beast we were all hoping for, but it's considerably cheaper than the GTX 480 and it performs similarly.

 

[W1zzard]

I find it amusing that the w1z didn't use his own utility, Sapphire TRiXX, to increase the voltage. (I'm sure there are legal/business reasons why but it's still kinda ironic.)

the simple reason is that i dont have a datasheet for that controller, so i have no clue how to program it, which means i can't change voltage. and no, i have my own awesome internal oc utilities

 

[Over_Lord]

After all the hype, that was somewhat disappointing. Ah well, such is life.

AMD epic disappointment, hope they dont go the HD2000 way from here again man that would be SUCH A BUMMER.

 

[W1zzard]

Can someone please clarify why some performance numbers vary between when you reviewed the card, and when you're comparing against them? Specifically, when you reviewed the 6850 at 1920 on Metro, it got 18.5fps. But when it's compared in your new review, it shows as 13.4fps.

from the review test setup page, which you might have missed: "Benchmark scores in other reviews are only comparable when this exact same configuration is used."

I have added a version number to the test system. right now it's "Test System - VGA Rev. 12", look at that when trying to compare stuff.

for the case of metro 2033: rebench, different level, game patched, new drivers, using benchmark tool, different settings

 

[Tatty_Two]

I find it amusing that the w1z didn't use his own utility, Sapphire TRiXX, to increase the voltage. (I'm sure there are legal/business reasons why but it's still kinda ironic.)

I know everyones disappointed that it isn't the performance beast we were all hoping for, but it's considerably cheaper than the GTX 480 and it performs similarly.

But more expensive than the GTX 570 which also performs similarily, it's fairly safe to say therefore that the GTX 480 is on It's way. I find this sad that there is not more performance but to be honest, i didnt expect it, those that do/did just became too embroiled in the hype of discussion threads on "what might be", this is a damn fast card at a decent price, it will have to come down in price a little if AMD wants to make some money on it..... and it will, when it does plenty will jump on it.

Lastly, there must be one or two very red faced members who posted in the 6900 series discussion threads who offered up 101 reasons why this card was going to be a GTX 580 killer and accused anyone who disagreed with them as being fanboi's, I kept waway from the thread for that very reason..... hope is a great thing and we all have it, however reality is very different and often kicks you up the ar*e!!

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

I guess I could stand the $20 price premium over the 570 due to the memory sizes. Though honestly I'm skipping this whole gen. The lack of die shrink has made the improvements so minimal on all cards that unless you didn't own a 5000 or 400 series it's a true waste to "upgrade". I'll pick up a 28/32nm card and cross my fingers we never get shafted by another die shrink hold up again... or maybe hope that we do. Then I don't have to upgrade as often. Not like we'd miss out if improvements slowed, as long as we're getting stuck with console ports.

Side note, again a poor clocking HIS sample. Starting to think there's something off with their cards, as other reviews have pushed well beyond those numbers... not to mention in past multi card reviews here they're normally the weakest clockers.

 

[R3DF13LD]

Nice review as always wiz
btw it's like mobo now eh?
flashing bios and all sort of stuff

 

[pantherx12]

Why is everyone still bitching and moaning, this is still an epic card regardless of what brand you prefer.

Price is good as well, should be same price as 570s in the UK and from the looks of it after 10.12 drivers games that were getting silly low fps should match the 570 should it should just be a feature set buying choice after that.

Whilst I wanted a 580 beater this is fine too, thanks for review wiz!


By the way folks, remember there is other reviews on the web! I happpen to prefer hardocp take on things.

"Both of these new AMD GPUs look to be incredible values. Never before has any GPU delivered so much gaming performance at such a low cost. If you have been waiting for the time to upgrade and are more than a generation back, that upgrade time has now come. The AMD Radeon HD 6950 and AMD Radeon HD 6970 are both tremendous values. "

 

[pr0n Inspector]

looks like the 570 is a better deal, considering CUDA.

 

[Red_Machine]

"Both of these new AMD GPUs look to be incredible values. Never before has any GPU delivered so much gaming performance at such a low cost. If you have been waiting for the time to upgrade and are more than a generation back, that upgrade time has now come. The AMD Radeon HD 6950 and AMD Radeon HD 6970 are both tremendous values. "

Sounds like fanboyism to me. The 580 & 570 are better performers all round, no-one who purely went on performance would recommend the 6900 series. And the cost? Not much cheaper than a 580, and more expensive than the better performing 570.

 

[pantherx12]

Sounds like fanboyism to me. The 580 & 570 are better performers all round, no-one who purely went on performance would recommend the 6900 series. And the cost? Not much cheaper than a 580, and more expensive than the better performing 570.

Having read more than one review, all I can say is the cards are wrecking shit for the price dude

+ new drivers ( you can see games having obvious problems that there shouldn't be in wiz's review, for example cards being outperformed by 5870 and 5850 ) the average performance graph would actually be in the 6870s favour not the 570 ( not by much) the cards are head to head and as far as I can see are the same price in the UK.

So then it's down to feature sets, and for me the 6970 is the better choice due to crossfire scaling and eyefinity.

But what ever, I see how you post there always seem a wee bit o bias towards one side which is cool I'm not fussed, just means I won't be willing to say anything more than what I've just said


For price ref
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-026-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-032-PV&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1010

both cheapest non sale prices on the same site.

Don't just take what the review says as gospel, google some stuff for yourself as well the $50 difference is in the US, not here.

 

[pr0n Inspector]

10.12 saves the wrold?
HWC disagrees.

For price ref
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-026-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-032-PV&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1010

both cheapest non sale prices on the same site.

Don't just take what the review says as gospel, google some stuff for yourself as well the $50 difference is in the US, not here.

So why are the UK prices so important? Using your logic one could simply say "... is in the UK, not here."

 

[Red_Machine]

So then it's down to feature sets, and for me the 6970 is the better choice due to crossfire scaling and eyefinity.

Does that make up for the lack of PhysX and CUDA? I'm sorry, but having to buy an extra card just to be able to do PhysX is not on in my opinion.

 

[_JP_]

Great review!
Sounds disappointing, but I'll want for mature drivers and AIB revisions.
Now, if AMD wants this card to be more competitive by January (or whenever will the GTX560 be launched), they should let AIB make modifications to the card, pronto (I'm looking at you ASUS, MSI and Sapphire). Maybe by then the cards will be more competitive, I mean, as competitive as they should have been now.

 

[TAViX]

You guys forget one thing. Even AMD stated a couple of months ago that the 6xxx series is not a new generation but an evolution to the previews architecture. The new arch. is suppose to come next year with improved performance. So yes, I kinda expect this type of performance, I'm not disappointed because we already knew this was coming.

Does that make up for the lack of PhysX and CUDA? I'm sorry, but having to buy an extra card just to be able to do PhysX is not on in my opinion.

Now that's a typical FANBOY post...

 

[pantherx12]

Does that make up for the lack of PhysX and CUDA? I'm sorry, but having to buy an extra card just to be able to do PhysX is not on in my opinion.

Yeah , I have a 9600gt for phsyx and don't run any cuda apps.

So why are the UK prices so important? Using your logic one could simply say "... is in the UK, not here."

I live in the UK so based my buying decisions based on the price here and not in the US? makes sense to me.

 

[toyo]

I cannot believe this... why did they pushed this garbage on the market after all the "we are going to release the best single GPU solution!" stuff. A 480 without CUDA/Physx? No no no AMD, c'mon guys, what the hell were you thinking?

This is the worst release since the 3800 stuff!

Damn, I just wish I could join the party at Nvidia right now. I bet it's pretty wild!

Thank you for the review...

 

[bear jesus]

i was considering a 6950 or maybe a 6970 but the 6870 is close enough to the 6950 that I'm sure these is hardly a noticeable difference in game between an overclocked 6870 and 6950 so unless future drivers push up the performance a bit i can't really see there being any major reason to upgrade right now

I still damn Nvidia for not adding the ability to run 3 monitors on one card with the 580, if they had then they could have had my money.

For now i will wait and see what the 69xx cards can do with more voltage but unless the 6950 while over volted can pull further away from 6870 oc/volted i don't see a new gpu for me any time soon.

 

[Tatty_Two]

I still damn Nvidia for not adding the ability to run 3 monitors on one card with the 580, if they had then they could have had my money.

I suppose to them it was a cost > demand thing, adding the technology would have brought the price up for all when only a minority would enjoy the benefit..... i am not suggesting that is the right way to go, just the fact that it seems it's the way they decided to go.

 

[bear jesus]

I suppose to them it was a cost > demand thing, adding the technology would have brought the price up for all when only a minority would enjoy the benefit..... i am not suggesting that is the right way to go, just the fact that it seems it's the way they decided to go.

True, i do understand why it was not something that was added and even more so as the 580 is really just a fully working gf100 in a way thus adding extra features to it would have effected the time taken to get the new chips ready and it would not have been worth any kind of delay just to add triple monitor compatibility.

Plus i suppose tiple monitor is mainly seen as a high end thing that if you have the money for you have the money for another cad... even if my 3 monitors combined cost a lot less than a 580

For now i will hold on to the hope that the 6xx cards from nvidia support 3 monitors on one card and keep an eye on the 69xx cards for voltage adjustments updates and to see how future drivers do with them but after reading more reviews i see the 6950 as a viable option to people who do not own 58xx or 68xx cards and similar powered card from nvidia.