WSGF Review of the AMD Radeon HD 6000 Family - 6790 Latest

[skipclarke]

Radeon HD 6790 Review - http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wi ... red_Review

Radeon HD 6990 Review - http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wi ... red_Review

Radeon HD 6970 or 6950 - http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wi ... red_Review

I have added some updated benchmarks of the 6800 and 6900 series cards, focusing on more modern and/or DX11 titles such as:
* AvP
* F1 2010
* Heaven v2
* Just Cause 2
* Mafia II

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wi ... Benchmarks

[fuzioninfinity]

I'm really impressed with the the 6900 series, it's very tempting to jump ships and try Eyefinity; especially considering how well priced the 6900 cards are.

Single screen benchmarks show the 6970 following very closely behind the 580, while being significantly cheaper.. I would really like to see a comparison of the two in surround, I wonder how their respective dual card scaling and that extra 500MB of VRAM on the 6970 will do to the surround performance...

@Ibrin - I didn't see it specifically called out in the review, but I only scanned it quickly.. but are the graphs showing only the max FPS, or average..? It would be great to see graphs detailing min/average/max FPS.. would be very helpful in deciding on which card to buy.

[Hydralisk_X]

I've decided that my next GPU setup will be a single card and a single 6970 doesn't really offer a whole lot right now. However, I am happy to see that 2GB is now standard on AMD cards which is definitely a good sign for the future.

Xfire seems great on paper for the handful of specific games that just about every site reviews. What I've found personally is that it just doesn't work all that well for a lot of other more obscure games. The same can be said for SLI (and in nvidia's case it's even worse... because SLI is required for surround). I find that for a lot of games, I'm simply forced to turn xfire off since even if there are small gains from xfire, the game feels less smooth off of 2 cards. Fact of the matter is that xfire / sli gives more frames, but it also needs more frames to feel the same.

[skipclarke]

I've decided that my next GPU setup will be a single card and a single 6970 doesn't really offer a whole lot right now. However, I am happy to see that 2GB is now standard on AMD cards which is definitely a good sign for the future.

So does that mean the dual-GPU "Antilles" Radeon HD 6990 is out for you?

[Hydralisk_X]

[quote]I've decided that my next GPU setup will be a single card and a single 6970 doesn't really offer a whole lot right now. However, I am happy to see that 2GB is now standard on AMD cards which is definitely a good sign for the future.

So does that mean the dual-GPU "Antilles" Radeon HD 6990 is out for you?
Yea pretty much. I had SLI 6800 GT's when it was first introduced... it was new tech and it showed. Decided to give dual cards another shot with xfire this time around, just can't justify the money in the future. My roommate has SLI water cooled GTX 480's and he can't even play some games in surround due to SLI not working with them. I at least get the option to turn off xfire if things go south. If pricing of the 5970 during its life span is any indication, the single pcb dual gpu cards are just not a great deal regardless of other drawbacks.

[suiken_2mieu]

While not related directly to the Radeon HD 6900 hardware, the implementation of 5x1-Portrait support in the Cayman driver is a welcome surprise (and long overdue). Given AMD's recent campaign for Stereoscopic 3D gaming, I'd be interested to see if 5x1-P to be matched with HD3D. You would need DP 1.2 panels (which won't be available until the summer), but that would be cool indeed.

I'd like to see that too, but the issue I see is that, when a panel is put into portrait mode, it refreshes from right to left (or left to right in portrait flipped). I'm not sure that they would sync correctly with the glasses like that. Unless I'm wrong and nVidia is being lazy and not wanting to support 3D in portrait mode.

Though I've done Anaglyph 3D and 5x1. The effect was short of amazing. The added vertical resolution help objects seem more clear in 3D and I could see "Deeper" into the picture.

[Heinz68]

Hi, I'm new member here, just joined to find more info about the Radeon HD 6970 & HD 6950 article mainly about the
Setup & Testing, but I can't login for that info. Why is that?

[Paradigm Shifter]

It should just work, as the wiki is separate from the forum.

...

This review is impressive. The addition of 5x1P in the relevant driver makes me think seriously about swapping from nVidia Surround to EyeFinity when I get the chance (ie: money). As good as the first impression of nVidia Surround was... there hasn't been any significant update (read: features/fixes) since the first driver that supported it. AMD might be taking their time, but at least they are adding features! Only pro for nV-Surround at the minute is bezel correction without identical monitors.

[skipclarke]

Hi, I'm new member here, just joined to find more info about the Radeon HD 6970 & HD 6950 article mainly about the
Setup & Testing, but I can't login for that info. Why is that?

You don't need to log into the Wiki to read the article. Only Wiki editors have logins...

[Heinz68]

It should just work, as the wiki is separate from the forum.

...

This review is impressive. The addition of 5x1P in the relevant driver makes me think seriously about swapping from nVidia Surround to EyeFinity when I get the chance (ie: money). As good as the first impression of nVidia Surround was... there hasn't been any significant update (read: features/fixes) since the first driver that supported it. AMD might be taking their time, but at least they are adding features! Only pro for nV-Surround at the minute is bezel correction without identical monitors.

Agree, I like the review a lot specialy the eyefinity resolution testings. At present I have HD 5970 waiting for the HD 6990 and maybe 3way eyefinity seting.
That's why I wanted to find out more about the setup.

Anyway finaly I was able to get in. I think the problem was my Firefox Adblock Plus, when I have on, the "Setup & Testing" page ask for login.

[skipclarke]

Glad you got it sorted, and glad you like the review.

[suiken_2mieu]

So I just noticed something. The 6900 series only have 1 DL-DVI port. Why is that?

I was going to buy a 6970, but now it seems i'll be only getting rid of one of these cursed adapters.

[skipclarke]

So I just noticed something. The 6900 series only have 1 DL-DVI port. Why is that?

I was going to buy a 6970, but now it seems i'll be only getting rid of one of these cursed adapters.

All of the 6800/6900 series have 2x-Mini-DP, 1xHDMI, 1xDL-DVI and 1xSL-DVI.

[spammeister]

Guess I'll just have to see what the 6990 brings to the table. There just isn't enough performance from a 6970 IMO over a 5870 (with the games I play) to warrant me selling it for next to nothing to be able to upgrade.

If my local shop was able to price match sites like Newegg then I'd buy, but the 40$ premium for living way out here (Atlantic Canada) isn't worth it, I'd rather just drink more beer for 2 months.

If 6990 = 2x6950, then that makes it much easier to ease into the new gen.

[stangflyer]

I hope they get some info out on the 6990 EARLY in Jan. I really really hope they make the 6990 ready for 5x1p out of the box. The wait is killing me! :cry:

[discy]

In your next review, could you also tell us something about the temperatures the card is running at? Especially with 1,2 and 3 screens?

It turns out that the 6950 idles @ 60 degrees with 3 screens... and 40 degrees with 1.. which I didn't know :(

[Hydralisk_X]

In your next review, could you also tell us something about the temperatures the card is running at? Especially with 1,2 and 3 screens?

It turns out that the 6950 idles @ 60 degrees with 3 screens... and 40 degrees with 1.. which I didn't know :(

It needs to increase the 2D clocks if it's running with more than 1 monitor. Both nvidia and ATI cards do this. It's normal.

[skipclarke]

In your next review, could you also tell us something about the temperatures the card is running at? Especially with 1,2 and 3 screens?

It turns out that the 6950 idles @ 60 degrees with 3 screens... and 40 degrees with 1.. which I didn't know :(

Sorry. I wasn't able to do any thermal testing at the time. It may be a while before I can get back to testing the cards again.

[Unknownsock]

Well my two 6950's flashed to a 6970's on the desktop, are running at 63 Degrees and 50 Degress, the latter obviously being the bottom card. Although this is in a CM ATCS 840 which aren't great for gpu on air.

Whilst gaming the the fans do become quite noticable but not something that bothers me too much.

Note: This is with 3 screens.

Edit: Couple of hours on Dead Space and my GPU's were 85 Degrees and 75.

[Davros]

All of the 6800/6900 series have 2x-Mini-DP, 1xHDMI, 1xDL-DVI and 1xSL-DVI.

Can I just say that is not quite the full story. one of the DVI ports is SL-DVI-D and one is DL-DVI-I