Comment Thread for AMD Radeon HD 6870 & HD 6850 Review

[The Destroyer]

Great review SKY. I'll admit this latest release is tempting me yet again. I do like what I'm seeing and it almost seems better to just buy a 6850 and OC it to death (lots of potential) rather then to splurge on a 6870. I just might have to wait for the nicer coolers to be released aka Vapor-X versions before I make another purchase. Should have held off buying my 460 1GB darn.

[geokilla]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Here is what we will be doing in the coming days:

Monday: HD 6800 series versus GTX 460; The Overclocking Review

Thursday: HD 6800 series Crossfire Review

Monday can't come quick enough.

[CoolHandL]

Originally Posted by The Destroyer

Great review SKY. I'll admit this latest release is tempting me yet again. I do like what I'm seeing and it almost seems better to just buy a 6850 and OC it to death (lots of potential) rather then to splurge on a 6870. I just might have to wait for the nicer coolers to be released aka Vapor-X versions before I make another purchase. Should have held off buying my 460 1GB darn.

Looks like XFX borrowed the Vapor X tech from Sapphire with their "VC" Edition of the card ie
Vapor Chamber.
Im still happy with my 5870 vapor X, I was hoping these new 6*** cards would have some impact on the 5800 card pricing... i guess I'll have to wait till December for the high end 6*** cards to be released.

great review.

[thorn]

Originally Posted by botat29

$ 229 after rebate for a GTX 470....... and free shipping

Should probably point out that the stuff he linked was from the US Newegg site, here is the canadian version, Newegg.ca - ZOTAC ZT-40201-10P GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card . Not quite as nice.

[geokilla]

Hey guys, before you purchase a 6870 or 6850 or anything in the next couple weeks, you might wanna wait for Black Friday. I forgot bout that till RFD said that Memory Express has the 6850 selling for $200.

http://forums.redflagdeals.com/memor...-200-a-955135/

[SKYMTL]

Originally Posted by heflys20

Folks are now talking about certain reviewers getting 6850 models with 1120 shaders as opposed to 960.

HD 6850 with 1120 shaders went to reviewers

Boht of mine are 960 SP cards. From my understanding, Sapphire and HIS sent out the incorrect cards.

[chrisk]

Guru3D had this to say:

To make things a little more clear for the end user, AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing, will and is used in software like Cyberlink MediaShow and power director, ArcSoft MediaConverter 4, SimHD (upscaling, H.264 encoding), Total media Theatre (HW accelerated MPEG4/MVC ), Roxio Creator 2010, Adobe Photoshop CS4 and so on ... where the GPU assists the software in certain functions, offloading the processor.
Of course among it also falls ... folding ...

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon...-6870-review/7


Anybody have any folding numbers? I don't expect this to finally be 'AMDs moment in the folding spotlight,' but it would be interesting if any under the hood tweaks has increased folding PPD any.

[_dangtx_]

from what wiz says they're locked at the factory, no bios unlocking can 'liberate' them if its done that way. so any chance on retail parts to be unlockable, slim to non existent.
unless we get a few good batches like the golden samples, and such .

explains why my 'sample' has 1120.


and for folding, i foresee some nice increases, maybe 20% vs the 5 series. still not in nv territory but if you have it there idling doing nothing, 5k or hwatever they put out per day ppd wise is better than nothing.

[Dark-Colonel]

Originally Posted by _dangtx_

unless you're stuck with one already, not sure getting 'old' stuff be worth it. unless its a crazy deal, read 199 or so no rebates

If you look around some forums ... you'll find 5850s going for $175 which is an extremely good deal IMHO.

I would have taken one of them in a heartbeat but I have my eyes set on a 6870.

[matsta31]

I still believe a gtx470 at 260 ish is good, because it beat 6870. Now, the game will change again when xmas and 69XX comes.