AMD Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 Review Comment Thread

[Rison]

Great review as always SKY.

No thermonuclear detonations needed! (kidding, kidding..)

I'm impressed and saddened by the power throttling idea. It's like the tree huggers are getting in the way, and messing with our performance. It's putting a soft cap on overclocking, so that you can't clock one lower end card, to the performance of their higher end card.
I'm reminded of go-carting when I was younger.. they would always turn the throttle screw down on people. Well I want to drive fast damnit! Damn anyone who gets in the way!

I wish their 32nm process worked out for them.. then all the fanboys could have put a thumpin down on the nvidia crowd on performance, power and thermals. This seems like it's just a revision of the 5000 series, nothing revolutionary.

It seems from a purchase standpoint, it goes from 6950 > 570 > 580 when it comes to performance. I don't see why anyone would get a 6870 based on the numbers represented here.. unless you're so slanted to the AMD side, or get a wicked deal.

[Chilly]

CF results/review coming anytime soon?

[_dangtx_]

nice. so pricing is not that bad, performance of the 6970 hmm...go 6950 under 300 bucks!!!

so basically they couldve put more umph if it wasnt for the 40nm process they got stuck with?

[Dr_BenD_over]

Meh, they've got to stop making these cards so bloody long, I shouldn't need a big honking E-ATX case to use one.

[draemn]

I could be mistaken, but from the CF tests on anandtech and the rumour that these drivers aren't offering 100% performance, the 6950 CF can hold itself against the 570 SLI very well at $100 less. Looks like the 6970 is a *cough waste* of your money unless you play at 2560x1600 or don't play any of the games that don't prefer ATI over Nvidia.

I love the way the new power management feature works and the fact that you can change the threshold by a decent amount to allow more performance or save energy. Also, I can't wait to see how the 6950 o/c as it's pretty safe to say that even if amd tries to prevent it, it will be unlocked :)

[_dangtx_]

from wiz's review, cf on 6950 is not too shaby . still, without knowing how good they oc, or how bad, hmmm....

if i had to go for one gpu right now, 6950 + limited oc,for now. if i were folding, 570 all the way

[Leibritz]

How come the HWC is the only site that really likes the cards? Vortez or Overclock 3D are not happy at all...
Does it have to do with different procing here in Europe?

[heflys20]

Originally Posted by Leibritz

How come the HWC is the only site that really likes the cards? Vortez or Overclock 3D are not happy at all...
Does it have to do with different procing here in Europe?

Most of the sites I've seen seem to like the cards, though they appear baffled by the performance increase.

[sswilson]

Could very well be pricing. The performance numbers I'm seeing in the review make the price point critical to the success of these cards. Definitely not a home run for the red team, but priced right, would be worth a look.

From a Folder's perspective everything about these looks like a fail. Not only does there not look like there's any love for stanford, I suspect PowerTune will make an already abysmal PPD output even worse. At the very least, they should have offered the option to turn it off completely, and let the end user worry about managing temps.

I can see the 6950 being a popular card in the aprox. $300 range, but nothing here for me to get excited about.

[_dangtx_]

i think they took this route not to kill 6870 sales, as probably theres a whole boatload around. now if they drop said pricing a mere 25-50$ across the board? whohoooo


although, if youre crossfiring 6950's, even at stock youre owing all.