Just bought a 6870!

[Trace]

Gigabyte 6870 FTW!!!!

Pics when it arrives :)

[mDust]

Gigabyte 6870 FTW!!!!

Pics when it arrives :)

Why are they so cheap? Was there another name change that I missed? How is the 6870 not the new equivalent of the 5870? Can't they just keep things the same to minimize confusion?

[blueonblack]

Why are they so cheap? Was there another name change that I missed? How is the 6870 not the new equivalent of the 5870? Can't they just keep things the same to minimize confusion?

Yes there has been a change to their number scheme.

[Trace]

the 6870 is inbetween 5850 and 5870 performance wise. the 6970 will be the new top dog, until the 6990 comes out (dual 6980s)

[diluzio91]

correct. gigabyte 6850 in the mail for me. ill post some pix too!

[Trace]

I just had to buy it!

I went dual 3870x2's -> dual 9800GTX+s -> 6870

My bro picked up two 6870s as well, so expect some benches with a 980x, Gigabyte GA-X58-UD5, and 3 6870s!

[diluzio91]

ill post some benches with the 6850, and an athalon dual core :D

[mDust]

the 6870 is inbetween 5850 and 5870 performance wise. the 6980 will be the new top dog, until the 6990 comes out (dual 6980s)

/sigh

They claim they are trying to rename their products to avoid confusion, but they change the scheme every generation...which just happens to be enough to keep their customers confused. Why can't they just name their products in a linear fashion like everyone else?

[Trace]

Yeah, IDK.
Oh, I forgot, only dual crossfire for 6870s :/ Shame...

[Oneslowz28]

It happens every time. The minute I get "cutting edge" something new is released.... :( Cudos for going Gigabyte though! They are a major TBCS supporter.

[Trace]

That's what made the decision. It was the lowest price, tied with ASUS, and since Gigabyte supports us, I was like, "Gigabyte FTW"

[mDust]

It happens every time. The minute I get "cutting edge" something new is released.... :( Cudos for going Gigabyte though! They are a major TBCS supporter.

The second, not minute. And that's good to know about Gigabyte. I'd been looking at some of their graphics cards. Perhaps I'll look again.

I also just saw the "ewwww!!!!" thread. I should have done my whining there.:whistler:

[Trace]

Looks like 1+Ghz on the core is possible!

[x88x]

Awesome. I look forward to seeing how these new cards perform. :D


So the x8xx line is the new x7xx and the x9xx is the new x8xx? ..okay, been a while since they used that one. :P Last time was, what, the HD 2000 generation?



Why can't they just name their products in a linear fashion like everyone else?

Like nVidia? ;) Ok, to be fair, nVidia's been a lot better with that the last couple generations...though it doesn't take much, after the 8 and 9 series'...

[Diamon]

Linus did an unboxing on this card and he mentions that he's going to be doing a lot of other videos about performance, power consumption, etc of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toSeW5LjSLQ

[mDust]

Like nVidia? ;) Ok, to be fair, nVidia's been a lot better with that the last couple generations...though it doesn't take much, after the 8 and 9 series'...

No, nVidia are clowns too. Let's say you are shopping for X product and you see X1000, X1500, X2000, X2500, and X3000. From just about any other company in the world, a larger number would mean an upgrade. Now, I understand the concept of a family of cards, so in ATIs case, the X1500 would be better than the X2000 and probably the X3000. However, these two graphics card companies are shifting their product names back and forth while simultaneously adding new levels. So all of a sudden we have an X2600 which falls between the X1000 and X1500 in performance...wait, what? How does that make sense? Shouldn't it have been named X2300? And since they stuck that card in where it doesn't belong in the naming scheme they have to shift all the others around now too...why not just leave the scheme alone and name the freakin' card appropriately? Since they didn't, we have an X3100 which is between the X2000 and dog crap, an X3300 which is between the X2000 and x2100, an X3400 which is the new X2600, an X3700 which replaces the X2500, and an X3800 which is top-of-the-now-lowered-line. I think they're trying to convolute the name scheme to hide the fact that their cards aren't getting much more powerful with each new generation.

No matter why they're doing it, whoever is in charge of naming the cards at ATI should be savagely beaten, and if this happens again, fired.

[Trace]

They did it to make more room for the "Gamer's sweet spot" which is about 200-250$

They needed room in their naming scheme for more cards...

[x88x]

No, nVidia are clowns too.

Yeah, that was my point. Neither company is very good about having a standard naming scheme. And comparisons between generations has never been straightforward...doesn't mean it's a good thing, just not unexpected.

[TheGreatSatan]

I'd rather have a 5970

[SXRguyinMA]

/\ With him :D

[mDust]

Yeah, that was my point. Neither company is very good about having a standard naming scheme. And comparisons between generations has never been straightforward...doesn't mean it's a good thing, just not unexpected.

Sorry, I meant "Yeah, nVidia are clowns too." as I was just agreeing. And just because they've always sucked at naming their products doesn't get them off the hook. They've gone through periods where they did a good, but they're far and few in between.

I'd rather have a 5970

/\ With him
I'm with both of you...at least until I see what the "equivalent" is like. I'll probably still want the 5970 though.

[Oneslowz28]

I am quite happy with my 2 loaner 5870s. Maybe when they go back I will buy 2 or 3 of these but for now I am happy!

[d_stilgar]

bit-tech did a review which discusses the new branding decision in the first page. I get why they did it after reading, but I'm still not happy with it.


Unlike previous launches, the HD 6000-series opens with the mid-range Barts Pro and Barts XT GPU pairing, despite the historically high-end name. While the HD 5800 was a high-end GPU, and HD 5900 denoted a dual-GPU card, the HD 6850 1GB and HD 6870 1GB are pitched at around £150 and £200 respectively. There will be a HD 6900 card in a month’s time, based around a faster GPU, with a dual-GPU HD 6900 also planned.

Hopefully you’ve stayed with us, and not headed straight off to the forums to flame ATI’s marketing team – we say this because the new naming scheme does make sense, once you accept the situation that ATI was in. The crux of the problem was that TSMC, ATI’s fabrication partner, couldn’t deliver the 32nm manufacturing process that ATI had been betting on. As the smaller process would have allowed ATI to decrease the cost per GPU die (while also potentially allowing higher clock speeds and lower power consumption), it couldn’t deliver a Barts GPU at the £100 to £130 price point it would have wanted.

Rather than leave this hotly contested and highly profitable section of the market barren of ATI choice, ATI has chosen to continue making and selling the Radeon HD 5700. However, ATI won’t rename this range as the HD 6700 series – we suspect that some of the stories on the internet about this proposed move were leaked by ATI and used to judge whether such a re-branding move would be received badly or not.

Whatever the reason, ATI was in the position that it didn’t have a new GPU that would hit the £100-150 sweet spot and would have to continue selling a part called a Radeon HD 5700. Calling the new GPUs the HD 6700 series would have killed HD 5700 sales, so Barts therefore had to be called a HD 6800 GPU – it was the most logically choice and we think the best option given the awkward situation.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/10/22/ati-radeon-hd-6870-review/1

[x88x]

Interesting. I knew they were having troubles with their chip manufacturer, but it didn't occur to me to think how that would affect the price/models.

[TheGreatSatan]

I'll just wait 6 months and get the 5970 for $300

[Trace]

This should be here today!!

[SXRguyinMA]

:pics:

[x88x]

Seconded! :D

[diluzio91]

6850 just came in, so ill warm up the pics for you guys.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs397.ash2/67561_451911573425_601993425_5413216_697475_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs818.snc4/69887_451911623425_601993425_5413218_1911762_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs471.ash2/74487_451911658425_601993425_5413219_2066972_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs465.ash2/73844_451911738425_601993425_5413222_3529851_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs021.ash2/34432_451911763425_601993425_5413223_6520221_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs415.ash2/69358_451911853425_601993425_5413226_826972_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs469.ash2/74201_451911883425_601993425_5413227_7001976_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs420.ash2/69873_451911913425_601993425_5413229_3035601_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs941.snc4/73452_451911923425_601993425_5413230_8354480_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs397.ash2/67563_451911988425_601993425_5413232_726156_n.jpg

[Oneslowz28]

My 6870s have that same fan and heatsink. They are quite silent.

[billygoat333]

sweet!

[x88x]

Looks great, diluzio. Are you going to be liquid cooling it or did you just take off the HS/F to get a good look at the board?


My 6870s have that same fan and heatsink. They are quite silent.

So where are the pics!? :D

[pcclan]

woot they gigabyte is great. It has the same kinda box my gtx 460 came in and the cooler is simlar too. :) :P

[diluzio91]

I want to put it under water, but i need to find some appropriate mounts for my universal block... i might jury rig a universal mount to it as a last resort.

[Oneslowz28]

Correction, my coolers have a copper base and heatpipes. I will take some pics tonight.

[diluzio91]

i think the base on this is aluminum, but the pipes are copper, maybe with a nickel coating

[diluzio91]

First benches

Heaven
FPS 33.5
Score: 844
Min FPS 3.0
Max FPS 82.5
Im feeling like this bench was CPU limited, as my processor was screaming for mercy at the end... Overclocked to 850 MHZ core with 1100mhz ram, stable as a rock.

[Twigsoffury]

First benches

Heaven
FPS 33.5
Score: 844
Min FPS 3.0
Max FPS 82.5
Im feeling like this bench was CPU limited, as my processor was screaming for mercy at the end... Overclocked to 850 MHZ core with 1100mhz ram, stable as a rock.

I've got my 5770 at 955mhz core / 1375mhz memory, i bet you can raise yours way higher then 850.

did you try it with the new 10.10b drivers? several OpenGL performance increases were listed.


[edit] FYI i have heatsinks on my memory because they started to get blazing hot.

[diluzio91]

I've got my 5770 at 955mhz core / 1375mhz memory, i bet you can raise yours way higher then 850.

did you try it with the new 10.10b drivers? several OpenGL performance increases were listed.


[edit] FYI i have heatsinks on my memory because they started to get blazing hot.

Catalyst caps my maximum oc to 850. lol im sure it has way more in it. the ram wont oc properly.

[Twigsoffury]

Catalyst caps my maximum oc to 850. lol im sure it has way more in it. the ram wont oc properly.

you might try the AMD GPU overclock tool, i havent used it, and im not sure if 6000 series are supported, but its worth poking around with it.

[SXRguyinMA]

where can one find this AMD tool? :D I've got my 5850 maxed in CCC and it's crankin right along lol