HIS Radeon HD 6870 1 GB

[W1zzard]

Today AMD released their new Radeon HD 6870. The card brings new features like HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2 which allow up to six displays to be connected to a single card. Performance has also been substantially increased and power draw reduced. But is this enough to defeat NVIDIA's latest offerings ?

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[DanishDevil]

I love the voltage tuning section. This will even further distinguish our reviews from everyone else's. Great job W1zz!

 

[Batou1986]

I love the voltage tuning section. This will even further distinguish our reviews from everyone else's. Great job W1zz!

+1 the voltage/core/temp chart is awesome i think it will be extremely useful when comparing the same cards from different manufacturers

 

[alexsubri]

Yea, +2 ...there aren't that many review sites (that I know of) that have voltage charts

 

[CDdude55]

Pretty impressive card for a great price.

Definitely not much of an upgrade over my current 470 unfortunately, so i shall be awaiting the 6900 series reviews(and whatever Nvidia has out at the time) in the near future.

 

[dir_d]

These cards scale pretty well to voltage. I cant wait till someone pushes them far. Good job w1zz this is a great card, cant wait for the 69xx reviews.

 

[Eric_Cartman]

It is totally stupid that the HD 6870 performs worse than the HD 5870.

That is totally deceptive and just AMD trying to rip customers off.

People are going to buy HD 6870 cards thinking they are getting an upgrade and find out performance is worse.

This is worse than the nVidia renaming BS.

At least when nVidia did it you got the same performance.

But AMD doing this naming shit means people are totally going to be deceived.

Shame on you AMD!

 

[CDdude55]

It is totally stupid that the HD 6870 performs worse than the HD 5870.

You should just be mad at the naming scheme, as the 6800 series isn't meant to beat the 5800 series. So it's not stupid considering it's a mid-range card.

 

[WarEagleAU]

Wow totally impressed me with this review. It performed a lot better than I thought it would and even at a respectable price point. I cant wait to see the how the higher end cards perform. I thought with the lower shaders it would be trumped but it looks like the rework has fixed a lot of those issues. Thanks Wizz.

 

[mdsx1950]

Very very nice card for the price! It's right next to the HD5870 being a mid-range card. If only it had 4-way CFX.

 

[Eric_Cartman]

You should just be mad at the naming scheme, as the 6800 series isn't meant to beat the 5800 series. So it's not stupid considering it's a mid-range card.

Yes the naming scheme is what is stupid.

It is clearly just AMD trying to make the cards seem better than they really are by putting a higher number on them.

It was bad when nVidia did it with the 8800GT/9800GT but at least then the performance was the same and not worse.

AMDs move is much worse because the performance isn't even the same.

There is absolutely no reason they shouldn't have named these the HD 6700 series.

The 8 has always signified high end not mid-range.

 

[entropy13]

Yes the naming scheme is what is stupid.

It is clearly just AMD trying to make the cards seem better than they really are by putting a higher number on them.

They just moved everything up a notch. The previously x700 series is now the x800 series. The previously x800 series would now be the x900 series (which was previously not used except for the 5970, i.e. only once). No deception of "seemingly better performance", just confusion. There were never any mention that the 6800 series would be the replacement of the 5800 series anyway.

It was bad when nVidia did it with the 8800GT/9800GT but at least then the performance was the same and not worse.

Of course it was the same because it was the same card.

In this case these are two different cards from the 5850 and 5870.

AMDs move is much worse because the performance isn't even the same.

Of course the performance isn't the same! It's a mid-range v. a high-end!

There is absolutely no reason they shouldn't have named these the HD 6700 series.

They opted to keep the 5700 series as the 6700 series.

The 8 has always signified high end not mid-range.

Starting now, not anymore.

Following your logic, the 9 has always signified....nothing because it was never used (3870X2, not 3970. 4870X2, not 4970). But then there was just one card in the previous generation (5970) that came, so might as well use the 9 for a whole series in the next generation.

 

[KainXS]

they're not intended to replace the HD5870, these are the replacements for the midrange, ie the 5770, the 6950, and 6970 will replace the high end 5850, and 5870 we have now.

in that respect based on these cards which perform as good as the 5870 in most cases(only slightly slower), the HD6970 could be a real monster and these a pretty cheap too.

 

[morphy]

AMDs move is much worse because the performance isn't even the same.

...and neither is the price. 5870=$350 vs. 6870=$240. Clearly they're not in the same class pricewise and performancewise.

 

[Silverel]

Cartman is right. Branding these as the 6800 series is extremely misleading, they're not the same kind of X800 series performance as we're used to and it's the same BS that nVidia did with the 88/9800 series of cards.

Moves like this are shitty. Period. Anyone trying to justify this move has forgotten why we complained about it when nVidia did the same damn thing.

 

[qubit]

It is totally stupid that the HD 6870 performs worse than the HD 5870.

That is totally deceptive and just AMD trying to rip customers off.

People are going to buy HD 6870 cards thinking they are getting an upgrade and find out performance is worse.

This is worse than the nVidia renaming BS.

At least when nVidia did it you got the same performance.

But AMD doing this naming shit means people are totally going to be deceived.

Shame on you AMD!

+1 Eric

I've seen the comments explaining how the whole number range has been shifted up a notch due to increased performance, but I don't buy it. I think AMD is cashing in on the confusion.

It would make perfect sense to call this the 6770 or something, so that it's clear that it's an improved 5770, have the 6870 as the high end and 6970 as the ultra high end, like before.

Regardless, this seems to be a very nice card, except for the fan noise. Why is it with successive cards AMD can't get this right? My reference GTX 285 is really quiet* regardless of how hard I push it and is a very important performance parameter for me. The last thing I want is to replace it with a noisy card and then have to spend extra for a third party cooler and void the warranty. This applies to AMD & nvidia equally.

*Except when it's full of dust!

 

[johnnyfiive]

Fantastic review again Wizz, awesome card for the money.

 

[KainXS]

in a way it is amd trying to bank slightly on confusion but is it worst than nvidia, last time i remember I remember nvidia and its partners renamed the 8800GS to 9600GSO then remade the card 4 times and then banked on confusion before discontinuing it.
8800GS ->9600GSO(962SP 12ROP) -> 9600GSO(48SP 16ROP) -> 9600GSO(48SP 8ROP) 9600GSO(48SP 4ROP)
the end result was a card with less than half the performance of the original.

 

[btarunr]

Yes the naming scheme is what is stupid.

It is clearly just AMD trying to make the cards seem better than they really are by putting a higher number on them.

It was bad when nVidia did it with the 8800GT/9800GT but at least then the performance was the same and not worse.

AMDs move is much worse because the performance isn't even the same.

There is absolutely no reason they shouldn't have named these the HD 6700 series.

The 8 has always signified high end not mid-range.

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.

 

[erocker]

in a way it is amd trying to bank slightly on confusion but is it worst than nvidia, last time i remember I remember nvidia and its partners renamed the 8800GS to 9600GSO then remade the card 4 times and then banked on confusion before discontinuing it.
8800GS ->9600GSO(962SP 12ROP) -> 9600GSO(48SP 16ROP) -> 9600GSO(48SP 8ROP) 9600GSO(48SP 4ROP)
the end result was a card with less than half the performance of the original.

I agree it could be confusing for some. AMD did have a reason other than confusion considering they need to make room in their lineup for the slew of Fusion parts that are also going to have the 6XXX moniker. We'll know the "truth" once the entire 6 series is released from top to bottom. I don't believe it's been officially stated that the 57xx series will actually be the 67xx series as of yet.

 

[f22a4bandit]

Great review, W1zz. Like I've said before, your writing is very refreshing for a technology piece. I've run across my fair share of reviewers that didn't use correct grammar.

This whole "change is bad" attitude is complete nonsense. These cards, as stated by AMD multiple times, and in these reviews, are meant to be a performance/price sweet spot, and not a direct replacement for the 58xx series. If AMD didn't inform the public in a clear and precise manner then people might have an excuse to flame them. However, AMD released a card that is performing this well, and a consumer not reading reviews or news on the name switch has no right to say they were duped. Ignorance is not an excuse.

 

[v12dock]

Wow awesome 5770 successor

 

[Delta6326]

nice performance but this thing is as hot as a 480!? we need some after market coolers now

 

[streetfighter 2]

I guess those are something like I²C driver-MOSFETs left of the chokes (below the CHL8214)? They look too small to be power MOSFETs, yet they are also directly contacted by the heatsink shroud... Are they required by the CHL8214 controller or is it just an improvement over using traditional MOSFETs?

Great review and I also think the voltage tuning section is awesome!

 

[BraveSoul]

nice review, nice video card, i like the voltage tuning section, gives good perspective on the card's possibilities
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