Xfx hd 6970 review: AMD Radeon HD 6970 Review

Radeon HD 6970 And 6950 Review: Is Cayman A Gator Or A Crock?

In the world of high-end hardware, waiting for the next great thing means reading about a lot of technology and never actually buying a new piece of gear. That’s no way to enjoy your favorite games though, is it?

Sometimes the wait is worth it, though. Last week was a perfect example. Nvidia launched its GeForce GTX 570, but we already knew AMD’s Radeon HD 6970 and 6950 boards had shipped out, FedEx Next Day Air. How could we not recommend waiting to see how these boards would compare? The very same morning, AMD launched a refresh on its Phenom II and Athlon II processors, incrementing clock rate. But we have Intel’s Sandy Bridge-based CPUs up and running in the lab. Again—why wouldn’t you wait a couple of weeks to see how they stack up?

Anticipating Greatness

I was particularly interested in the performance of the Radeon HD 6970 and 6950, the two cards AMD had shipped so urgently. Whereas the Barts GPUs used to build Radeon HD 6870 and 6850 centered on the same VLIW5 architecture that earned Radeon HD 5870 a place in infamy, the Cayman GPU consolidates functionality into a VLIW4 design, incorporating fewer ALUs per thread processor, but improving performance per square millimeter of die space. How would that translate to the experience you get when you plug a 6900-series card into your system? Well, since Cayman is larger than Cypress, we have to assume it’s also going to be faster.

A market populated by GF100-based boards like GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 would have made this launch so much easier for AMD. But Nvidia has this habit of kicking into gear when it really needs to. The resulting GeForce GTX 580 and 570 demonstrate that, even if Fermi remains a power-hungry architecture, it is possible to contend with more heat using a better sink and finely-tuned fan control. Suddenly, AMD had a much more daunting competitive landscape in front of it.

We’re not sure if that was the real reason AMD’s Radeon HD 6900-series cards were delayed for nearly a month. However, the boards are here now (two of each, actually), and AMD claims that channel availability will be plentiful right out of the gate.

Look familiar? That’s the 5870’s Cypress

New GPU, Familiar Face

AMD’s GPU team isn’t known for its bold, brash architectural moves—that honor belongs to Nvidia—so it’s hardly a surprise that much of Cayman looks familiar. In fact, there was no fancy press day hosted on an aircraft carrier to herald the improvements, nor were there conversations with chip architects. After the fanfare ahead of Radeon HD 6800, today’s 6900-series launch was preceded by surprisingly little commotion. It was almost…refreshing. That gave us plenty of time to dig into the details for ourselves. Fortunately, we know enough about AMD’s Cayman GPU to discuss what changes.

Very similar: The 6900-series’ Cayman

Fully loaded, the chip features up to 24 SIMD engines (up from Cypress’ 20). Each SIMD still includes 16 thread processors. Except now, each thread processor consists of four ALUs rather than five. So, while Cypress sported as many as 1600 ALUs, Cayman incorporates up to 1536 (that’s 24 * 16 * 4). Each SIMD engine is still tied to four texture units, totaling 96 on a complete Cayman chip (versus 80 on Cypress).

AMD Radeon HD 6970 AMD Radeon HD 6950 AMD Radeon HD 5870 Nvidia GeForce GTX 580
Manufacturing Process 40 nm TSMC 40 nm TSMC 40 nm TSMC 40 nm TSMC
Die Size 389 mm² 389 mm² 334 mm² 520 mm²
Transistors 2.64 billion 2.64 billion 2.15 billion 3 billion
Engine Clock 880 MHz 800 MHz 850 MHz 772 MHz
Stream Processors / CUDA Cores 1536 1408 1600 512
Compute Performance 2.7 TFLOPS 2. 25 TFLOPS 2.7 TFLOPS 1.58 TFLOPS
Texture Units 96 88 80 64
Texture Fillrate 84.5 Gtex/s 70.4 Gtex/s 68 Gtex/s 49.4 Gtex/s
ROPs 32 32 32 48
Pixel Fillrate 28.2 Gpix/s 25.6 Gpix/s 27.2 Gpix/s 37.1 Gpix/s
Frame Buffer 2 GB GDDR5 2 GB GDDR5 1 GB GDDR5 1.5 GB GDDR5
Memory Clock 1375 MHz 1250 MHz 1200 MHz 1002 MHz
Memory Bandwidth 176 GB/s (256-bit) 160 GB/s (256-bit) 153.6 GB/s (256-bit) 192 GB/s (384-bit)
Maximum Board Power 250 W 200 W 188 W 244 W

As with the Cypress and Barts GPUs, Cayman is a product of TSMC’s now-mature 40 nm manufacturing process. It probably wouldn’t have been, but TSMC canceled its 32 nm node back in 2009, leaving both AMD and Nvidia to rethink their strategies. The aforementioned specs allowed AMD to keep its die size manageable, while still improving performance, though. Cayman is a 389 mm² piece of silicon composed of 2.64 billion transistors, while Cypress was 334 mm² part made up of 2.15 billion transistors. What AMD didn’t want to do was follow in Nvidia’s footsteps, creating a 500+ mm² behemoth that it’d need to power and then cool. From all angles, Cayman looks to be a compromise based on the hand TSMC dealt.

It seems that the company was able to turn those lemons into something more palatable, though, by getting inventive with a feature called PowerTune, which balances TDP to facilitate higher shipping clock speeds. The two resulting board models, Radeon HD 6970 and 6950 handily outperform AMD’s last at-bat on the 40 nm process. The real question is, can they stack up to the more recent and renewed competition from Nvidia?

Ten points, by the way, if you can figure out the reference in this story’s title.

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Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom’s Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.

AMD Radeon HD 6970 review

Price when reviewed

AMD introduced its latest series of graphics cards a month ago with its mid-range HD 6800-series. That was enough to cause Nvidia to rush out the GTX 570 to market, and now AMD is following up with its single-chip flagship cards, the Radeon HD 6970 reviewed here, and the HD 6950.

It’s certainly got the specification to go head-to-head with Nvidia’s finest. The 40nm chip, code-named Cayman, packs in an 880MHz core clock alongside 2GB of GDDR5 memory running at 1,350MHz. The 389mm[sup]2[/sup] die includes 2.64 billion transistors, and the core provides 1,536 stream processors – an impressive figure, but slightly less than the number included on the HD 5870, the firm’s previous top-end card.

That sounds like a retrograde step, but it’s indicative of the major changes introduced by AMD in its latest architecture. Previous cards used a single powerful stream processor surrounded by four slave chips, but this year’s models do away with this structure, instead using four equally powerful stream processors in each package.

Fewer stream processors are used, but the resulting chip is more efficient and powerful than its predecessors. AMD has divided its stream processors into two overarching graphics engines, with 24 packages, each containing 64 processors across the card.

AMD’s revised architecture proved its worth in our Crysis benchmarks. The Radeon HD 6970 ran through our 1,920 x 1,080 Very High quality test at 48fps, with this score falling to 42fps and then 38fps when we enabled 4x and 8x anti-aliasing. AMD’s card even ran through our Very High test at the huge resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 with a playable score of 31fps, although adding anti-aliasing dropped this to 25fps.

These scores indicate that the Radeon HD 6970 will handle any game you care to throw at it, but the situation is less clear-cut when you consider Nvidia’s cards. The GTX 580 retains its crown as the fastest single-GPU product on the market, but it’s the GTX 570 that AMD should be worrying about. Nvidia’s card is around the same price as the HD 6970 and almost as impressive in our tests, running only 2fps slower than the HD 6970 in our 1,920 x 1,080 Very High quality test with 4x anti-aliasing activated.

For our secondary gaming test, we’re moving to Just Cause 2 as of this month – a keen test for any graphics card thanks to its detailed environments, complex lighting effects and long draw distances. The Radeon HD 6970 motored through its Very High quality tests (run at 1,920 x 1,080 and with 8x anti-aliasing) at 37fps, but again the GTX 570 was better, romping through the same tests with an average of 63fps.

Elsewhere, AMD has introduced a vapour chamber cooler in the Radeon HD 6970, aping Nvidia’s GTX cards. It works by circulating liquid around the chip to transfer heat away from the surface, and makes the HD 6970 a very large card indeed. At 274mm in length, it’s a shade longer than the GTX 580, and requires both eight- and six-pin power plugs.

Unfortunately, AMD’s vapour chamber isn’t as efficient as Nvidia’s. An idle temperature of 57˚C is fine, but the HD 6970 rocketed to 92˚C during our stress tests – 8˚C hotter than the GTX 570. It’s power intensive, too: our test rig drew 377W with the card under stress; with the GTX 570 it drew 283W; and with the GTX 580 in situ it pulled a total of 292W. It’s also loud, especially during more intensive benchmarks.

Overall, the AMD Radeon HD 6970 is impressive, but it doesn’t quite do enough to take over from Nvidia at the graphics card top table. The price is too similar to the GTX 570, the noise levels higher, efficiency lower and overall performance slower. AMD needs to do better than this to grab its crown back.

Core Specifications
Graphics card interface PCI Express
Cooling type Active
Graphics chipset AMD Radeon HD 6970
Core GPU frequency 880MHz
RAM capacity 2,000MB
Memory type GDDR5
Standards and compatibility
DirectX version support 11.0
Shader model support 5.0
Connectors
DVI-I outputs 2
DVI-D outputs 0
VGA (D-SUB) outputs 0
S-Video outputs 0
HDMI outputs 1
7-pin TV outputs 0
Graphics card power connectors 8 pin, 6 pin
Benchmarks
3D performance (crysis) low settings 171fps
3D performance (crysis), medium settings 97fps
3D performance (crysis) high settings 73fps

Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2GB Video Card

Video Cards & GPUs

AMD Radeon GPU

We check out the new cream of the crop from AMD.

Make way for the HD 6970 which carries with it a juicy 2GB of GDDR5.

Published Dec 14, 2010 10:38 PM CST   |   Updated Tue, Nov 3 2020 7:02 PM CST

Manufacturer: Sapphire

18 minute read time

Introduction and Package

Introduction

So we checked out the HD 6950 already and it’s time to check out the big brother to the card; the HD 6970. We left feeling a bit of mixed emotion when it came to the HD 6950; it offered great value for its price bracket, but the said price bracket doesn’t really have any competition. Instead, the card sits between others.

The HD 6970 is more expensive, though, and it’s going to be inevitably faster. The question we ask is, how much faster? — Well, we’ll find out soon enough. There’s really not much need to go into much more detail here. Instead we can just start to check out the package that Sapphire is offering us before we check out the actual card, the specifications and of course, the performance!

Since there’s no point carrying on here any further, let’s check out the package.

The Package

Sapphire made the effort to send us the fancy package of the HD 6970, and oh my, is it fancy! — I love these aluminum cases and being a fan of the Battlefield series, this one especially holds a special place in my heart.

Opening up the case, we’ve got the normal array of cables and paperwork you would expect, which includes information on Sapphire Select Club, a Driver CD and quick install manual. On the cable front we’ve got a dual Molex to 8-Pin, Molex to 6-Pin, DVI to VGA, mini-DP to DisplayPort, HDMI cable and Crossfire connector.

Also included as you might’ve figured is a copy of Battlefield Bad Company 2 which you can download. You’ve got to go through the Sapphire Select Club to get it, but the instructions on how to get it are there and you shouldn’t run into any problems.

It’s nice to see a game included in a bundle. It feels like it’s been ages since a company has included a game, but more importantly, it’s nice to see a good game in a bundle; something that is even rarer.

Card and Specifications

The Card

In the looks department you’re not seeing anything too different to what you saw out of the HD 6950. Of course, Sapphire have added their own sticker to the card and again being a huge Battlefield fan, I love the Bad Company 2 Vietnam thing that they have going on.

It seems that Sapphire want to make sure they separate themselves from the pack this release and with the package they’ve put together, we’d say they’re doing a good job.

In the power department we’ve got a little more going on this time around. While the HD 6950 carried with it two 6-Pin PCI-E power connectors, this one carries only one. It does instead carry an 8-Pin PCI-E power connector for its second one, though.

Looking at the Crossfire connectors, we’ve again got support for more than two cards. Here we’ve also got that little switch which as we mentioned in our HD 6950 review lets you switch between two different BIOS’.

To extract from my HD 6950 review; «We had seen images of this float around the net and there was plenty of speculation as to what this switch would do. Well, today we can tell you; AMD say it’s a Dual BIOS option that allows for safer end user updates.
Setting 1 is unprotected for user updates, and setting 2 is protected as factory defaults. The way it ultimately works is if you flash your card and it goes wrong, you can flick the switch and boot up off the default BIOS. It mainly helps prevent the bricking of cards.

At the moment we’re not 100% sure how companies are going to make use of this feature, but we’re sure in the coming weeks we’ll see companies like Sapphire attack it with models like the TOXIC.»

Connectivity wise we’ve got the same setup as both the HD 6950 and HD 6870. That means two mini-DP 1.2 ports, HDMI 1.4a and two DVI ports, one Single-Link and the other Dual-Link.

Specifications

The main specification boost the HD 6970 offers over the HD 6950 is the increased Stream Processors; we see it move from 1408 via 22 SIMD to 1536 via 24 SIMD. So many people expected to see 1600. It’s possible that AMD are maybe keeping something up their sleeve for later, though.

Texture units have been bumped as well from 88 to 96; ROPs and Z-Stencil stay the same, though, at 32 and 128. The 256-bit memory bus is also the same along with the 2GB of GDDR5 being standard.

Clocks have been bumped, which is something you would expect. We go from 800MHz to 880MHz on the core and the memory jump from 5GHz QDR to 5.5GHz QDR.

Overclocking later down the track should yield some amazing numbers, especially when it comes to the memory clock.

Test System Setup and 3DMark 11

We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASRock, Kingston, Mittoni, Noctua and Corsair.

Everything you saw in the HD 6950 review will also be seen in this review, including the HD 6950 results. That means the HD 6870, HD 6850 and both cards in Crossfire will be seen, along with the HD 5870. On the NVIDIA front we’ve got the GTX 480, GTX 580 and the pre overclocked GTX 570 Goes Like Hell edition from Gainward.

Since we don’t have a stock GTX 570, the best thing to look at when comparing performance of the HD 6970 to a stock GTX 570 is to look at the GTX 480 results. Between the GTX 570 and GTX 480 there’s not much difference.

If you didn’t read our HD 6950 review, we’ve removed Final Fantasy XIV from our benchmarks due to it being a benchmark that runs in windowed mode. Since Crossfire doesn’t work in windowed mode, it meant the results at the end of our TPR graphs were quite skewed towards NVIDIA when it came to multi card setups.

We’ve added 3DMark 11 and replaced the original H.A.W.X. with H.A.W.X. 2. Vantage has been dropped from our TPR graphs, but the two new benchmarks have been added to it.

Let’s get started!

3DMark 11

Version and / or Patch Used: 1. 0
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.3dmark.com/3dmark11/
Buy It Here

3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world’s most popular benchmark. Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

In 3DMark 11 we can see a nice boost over the HD 6950. Compared to the NVIDIA cards, you can see we’re a little faster than the GTX 480, more so at the higher resolution.

3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/
Buy It Here

3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

Even though Vantage makes use of PhysX, we can see that at the higher resolution X preset the HD 6970 is able to outperform the GTX 480. AMD have been performing very strong at the higher resolution and it seems to continue with the HD 6970.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark

Version and / or Patch Used: 2
Developer Homepage: http://www.unigine.com
Product Homepage: http://unigine.com/press-releases/091022-heaven_benchmark//

New benchmark grants the power to unleash the DirectX 11 potential in the gift wrapping of impressively towering graphics capabilities. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

We again see that compared to the GTX 480 the performance at 1680 x 1050 is identical. At 1920 x 1200, though, there’s a clear separation between the two models with the HD 6970 being the faster option.

Benchmarks — Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5

Version and / or Patch Used: Demo Benchmark
Developer Homepage: www.residentevil.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.residentevil.com/

Resident Evil 5 is a survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on September 18. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

We continue to see the HD 6970 close the gap to almost nothing at the highest resolution. Let’s see what happens as we get into our other game benchmarks.

Benchmarks — Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.2

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/UK/default.aspx
Product Homepage: http://www.hawxgame.com/

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2 is an arcade-style flight action game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft. The game is the sequel to Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X., released in 2009.

The game begins with Colonel David Crenshaw participating in a routine patrol mission in the Middle East. After halting an insurgent attack, a volley of missiles is fired at the Air Force base that Crenshaw was stationed at, with one of the missiles disabling Crenshaw’s aircraft, resulting Crenshaw being in enemy captivity. A joint strike force composed of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and a Ghost Recon squad executes an operation to rescue Crenshaw. In Scotland, Royal Navy Pilot Colin Munro encounters an unidentified passenger aircraft that explodes from an on-board bomb when undergoing training exercise. In Russia, an air force squadron led by Colonel Denisov and Captain Dmitri Sokov engages separatist aircraft but is ordered to retreat from the region after numerous Russian military installations have been attacked.

H.A.W.X. 2 is not kind to the AMD series of cards; we’ve known that since the release of the benchmark demo. We do see strong FPS at all resolutions, though, with an average of 60 FPS not being an issue even at 2560 x 1600.

Benchmarks — Mafia II

Mafia II

Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www. 2kczech.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.mafia2game.com/
Buy It Here

Mafia II is a third-person action-adventure video game, the sequel to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. It is developed by 2K Czech, previously known as Illusion Softworks, and is published by 2K Games. The game is set from 1943 to 1951 in Empire Bay (the name is a reference to New York’s state nickname «The Empire State»), a fictional city based on San Francisco and New York City, with influences from Chicago and Detroit. The game features a completely open-ended game map of 10 square miles. No restrictions are included from the start of the game. There are around 50 vehicles in the game, as well as licensed music from the era.

Here you can see what we’re seeing since the start; at 1680 x 1050 the GTX 480 continues to hold a clear lead over the HD 6970. As we climb up the resolution table, that lead begins to shrink to the point where it no longer exists at the highest resolution.

At the highest resolution you can see that the HD 6970 doesn’t have any problems outperforming the pre overclocked GTX 570 and is only a single FPS behind the GTX 580.

Benchmarks — Lost Planet 2

Lost Planet 2

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark — Test A Scene 1
Developer Homepage: http://www.capcom.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.lostplanet2game.com/

Lost Planet 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition which is also made by Capcom, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. The story takes place back on E.D.N. III 10 years after the events of the first game. The snow has melted to reveal jungles and more tropical areas that have taken the place of more frozen regions. The plot begins with Mercenaries fighting against Jungle Pirates. After destroying a mine, the Mercenaries continue on to evacuate the area, in which a Category-G Akrid appears and attacks them. After being rescued, they find out their evacuation point (Where the Category-G appeared) was a set-up and no pick up team awaited them. The last words imply possible DLC additions to the game, «There’s nothing to be gained by wiping out snow pirates… unless you had some kind of grudge.»

Under Lost Planet 2 we see a good gain over the HD 6950; unfortunately across the board we see our average is still below that 60 FPS mark which is the number we want to see.

Benchmarks — Aliens vs. Predator

Aliens vs. Predator

Version and / or Patch Used: Standalone Benchmark
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www.rebellion.co.uk/
Product Homepage: http://www. sega.com/games/aliens-vs-predator/

Aliens vs. Predator is a science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion Developments, the team behind the 1999 original PC game, and published by Sega for Microsoft Windows, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. The game is based on the Alien vs. Predator franchise, a combination of the characters and creatures of the Alien franchise and the Predator franchise. There are three campaigns in the game, one for each race/faction (the Predators, the Aliens and the Colonial Marines), that, while separate in terms of individual plot and gameplay, form one overarching storyline.

Following the storyline of the campaign modes comes the multiplayer aspect of the game. In this Multiplayer section of the game, players face off in various different gametypes in various different ways.

Aliens vs. Predator performance is strong and unlike the HD 6950 we’ve got playable FPS at 1920 x 1200 as well as 1680 x 1050. You can see that the card manages to outperform the GTX 480 at all resolutions and is nipping at the heels of the pre overclocked GTX 570 in this instance.

Benchmarks — Street Fighter IV

Street Fighter IV

Version and / or Patch Used: Standalone Benchmark
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www.capcom.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.streetfighter.com/

While Street Fighter IV features models and backgrounds rendered in 3D, the gameplay remains on a traditional 2D plane, with the camera having freedom to move in 3D at certain times during fights, for dramatic effect. Producer Yoshinori Ono has stated that he wanted to keep the game closer to Street Fighter II. A new system called «Focus Attacks» («Saving Attack» for the Japanese version) has been introduced, as well as Ultra moves. The traditional six-button control scheme returns, with new features and special moves integrated into the input system, mixing classic gameplay with additional innovations.

All the characters and environments in Street Fighter IV are rendered as 3D models with polygons, similar to the Street Fighter EX sub-series Capcom produced with Arika. However, there are a couple of key differences. Art director and character designer Daigo Ikeno, who previously worked on Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, opted for non-photorealistic rendering to give them a hand-drawn look, with visual effects accented in calligraphic strokes, ink smudges and ink sprays during the fights.

Street Fighter IV already offers us big numbers and the HD 6970 just improves upon the numbers we’re seeing from the HD 6950.

Benchmarks — Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01
Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/
Buy It Here

The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. and so much more.

We’ve got playable FPS across the board, but we continue to see the GTX 480 win out at the lower resolution. The picture changes, though, when we start to hit 2560 x 1600. It’s relevant as well because we’re getting playable numbers out of the HD 6970 at this resolution.

Benchmarks — Batman Arkham Asylum

Batman Arkham Asylum

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.batmanarkhamasylum.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.batmanarkhamasylum.com/

Batman: Arkham Asylum exposes players to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure that takes them to the depths of Arkham Asylum — Gotham’s psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. Gamers will move in the shadows, instigate fear amongst their enemies and confront The Joker and Gotham City’s most notorious villains who have taken over the asylum.

Using a wide range of Batman’s gadgets and abilities, players will become the invisible predator and attempt to foil The Joker’s demented scheme.
Batman: Arkham Asylum features an original story penned exclusively for the game by famous Batman author and five-time Emmy award winner Paul Dini, whose credits include Lost season one and Batman: The Animated Series.

Really, an identical picture to what we saw from the cards under Far Cry 2. Strong performance across the board here, albeit the GTX 480 continues to win out at the lower resolution. The gap shrinks at 2560 x 1600, though, and we see that the average on the HD 6970 is slightly higher.

Benchmarks — High Quality AA and AF

High Quality AA and AF

Our high quality tests let us separate the men from the boys and the ladies from the girls. If the cards weren’t struggling before they will start to now.

Under Mafia II you can see that the performance of the HD 6970 matches that of the pre overclocked GTX 570. Aliens vs. Predator sees the HD 6970 beat the GTX 570, albeit all setups are still under the 60 FPS average.

Street Fighter IV numbers are big as you would expect and Far Cry 2 numbers are improved over the HD 6950, and at playable levels. Not quite as high as the NVIDIA offerings, though.

Temperature Test

Temperature Tests

The temperature of the core is pulled from MSI Afterburner with the max reading used after a completed run off 3DMark Vantage and the Performance preset.

The HD 6970 runs 10c warmer than the HD 6950 at 80c. Overall the temp’s not too bad, though. It’s lower than the GTX 580 and while it’s 6c warmer than the GTX 570, it has to be noted the Gainward GTX 570 carries with it a dual fan setup.

Sound Test

Sound Tests

Pulling out the TES 1350A Sound Level Meter we find ourselves quickly yelling into the top of it to see how loud we can be.

After five minutes of that we get a bit more serious and place the device two CM away from the fan on the card to find the maximum noise level of the card when idle (2D mode) and in load (3D mode).

Noise levels are impressive on the card. It’s a little louder than the HD 6950, but still at a very good level sitting amongst a lot of the other higher end cards.

Power Consumption Tests

Using our new PROVA Power Analyzer WM-01 or «Power Thingy» as it has become quickly known as to our readers, we are now able to find out what kind of power is being used by our test system and the associated graphics cards installed. Keep in mind; it tests the complete system (minus LCD monitor, which is plugged directly into AC wall socket).

There are a few important notes to remember though; while our maximum power is taken in 3DMark06 at the same exact point, we have seen in particular tests the power being drawn as much as 10% more. We test at the exact same stage every time; therefore tests should be very consistent and accurate.

The other thing to remember is that our test system is bare minimum — only a SSD hard drive is used with a single CD ROM and minimal cooling fans.

So while the system might draw 400 watts in our test system, placing it into your own PC with a number of other items, the draw is going to be higher.

Power draw on the model is very impressive. Its idle power draw is very low and its load power draw is also very good coming in a good chunk below the GTX 500 series which are in the 400 watt region.

Total Performance Rating (TPR)

Total Performance Rating

The TPR graph is a combination of all our benchmarks in which NVIDIA and AMD are on an even playing field.

The TPR number is a combination of:

3DMark 11, Heaven Benchmark V2, Resident Evil 5, Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.2, Mafia 2 (PhysX Off), Lost Planet 2, Aliens vs. Predator, Street Fighter IV, Far Cry 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum (PhysX Off) and our four High Quality tests which include Mafia 2, Aliens vs. Predator, Street Fighter IV and Far Cry 2.

All of the benchmark results achieved are then combined into a single number. As this graph will grow over time and cards won’t be re-tested, next to each model you’ll find the driver version that was used when the card was benchmarked.

We can see that there’s a clear difference between the two HD 6900 models. Compared to the NVIDA offerings we’re almost perfectly in line with the GTX 480 which offers similar performance to the stock GTX 570.

The main reason the HD 6970 continues to fall a bit behind, though, is because the NVIDIA offerings perform stronger at the lower resolution. At 2560 x 1600, though, you really do see a a different picture.

Total Value Rating (TVR)

Total Value Rating

The TVR graph is the TPR score divided by the price of the video card. The price of the video card is based on the list price of the model on Newegg.com. In the event the card isn’t listed, it will be based on the U. S. $ MSRP given to us by the manufacturer.

In the event we can’t source a price from either, the product will not receive a TVR rating. As with our TPR graph, the amount of video cards on the list will grow over time and the price of the model won’t change from what it was when first reviewed. For this reason the U.S. $ price that the card is based off will be included next to the name of the model.

In the event you want to find the TVR rating yourself based on the current price, all you have to do is simply divide the TPR number by the list price.

TVR numbers are rounded to the nearest whole number; 100.3 will be 100; 100.8 will be 101 and 100.5 will be rounded down to 100.

While dollar for FPS the HD 6950 remains the better buy, I would say that when it comes down to it, for what you’re expecting out of the HD 6900 series the HD 6970 is the better buy.

Final Thoughts

The picture from the HD 6970 is a little clearer; not crystal clear, but indeed clearer. The thing is, if you remove the GTX 500 series from the picture and put the HD 6970 against the GTX 480, you’ve got a clear winner in the new AMD card. It performs similar to the GTX 480 with it performing better at the highest resolution.

Its temperature, heat and power numbers are also a lot more attractive when compared to the GTX 480. I think it was AMDs goal to make the HD 6970 a better card than the GTX 480, and I can honestly say that they have achieved that. You wouldn’t buy a GTX 480 over the HD 6970.

The problem is that the GTX 500 series is in the picture now and you wouldn’t buy a GTX 480 over the two new GTX 500 series cards. So, do you buy a HD 6970 over the GTX 500 series? Well, if you want the fastest single GPU card, no. The GTX 580 really is a good chunk faster and while at times the gap between the HD 6970 and GTX 580 does shrink, it’s still not really competing with it.

The thing is, though, the GTX 580 is so much more expensive; AMD don’t expect people who want to spend $500 on a video card to choose the HD 6970 over the GTX 580. What they do hope is that you would maybe look at a Crossfire setup at a similar price range. For under $500 you’re able to get a HD 6870 Crossfire setup that performs a good chunk faster than the GTX 580.

So, do you buy the HD 6970 over the GTX 570? You know, even after all this testing I’m not sure I can answer that. Both are good cards, both are priced at a similar level and both offer similar performance when you look at the performance of a stock GTX 570.

I love what Sapphire has done with the bundle of the HD 6970 and it helps it stand out against the competition. That we can’t deny. The new Catalyst Control Center also looks great and it’s got a much needed face lift.

While I can’t say you should buy a HD 6970 over a GTX 570, I can’t say you should buy a GTX 570 over a HD 6970 either. I think what it really comes down to is what you want out of the card. Like I’ve said in a few of my reviews recently, as an Eyefinity user I’m choosing the AMD option over the NVIDIA one because I want to run three monitors off one video card. I’m also becoming quite dependent on DisplayPort and it’s something that NVIDIA haven’t really chosen to embrace yet; albeit we’ve seen Gainward and Palit offer it to us.

Connectivity wise, the HD 6970 is the better option. Feature wise, it’s tough; NVIDIA has CUDA and PhysX, but AMD has Stream. PhysX also hasn’t gained loads of momentum, so for many it’s not a deal clincher.

I think what it all really comes down to is how much do you want to spend and what’s in stock. If you want to be gaming over the Christmas holidays, you’d be crazy to wait for one model over another because all you’re doing is delaying your gaming experience, and honestly, both cards offer good performance.

The confusion in what to buy is what’s going to hurt AMD. We expected AMD to come out and have the fastest single GPU card. They don’t. If the GTX 500 series didn’t come out this year they would’ve, but they did come out. What has hurt AMD the most is delaying the launch of this product. The GTX 570 should’ve never had a chance to be released. If the HD 6900 series launched last month like it was meant to, they could’ve charged slightly more and gotten market penetration.

Instead the GTX 580 launched, it rattled the cages of AMD and seemed to cause a delay to the HD 6900 series. While AMD spent time worrying about the GTX 580, NVIDIA turned around and threw the GTX 570 at us for further measure. What could AMD do? Nothing really, they couldn’t delay the card ’till next year.

The HD 6970 performs well, it offers good value and Sapphire has put a great bundle together. Ignoring the bundle, though, and just looking at the HD 6970 for what it is and at the suggested selling price, the answer to the question rises. Do you buy the GTX 570 or the HD 6970? It can’t really be answered and I think that’s a bigger issue for AMD than it is for NVIDIA.

We could end up in an aggressive price war with the consumer in the middle; and you know what, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. Don’t let it stop you from buying a card now, though.

Shopping Information

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Shawn Baker

Shawn takes care of all of our video card reviews. From 2009, Shawn is also taking care of our memory reviews, and from May 2011, Shawn also takes care of our CPU, chipset and motherboard reviews. As of December 2011, Shawn is based out of Taipei, Taiwan.

ATI Radeon HD 6970 2GB Review

Written by

bit-tech Staff

December 15, 2010 | 04:58

Tags: #5870 #6950 #6970 #catalyst #comparison #consumption #directx-11 #dx11 #faster #fastest #fps #gtx-470 #gtx-480 #hd #performance #power #radeon #red-team #speed #temperature #thermals

Companies: #ati

1 — ATI Radeon HD 6970 Review2 — ATI Radeon HD 6900 VLIW4 Stream Processors3 — ATI PowerTune, and Radeon HD 6900 Dual BIOSes4 — Radeon HD 6970 Specifications5 — Radeon HD 6970 Test Setup6 — Radeon HD 6970 Dirt 2 Performance7 — Radeon HD 6970 Call of Duty: Black Ops Performance8 — Radeon HD 6970 Just Cause 2 Performance9 — Radeon HD 6970 Bad Company 2 Performance10 — Radeon HD 6970 Power Consumption and Thermals11 — Radeon HD 6970 Performance Analysis12 — Radeon HD 6970 Conclusion

ATI Radeon HD 6970 2GB

ManufacturerATI
UK price (as reviewed) £310 (inc VAT) MSRP
US price (as reviewed) $369 (ex tax) MSRP

ATI Radeon HD 6970 Specifications

The previous Radeon HD 6800-series got our hopes up in two ways – firstly it sounded like it’d be more than a mid-range GPU that went toe-to-toe with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 460 cards, and secondly it wasn’t all that new. But while the Barts GPU of the HD 6800 looked more like an overclocked HD 5830 with a tweaked front-end unit, the Cayman GPU of the Radeon HD 6900 is a completely new design throughout.

Before we plunge into the details of the new GPU, let’s clear up the naming. We’re sticking with calling these cards ATI Radeons because that’s what most people know them as, and AMD has said that it’s fine with it partners gradually transitioning from ATI to AMD Graphics until 2011. We still plan to switch when AMD’s Fusion APU is launched in early 2011, as it’ll be silly to talk about a single piece of silicon that has both AMD and ATI technology.

Previously ATI has reserved the HD x900 family branding for its dual-GPU cards to give a bolder indication to the customer that a dual-GPU card should be much faster than a single-GPU HD x800-series card. However, because ATI needed the HD 5700-series to exist with the HD 6000-series, ‘Radeon HD 6800’ was already taken. The Radeon HD 6950 2GB and Radeon HD 6970 2GB are therefore both single-GPU cards. There is a plan to release a dual-GPU card based on two Cayman GPUs which we assume will be called the Radeon HD 6990 4GB. With the names out of the way, let’s stuck into what’s inside the silicon that makes a Cayman worthy of its HD 6900 name.

Click to enlarge

A Dual Front-End Design

While Nvidia went nuts with its Fermi design, breaking apart the elements of a typical GPU front-end and scattering them throughout the chip, ATI has been much more reserved. However, we’ve been expecting ATI to get a bit more radical for a while – after all, a GPU with only one tessellator and one setup engine is starting to look a bit anachronistic these days. While the Barts GPU added merely had a tessellator upgrade (to what ATI is called its 8th Gen Tessellator, which allows off-chip buffering) the Cayman design of the Radeon HD 6900-series has two entire front-end units.

There are some obvious advantages of having two front-end engines: you get two setup engines, two 8th Gen Tessellators, two geometry engines and the ability to send twice as much work per clock to the stream processors than before. ATI claims that the HD 6970 2GB has up to three times the tessellation rate of the HD 5870 1GB. These two front-end units can also load-balance the work flowing to them, and ATI has implemented ‘asynchronous dispatch’.

The new Cayman GPU of the Radeon HD 6970 2GB has two Fron-End Engines.

Asynchronous dispatch is like the ability of Nvidia’s Fermi GPUs to work on two distinct kernels simultaneously. However, ATI says that its technology is ‘completely new in the marketplace’ as it allows multiple, different programs to execute on the GPU at the same time. ‘It’s not like other solutions where you [only] have one program that can spawn multiple kernels to run on the graphics card, you can genuinely have multiple, different applications running on the GPU at the same time’ Dave Bauman, Senior Product Manager, told us.

Click to enlarge

This should make the GPU more flexible for general-purpose work – the GPU will act more like a modern CPU. The two bidirectional DMA (Direct Memory Access) engines of the GPU are also pitched as enhancing the GPU Compute capabilities of the GPU, as they allow two simultaneous reads or writes or a simultaneous read and write per unit.

However, we’re unsure of the need for such advanced capabilities when it comes to gaming. A game runs as a single application, meaning that Nvidia’s technology is perfectly adequate – a game can invoke a DirectCompute kernel and throw it, as well as DirectX shader code, at Fermi GPU without concern.

Where the ATI technology will be useful is if many different applications try to use your graphics card, especially if they don’t have the courtesy to wait until you’ve finished gaming before doing so. It’s not impossible that anti-virus applications could be written in OpenCL, for example, as virus scanning

ATI Radeon HD 6970 Specifications

1 — ATI Radeon HD 6970 Review2 — ATI Radeon HD 6900 VLIW4 Stream Processors3 — ATI PowerTune, and Radeon HD 6900 Dual BIOSes4 — Radeon HD 6970 Specifications5 — Radeon HD 6970 Test Setup6 — Radeon HD 6970 Dirt 2 Performance7 — Radeon HD 6970 Call of Duty: Black Ops Performance8 — Radeon HD 6970 Just Cause 2 Performance9 — Radeon HD 6970 Bad Company 2 Performance10 — Radeon HD 6970 Power Consumption and Thermals11 — Radeon HD 6970 Performance Analysis12 — Radeon HD 6970 Conclusion

ATI Radeon HD 6970 2GB Review

Written by

bit-tech Staff

December 15, 2010 | 04:58

Tags: #5870 #6950 #6970 #catalyst #comparison #consumption #directx-11 #dx11 #faster #fastest #fps #gtx-470 #gtx-480 #hd #performance #power #radeon #red-team #speed #temperature #thermals

Companies: #ati

1 — ATI Radeon HD 6970 Review2 — ATI Radeon HD 6900 VLIW4 Stream Processors3 — ATI PowerTune, and Radeon HD 6900 Dual BIOSes4 — Radeon HD 6970 Specifications5 — Radeon HD 6970 Test Setup6 — Radeon HD 6970 Dirt 2 Performance7 — Radeon HD 6970 Call of Duty: Black Ops Performance8 — Radeon HD 6970 Just Cause 2 Performance9 — Radeon HD 6970 Bad Company 2 Performance10 — Radeon HD 6970 Power Consumption and Thermals11 — Radeon HD 6970 Performance Analysis12 — Radeon HD 6970 Conclusion

Click to enlarge

While the Barts GPU of the HD 6800-series was a bit same-old, same-old, the new Cayman GPU of the HD 6900 is a big change. For a start, there’s two entire Front-End Engines, so the Cayman GPU has two triangle setup units, two tessellators, two rasterisers and can send twice as much work per clock to the stream processors as previous Radeon GPUs.

Those stream processors have been upgraded, so they’re all capable of the high-precision work that only a fifth of the stream processors of previous generations were able to calculate. They’re organised in groups of four, with 16 of these groups per SIMD Engine (or stream processors cluster).

While this means that the HD 6970 2GB has fewer stream processors than the HD 5870 1GB, they’re more capable. ATI says the new layout, called VLIW4, is 10 per cent faster per mm2.

The ROPs have seen upgrades too, and both HD 6900-series cards will have 2GB of GDDR5 memory running at comparably high frequencies to give the large amount of memory bandwidth from the 256-bit memory interface.

  Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 1. 5GB ATI Radeon HD 6970 2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 1.5GB ATI Radeon HD 6950 2GB ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB ATI Radeon HD 6870 1GB
GPU
Codename GF110 Cayman XT GF100 Cayman Pro Cypress XT Barts XT
Frequency 772MHz 880MHz 700MHz 800MHz 850MHz 900MHz
Stream Processors 512 (1,544MHz) 1,536 (880MHz) 480 (1,4GHz) 1,408 (800MHz) 1,600 (850MHz) 1,120 (900MHz)
Layout 16 SMs, 4 GPCs 24 SIMD Engines 15 SMs, 4GPCs 22 SIMD Engines 20 SIMD Engines 14 SIMD Engines
Rasterisers 4 2 4 2 2 2
Tesselation Units 16 2 15 2 1 1
Texture Units 64 96 60 88 80 56
ROPs 48 32 48 32 32 32
Transistors 3bn 2. 6bn 3bn 2.6bn 2.15bn 1.7bn
Size XXXmm2 Unknown 530mm2 Unknown 334mm2 255mm2
Process 40nm 40nm 40nm 40nm 40nm 40nm
Memory
Amount 1.5GB GDDR5 2GB GDDR5 1.5GB GDDR5 2GB GDDR5 1GB GDDR5 1GB GDDR5
Frequency 1.02GHz (4.08GHz effective) 1.375GHz (5.5GHz effective) 924MHz (3.7GHz effective) 1.25GHz (5GHz effective) 1,050MHz (4.2GHz effective) 1,050MHz (4.2GHz effective)
Interface 384-bit 256-bit 384-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit
Bandwidth 192.4GB/sec 176GB/sec 177GB/sec 160GB/sec 134.4GB/sec 134.4GB/sec
Card Specifications
Power Connectors 1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin 1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin 1 x 6-pin, 1 x 8-pin 2 x 6-pin PCI-E 2 x 6-pin PCI-E 2 x 6-pin PCI-E
Maximum Power Draw 244W 250W 250W 225W 188W 151W
Idle Power Draw Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown 27W 19W
Recommended PSU 600W Unknown 600W Unknown 500W Unknown
Typical Street Price £399 £310 £330 £235 £320 £220

1 — ATI Radeon HD 6970 Review2 — ATI Radeon HD 6900 VLIW4 Stream Processors3 — ATI PowerTune, and Radeon HD 6900 Dual BIOSes4 — Radeon HD 6970 Specifications5 — Radeon HD 6970 Test Setup6 — Radeon HD 6970 Dirt 2 Performance7 — Radeon HD 6970 Call of Duty: Black Ops Performance8 — Radeon HD 6970 Just Cause 2 Performance9 — Radeon HD 6970 Bad Company 2 Performance10 — Radeon HD 6970 Power Consumption and Thermals11 — Radeon HD 6970 Performance Analysis12 — Radeon HD 6970 Conclusion

AMD Radeon HD 6970: Efficient and Affordable

At a Glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

  • Strong Price to Performance Ratio
  • Excellent feature set

Cons

  • Outpaced by its competition

Our Verdict

It may not top the charts, but AMD’s Radeon HD 6970 delivers an excellent value.

AMD’s Radeon HD 6970 ($370, as of 12/14/2010) marks the debut of their “Cayman” GPU, offering significant architectural changes stemming from the Radeon HD 5800 series, and their recently launched Radeon HD 6800 series.

This marks a departure from AMD’s traditional approach to their higher-end graphics cards — namely, releasing a card containing two of their existing GPUs, as seen with the Radeon HD 5970. Enhancements abound, with a pair of “front end” graphics engines designed to improve performance in geometry-intensive applications, as well as a re-tooled shader architecture, and PowerTune technology, that aims to throttle the card’s performance if it starts to exceed its thermal boundaries.

For the full overview of the new architecture and its changes, be sure to check out Jason Cross’ exhaustive deep dive.

The $370 Radeon HD 6970’s closest competitor is Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 570, a $350 graphics card released just last week. The 6970 is being released alongside the $300 Radeon HD 6950. For comparison’s sake, we’ve also included Nvidia’s $500 GeForce GTX 580 — the fastest single-GPU card available today.

Performance: Synthetic Benchmarks

As always, synthetic benchmarks aren’t necessarily indicative of a GPU’s real-world performance. But they do give us a general overview of how the card will perform in a series of forward-looking tests (click on a chart to see a larger version).

In Futuremark’s DirectX 10 based 3DMark Vantage benchmark, AMD’s card fell behind both of Nvidia’s high-end offerings.

On 3DMark’s High setting (1680-by-1050 pixel resolution), the 6970 lagged behind the GTX 570 by as much as 8%, while Nvidia’s GTX 580 pulled a commanding 27% lead.

The Radeon HD 6970 fares better on the Extreme benchmarks (1920-by-1200 pixel resolution), with the gap between it and the GTX 570 closing to 5% (in Nvidia’s favor).

The GTX 580 sits ahead by 22% — a fair margin, but mitigated somewhat by the GTX 580’s $500 price tag.

The situation improves in the recently released DirectX 11 based 3DMark 11.

The Radeon HD 6970 manages to pull ahead of the GTX 570 on the Extreme setting by 5%. It still lags behind the GTX 580, but only by 10%.

The card manages to close the gap at higher resolutions, thanks in part to its 2GB of DDR5 memory, as compared to the GTX 500 series’ 1.5GB.

Performance: Games

The card’s performance in real-world gaming scenarios is a bit less clear cut. For our tests we pitted the GPUs against a pack of demanding DirectX 10 and 11 based games, and the Radeon HD 6970 proved to be a serious contender.

In Codemasters’ Foromula 1 racer F1 2010, the Radeon HD 6970 makes an impressive showing.

Edging out the GTX 570 on all of our tests, it even managed to stay competitive with (and occasionally outpace) the pricier GTX 580.

The “Cayman” GPU’s architectural improvements shine here, and gamers with large, high-resolution displays stand to benefit from the 6970’s excellent performance.

Nvidia’s GTX 580 topped the strenuous Just Cause 2 “Concrete Jungle” benchmark test, but AMD’s Radeon HD 6970 was never far behind. That’s fairly impressive, considering the difference in price.

As we saw in the synthetic benchmarks, the card fares better at higher resolutions.

The GTX 580 and 570 maintain a strong lead at the 1920-by-1200 resolution, but that gap dries up once the resolution is dialed up to the 2560-by-1600 pixel resolution.

Value and Efficiency

Power utilization becomes rather demanding on the enthusiast end of the GPU market. To weigh the overall efficiency of these cards, we took the average frames per second of all of our game tests, and divided by their power use under load.

Nvidia’s wares are generally rather power hungry, and while the revamped Fermi architecture made impressive strides towards taming their appetites, AMD’s offerings remain the more power efficient of the pack — particularly at the higher resolutions.

With a $20 price difference between the GTX 570 and the Radeon HD 6970, it becomes prudent to look at things from a broader perspective.

We collect the average benchmark results for all of our game tests, and then divide by their price tags to determine the Dollars per Frames per Second. Lower is better here, and the $500 GTX 580 is included primarily as a reference point.

The $350 GTX 570 ultimately edges out the Radeon HD 6970 as the better buy, where raw performance is concerned — especially if you aren’t fortunate enough to own a 30-inch, 2560-by-1600 resolution display.

But there are a few caveats in AMD’s favor. The 6970 offers a better range of display options, serving up a pair of mini DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, a pair DVI connectors, and an HDMI 1.4a connector. Nvidia’s cards only offer a pair of DVI ports, and an HDMI port. And AMD’s oft-touted Eyefinity technology will also allow you to run up to three displays off a single card, a feat that Nvidia can’t match. And then there’s power efficiency, if you’re watching your electric bill.

All told, that $20 difference becomes a trade-off between eking out those last few frames on your graphically intensive games, or having a bit more versatility in your display options. Nvidia keeps the performance crown, but the Radeon HD 6970 offers up an impressive, well-rounded value that’s tough to beat.

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GTX 780 TiGeForce GTX 780GeForce GTX 770GeForce GTX 760GeForce GTX 750 TiGeForce GTX 750GeForce GT 740GeForce GT 730GeForce GTX 690GeForce GTX 680GeForce GTX 670GeForce GTX 660 TiGeForce GTX 660GeForce GTX 650 Ti BoostGeForce GTX 650 TiGeForce GTX 650GeForce GT 640 rev.2GeForce GT 640GeForce GT 630 rev.2GeForce GT 630GeForce GTX 590GeForce GTX 580GeForce GTX 570GeForce GTX 560 TiGeForce GTX 560GeForce GTX 550 TiGeForce GT 520GeForce GTX 480GeForce GTX 470GeForce GTX 465GeForce GTX 460 SEGeForce GTX 460 1024MBGeForce GTX 460 768MBGeForce GTS 450GeForce GT 440 GDDR5GeForce GT 440 GDDR3GeForce GT 430GeForce GT 420GeForce GTX 295GeForce GTX 285GeForce GTX 280GeForce GTX 275GeForce GTX 260 rev. 2GeForce GTX 260GeForce GTS 250GeForce GTS 240GeForce GT 240GeForce GT 230GeForce GT 220GeForce 210Geforce 205GeForce GTS 150GeForce GT 130GeForce GT 120GeForce G100GeForce 9800 GTX+GeForce 9800 GTXGeForce 9800 GTSGeForce 9800 GTGeForce 9800 GX2GeForce 9600 GTGeForce 9600 GSO (G94)GeForce 9600 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original solutions. Review and testing of video cards ASUS Matrix GTX580 P/2DIS/1536MD5 and EAH6970 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5

ASUS EAH6970 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5

  • Ice and fire. HIS IceQ Turbo graphics cards based on Radeon HD 6850, HD 6950 and HD 6970

    HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo (H697QT2G2M)

  • Red lightning. MSI R6970 Lightning

    MSI R6970 Lightning

  • Second generation. Review and testing of AMD Radeon HD 6970 and HD 6950 on the Cayman core

    AMD Radeon HD 6970

  • MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning Powerful Video Card Review GECID.com. Page 1

    ::>Video cards
    >2011
    > MSI R6970 Lightning

    06/26/2011

    Page 1
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    After the release of «reference» solutions from the developers of graphics cores, every serious participant in the video card market tries to offer the buyer their optimized and improved models. If in the mass segment manufacturers strive to diversify their model range to increase the number of sales, then in the Hi-End class of video cards, the goal is to attract interest to the manufacturer’s name itself. To do this, developers are trying to achieve maximum performance for a solution on a single graphics core. In such models, in addition to a very significant factory overclocking, there are a number of auxiliary features. Using them, the user can achieve even greater performance. On the textolite itself, elements are added that provide «super» overclocking functions for extreme sportsmen, in particular when used for liquid nitrogen cooling. Such modifications significantly increase the price of already not cheap solutions. However, in a narrow environment of overclocking enthusiasts, it is precisely such models that become the most popular. They allow video card manufacturers to compete in the maximum performance of their products and are more status than profitable in production.

    So MSI is developing Lightning series models to emphasize its high position in the global graphics accelerator market. All products of this line are addressed, first of all, to a narrow circle of computer enthusiasts and overclockers. After all, some buyers of expensive video cards buy them not only to enjoy modern games — they also need them to win prizes or simply maintain their rating. The main goal for them is to get the highest possible results in benchmarks and test programs or win new awards on the hwbot resource. The video card 9 should successfully cope with these tasks.0138 MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning .

    In this article, we will consider the most productive single-chip video card based on the AMD Radeon HD 6970 graphics processor from MSI. This video card belongs to the Hi-end segment of the market and has a lot of interesting features.

    Video cards based on the AMD Cayman graphics core have repeatedly participated in our testing. You can learn as much as possible about the architecture of this graphics chip and its capabilities in the material with the first testing of AMD Radeon HD 69 video cards.50 and AMD Radeon HD 6970.

    Here is a detailed table of MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning specifications and analyze all the changes in comparison with the «reference» model:

    Model

    MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning (R6970 Lightning)

    Graphics core

    AMD Cayman (Radeon HD 6970)

    Number of universal shader processors

    1536

    Supported APIs

    DirectX 11 (Shader Model 5. 0), OpenGL 4.1

    AMD Eyefinity support

    Yes

    Graphics core frequency, MHz

    940

    Memory frequency (effective), MHz

    1375 (5500)

    Memory size, MB

    2048

    Memory type

    GDDR5

    Memory bus width, bits

    256

    Tire type

    PCI Express x16 2.1

    Maximum resolution

    Up to 2560×1600 (Dual-link DVI with HDCP) or 1920×1200 (Single-link DVI)
    Up to 1920×1200 (HDMI 1. 4a)
    Up to 2048×1536 (VGA via DVI-to-VGA adapter)
    Up to 2560×1600 (via DisplayPort 1.42 adapter) mini DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort)

    Display interfaces

    Single-Link DVI-D, Dual-Link DVI-I, HDMI, 2x mini DisplayPort

    Minimum power supply requirement, W

    650

    Drivers

    Fresh drivers can be downloaded from:
    — GPU manufacturer website
    — support site.

    Manufacturer website

    http://ua.msi.com/

    Based on the data in the table, the differences between the MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning and the reference card are minimal. Two positions can be singled out: increased by 60 MHz compared to the recommended frequency of the graphics core, and the need to use a more powerful 650 W power supply (a 550 W power supply is required for the «reference» solution). All other characteristics are identical. At first glance, it may seem that we have only a slightly overclocked version of the Radeon HD 6970 with an alternative cooling system. However, there are plenty of significant differences between the MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning model and the «reference» solution. They will be discussed below.

    Let’s start reviewing the MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning with the bundle and the box in which this video card is supplied.

    Like all solutions of the Lightning line, the packaging of this model has quite impressive dimensions. Its design and dimensions immediately make it clear that this is not an ordinary product. The top cover mentions the main advantages and technologies used in this solution. This includes the use of military components, support for MSI Afterburner overclocking software, and AMD Eyefinity technology. A separate logo in the lower right corner highlights the use of the Power 4 architecture. Below is the video card model «R6970 Lightning” and highlights the 18-phase power system involved here, triple voltage boost technologies and the use of the Twin Frozr III cooler as a cooling system.

    If you lift the top cover, you can see a more detailed description of all the technological innovations used in the R6970 Lightning model. Through a window made of transparent plastic, you can see the cooling system of the video card. The space around the window and on the inside of the top cover was reserved by the designers for listing the key features of the product and the technologies that were used to create it. Let’s take a closer look at them:

    Power 4 execution architecture includes four features:

    • 18-phase PWM — the applied power stabilization circuit has as many as 18 phases (14 + 3 + 1), which should ensure stable operation of the video card, both in normal mode and during serious overclocking. It should also lead to less heat dissipation in the power circuits in general.

    • Separate memory power supply. This scheme is typical for many video cards of the Lightning line. Two 8-pin connectors are used here, and some of their pins supply independent lines to the memory power circuit.

    • Proadlizer — Four high-capacity (1000uF) thin-film capacitors (3 for GPU power, one for memory power) provide an improved Proadlizer x4 power circuit designed for extreme overclocking.

    • CopperMOS — the use of transistors with copper radiators allows them to work at higher voltages, which will also allow better overclocking of the video card.

    • Triple Over-Voltage — Provides a voltage boost function for three GPU/MEM/PLL components that are important for overclocking, which gives this video card the ability to significantly increase performance.

    The video card’s power supply circuits involve components, as the manufacturer calls them Military Class II, which should lead to their increased reliability. Solid and tantalum capacitors, as well as ferrite core chokes, add a few more pluses to the high overclocking potential of the MSI R6970 Lightning, increasing its stability in hot modes.

    MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning circuit board is made with LPL (Lightning Power Layer) technology, which adds a dedicated metallization layer that carries GPU and memory power, which in turn increases the stability of the power system and protects it from interference .

    Below, through a transparent film, you can see the video card itself and, in particular, its cooling system. Immediately below the window, all the advantages of the cooler Twin Frozr III installed on the MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning are painted. It is noted that it uses two 90mm Propeller Blade fans in its design, which improves efficiency by 20% compared to Twin Frozr II. The base of the cooler is a nickel-plated plate, and two additional copper pipes with a diameter of 8 mm penetrate the aluminum plates of the radiator with an increased area. All this contributes to better heat dissipation from the GPU heat-spreading cover. In total, the proprietary cooling system, compared to the “reference turbine”, is able to reduce the temperature of the graphics core in maximum load modes by 26 ° C and runs 12 dB quieter.

    The reverse side of the package is less informative: the user can get acquainted with the minimum system requirements for a computer in which MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning can be installed, and once again read about the technologies supported by the video card and its main characteristics. Note that the MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning must be installed in a system with a power supply of at least 650 W with two 8-pin connectors, guaranteed to deliver 150 W each. Otherwise, the user will not be able to fully reveal the full potential that this model has. In total, the packaging of the video card provides maximum information content, but it differs in significant dimensions even for products in this market segment.

    In addition to the video card itself, in the box with it, we found:

    • CD with drivers and proprietary MSI Afterburner utility that allows you to overclock the video card;
    • Quick start guide and a booklet with descriptions of proprietary technologies;
    • mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort adapter;
    • Long Bridge CrossFireX;
    • DVI-to-VGA adapter;
    • Two adapters from 6-pin to 8-pin power connector;
    • Three adapters for connecting a multimeter for voltage monitoring.

    As you can see, the model of the «top» graphics accelerator MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning has all the adapters and delivery components necessary for full use. However, if you connect it to a six-monitor system, then the user will have to buy special adapter hubs for mini DisplayPort connectors. This will allow you to connect two monitors to each of them, and the remaining two can be connected to DVI-I and HDMI ports.

    In previous materials, we have already met a cooling system with the same name «Twin Frozr III», but its upper casing had plastic inserts and differed in appearance. The MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning model has a more rigorous design of the outer casing, and it is made entirely of aluminum alloy. Such changes add practicality to the appearance of the product and contribute to better heat dissipation from the hot elements of the graphics accelerator board.

    The dimensions of the graphics accelerator will make the user seriously think about the «right» case for the gaming system. Dimensions MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning are 310x127x40 mm. This makes it probably the largest among single-chip video cards. The past leader in this category was the MSI GeForce GTX 480 Lightning graphics accelerator, its dimensions are 305x127x45 mm. The length of the MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning is only slightly shorter than that of the dual-chip ATI Radeon HD 5970 solution, which «stretches» 317.5mm. The considerable height of this video card can also be a problem for installation in a case, but in this case, the power connectors will cause the main inconvenience. They can rest against the side panel of the case. If the video card were a little lower, like all other graphics accelerators, this problem would not arise. Along the length, the video card can also easily rest against a basket with disks in average cases. For these reasons, a buyer who wants to acquire such an accelerator should look at full-sized cases.

    The MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning is powered by two 8-pin connectors (in addition to the PCI-Express bus itself), while the «reference» solution on the AMD Radeon HD 6970 has one 6-pin and one 8-pin power connector. The MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning’s power system uses independent circuits to power the memory. Theoretically, in extreme overclocking modes, such a set of connectors should provide the video card with up to 600 W of energy, and this is not counting the consumption of other computer components. It is worth noting that the manufacturer allows you to use two 6-pin connectors instead of two 8-pin ones (two adapters are included in the package). However, this connection will not allow you to achieve the best overclocking results.

    Dual CrossFireX bridge connectors allow up to four Radeon HD 6900 series graphics cards to work together. This will allow the user to assemble a super-productive graphics subsystem.

    On the MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning video card, the set of interfaces for displaying images is composed of the following ports:

    • 1x Single-Link DVI
    • 1x Dual-Link DVI
    • 1x HDMI 1.4
    • 2x mini DisplayPort 1. 2

    Given the presence of one mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort adapter and a DVI-to-VGA adapter, the user is unlikely to have any problems connecting a monitor, projector or plasma panel. MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning supports AMD Eyefinity technology, which allows you to connect up to six monitors simultaneously in various modes. To use this product with this number of displays, the user will need to purchase an additional two mini DisplayPort hubs, which will allow two monitors to be connected to each of the mini DisplayPort connectors.

    There are several interesting elements on the back of the PCB that are directly related to the «super» overclocking capabilities of this solution. There are two double switches sealed with a yellowish transparent film.

    The first SW4 switch OCP Unlock disables current protection, PWM Clock Tuner switches PWM from 266 to 350 MHz, which eliminates ripple. SW2 disables the protection that limits the maximum voltage on the GPU (GPU V-Switch) and memory chips (Mem V-Switch). All of these switches are designed for extreme GPU overclocking under liquid nitrogen. When overclocking with an air cooling system, it makes no sense to switch them, as this can render the video card itself unusable.

    On the right side of the switches, a row of LEDs (LED1-LED14) provides an indication of the number of active phases. They are a visual indication of the operation of the power stabilizer of the MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning video card, which has the ability to dynamically switch active phases. This function ensures that «unnecessary» phases are turned off at low load on the accelerator.

    The presence of a number of film capacitors on the back of the PCB board provides support for Proadlizer x4 technology — four capacitors (3 in the GPU power circuit, one in the video memory power circuit) of increased capacity (1000 uF) provide an improved Proadlizer x4 power circuit designed for extreme overclocking.

    A two-position switch is installed in the upper part of the PCB. It provides switching between different BIOS chips. The difference between them lies in the increase in the frequency change limit in the «Performance» mode. However, we note that there are more than enough limits for increasing the frequencies for air-cooled overclocking in both modes. But even when switching to the “Silence” mode, there was no significant decrease in the cooler speed, which did not change the noise level.

    The dimensions and content of the printed circuit board, as expected, differ significantly from the reference ones. The board has become 16 mm higher and slightly longer, which allowed the developers to place all the elements of an 18-phase power supply on it. Such dimensions oblige the user to pay attention to himself when choosing a case.

    The cascades of the 18-phase power supply circuitry look very impressive, but in reality, here the GPU is powered by 8 phases with doubling of the elements, which are provided by the uP6218AM PWM controller. The 3 phases responsible for supplying voltage to the memory chips are controlled by the uP6207AI PWM controller. In total, this should give good stability and good results during overclocking.

    At special points, the multimeter can measure the voltage supplied to the GPU, memory and clock generator (PLL) of the MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning video card. This is no doubt very convenient and, moreover, the voltage values ​​\u200b\u200bobtained in this way will be more accurate.

    The Radeon HD 6970 graphics core, codenamed AMD Cayman, is the heart of this video card. It is produced according to the 40 nm process technology, contains 1536 universal shader pipelines and 32 rasterization units. MSI developers overclocked it to 940 MHz, which is 60 MHz more than the recommended frequency for this GPU. Data exchange between the graphics core and memory is carried out via a 256-bit bus. The image above shows the main characteristics of the accelerator.

    In total, the video card has 2 GB of GDDR5 video memory by Hynix chips marked H5GQ2h34MFR (4ns). According to the documentation, these chips can operate at an effective frequency of up to 6000 MHz. Given that the initially effective memory frequency is 5500 MHz, you can try to speed it up with overclocking and get some performance boost.

    The third-generation proprietary cooling system used on the MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning is called Twin Frozr III and consists of: ;

    • nickel-plated substrate adjacent to the GPU;
    • oversized aluminum heatsink pierced by three 6mm and two 8mm heatpipes;
    • metal case with two 90mm PWM fans.

    All aluminum plates are soldered to copper tubes to ensure good heat transfer.

    The manufacturer claims an increase in the efficiency of the Twin Frozr III cooling system, relative to the standard turbine, by as much as 26°C. We will try to verify this statement in real tests. To do this, we used the proprietary MSI Afterburner monitoring and overclocking utility, and the MSI Kombustor program was used to create a high load.

    In automatic turbine speed control mode, heavy load causes the GPU to warm up to a tolerable 67°C. The cooler in this mode operates at 53% of its capabilities, which is up to 2250 rpm. Such fan speeds create noise that is barely noticeable against the general background of the system.

    If we compare the efficiency of the standard turbine and the Twin Frozr III cooling system in automatic mode, then the temperature difference will be 23 degrees. This temperature difference is almost in line with MSI’s claim.

    However, if you set the fan speed of both systems to maximum, then the difference in temperature here will be insignificant, only 5 degrees. Although it is worth emphasizing that the noise level of a standard turbine at its maximum speed is much more significant than from a Twin Frozr III system in a similar mode of use.

    At maximum load, the graphics core heated up to a temperature of 60 degrees at maximum fan speed, which can be called an excellent result.

    In the absence of load, the frequencies of the graphics core and memory are reduced, and unused phases of the stabilizer are turned off, which in turn leads to less heat dissipation. The cooling system in this mode is quite quiet.

    All in all, the capabilities of the Twin Frozr III cooler made a very positive impression. This gives reasonable hope for the prospects for a significant overclocking potential of the MSI Radeon HD 6970 Lightning graphics accelerator. We will try to check it in the testing section.

    What should I know before buying Radeon HD 6950 and Radeon HD 6970 graphics cards?

    Introduction
    It seems to be no secret to anyone that the AMD Radeon HD 6950 and Radeon HD 6970 video cards introduced at the beginning of this year are indeed the most efficient and popular solutions of today. Their popularity is due to the competent pricing policy on the part of AMD and the presence of many progressive technologies such as AMD EyeFinity, which are only at the «rudimentary» level in the competitor’s graphics solutions.
    On our Mega Review portal, a large number of reviews of video cards of this family have already been presented. Among them are:

    1. PowerColor Radeon HD 6950 PCS++ review. Dual clock graphics card

    2. Review of Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB. Getting to know the reference video card

    3. HIS Radeon HD 6950 review. Unlock and turn into HIS Radeon HD 6970

    4. Review of XFX Radeon 6950 1 GB XXX Edition. How will reducing video memory affect performance?

    5. Overview of MSI Radeon HD 6950 Twin Frozr II. Modified version of the popular solution

    6. Review of PowerColor PCS+ Radeon HD 6950 Vortex II Edition. New cooling system for the popular graphics card

    7. Review of ASUS Radeon HD 6950. Modest factory overclocking from ASUS

    8. Review of ASUS Radeon HD 6970 DirectCU II. Innovations from ASUS in the top graphics card from AMD

    9. HIS Radeon HD 6950 review. Unlock and turn into HIS Radeon HD 6970

    10. PowerColor Radeon HD 69 Overview70pcs+. Factory overclock and new cooling system

    11. Review of PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 LCS. Trying to fool an overclocker?

    12. Review of HIS Radeon HD 6970 IceQ Turbo. The new modification is already on the market!

    Each of these reviews can be found on our Mega Review portal. When considering them, you can see that the difference between all graphic solutions lies solely in the modified cooling system and the level of factory overclocking of the core or video memory chips. All this makes part of testing video cards of the same type and of little interest to the end user.

    Given this circumstance, we would like to prepare a different review of these products, which will summarize our experience with these video cards and will allow end users to solve many problems that might have seemed impossible to solve before.

    We would like to structure today’s article in a Q&A format, which will make it easier to find the information you need in the future.


    1. What is the difference between AMD Radeon HD 69 graphics cards50 and HD 6970?
    This is the first question that users ask when choosing a video card of this family. The difference between video cards is as follows:

    — the younger video card has a smaller number of universal processors (instead of 1536 for the older one, the younger one has 1408 pieces),

    — the younger video card has fewer texture units (instead of 96 for the older one, 88 for the younger one)

    — the younger video card works at lower operating frequencies (the frequencies for the older video card are 880/1375 MHz, for the younger 800/1250 MHz),

    — the younger video card has less power consumption (the older video card consumes up to 250 watts at peak load, the younger one — up to 200 watts of electricity).

    The test results show that the objectively real difference in performance between older and younger video cards can reach 17%. On average, this parameter fluctuates around 12%. It is up to you to decide if it is worth overpaying for an older video card of the family or not.

    — Clickable picture —

    2. What is the actual power consumption of video cards and will my power supply be enough for them?
    Our users ask this question in the second turn. In principle, the design of printed circuit boards for Radeon HD 6970/6950 video cards does not have any fundamental differences, but these differences are present in the power circuits of video cards. At least note the fact that the older video card is equipped with one six-pin and one eight-pin PCI-Express connector, and the younger one only with two six-pin PCI-Express connectors.

    Despite this, the length of the printed circuit boards is the same and reaches 27. 6 cm, which must be taken into account when choosing a system unit case. Not every system unit of the mATX format will be able to accommodate a graphic solution of this family.

    The manufacturer recommends for a single video card of this family a power supply unit with a capacity of about 550 watts. In this case, it should be borne in mind that this should be the real power of the power supply, and not the peak. The power supply must comply with the ATX2.xx specifications, that is, it must provide the main power through the 12 volt line.

    If you plan to overclock a video card with a softvolt mod, we recommend that you think about a higher power supply, since the power consumption of these video cards can easily approach 330-340 watts.

    For a tandem video card of the Radeon HD 6950/6970 family in CrossFire mode, it is recommended to purchase a power supply unit with a capacity of at least 850 watts. As a rule, this power is enough to supply power to these graphic solutions.

    — The picture is clickable —

    3. What are the motherboard requirements for these video cards?
    Experience has shown that video cards of the Radeon HD 6950/6970 family work easily and without problems in all existing motherboards with PCI-Express slots. Officially, video cards support the PCI-Express 2.0 bus, which is backwards compatible with buses of previous generations, up to 1.0.

    In general, using a video card in a PCI-Express 1.0 slot may result in the inability to achieve maximum performance in some game modes that require the fastest data transfer. Using a tandem of video cards in CrossFire mode on the bus of the previous generation is also not recommended, since its performance for two video cards is definitely not enough.

    To create CrossFire configurations, you need to purchase motherboards that report support for this technology or have two or more PCI-Express 2. 0 slots. Expensive motherboards support two full-fledged PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots, cheaper options provide two video cards in PCI-Express 2.0 x8 format.

    Experience shows that the difference in performance between two different CrossFire configurations is negligible, although it can be observed under high loads.

    To build CrossFire, it is recommended to connect video cards with appropriate bridges. Ideally, these are two bridges. Experience shows that one bridge can be used if you play at a resolution of less than 1980×1024 pixels inclusive.

    4. What brand of video card would you recommend purchasing?

    This is the next practice question that our users are starting to wonder about. Indeed, today the domestic market offers a wide variety of Radeon HD 69 series products.50/6970 from ASUS, MSI, Palit, Gainward, Sapphire, PowerColor, HIS, etc. Most of the presented solutions have a reference design, which can be identified by the standard cooling system and power circuit wiring on the back of the video card.

    If you choose between reference designs in your case, we recommend purchasing the cheapest option. The level of performance and quality of these video cards are absolutely the same. The difference between the solutions lies only in the labels applied to the casings of the cooling system.

    — The picture is clickable —

    If you want to purchase an alternative graphics card design, then the final choice is yours. More than 12 reviews of video cards of alternative design are presented on our Mega Review portal. The main differences between graphics cards other than the reference design are:

    — in operating frequencies,

    — cooling system,

    — video card power supply circuit.

    As a rule, manufacturers install more efficient cooling systems on their video cards and carry out their slight factory overclocking. A prime example would be the MSI Radeon HD 69 graphics card.50 Twin Frozr II, which has a modified cooling system and operates at higher frequencies than the nominal.

    Recently, a new modification of video cards of this series has entered the market — MSI Radeon HD 6950 Twin Frozr III PE, which has a modified power scheme. As a rule, modification of the power circuit of a video card leads to an increase in the stability of its operation during its overclocking and allows you to achieve higher frequencies than on a conventional video card. Unfortunately, no one guarantees this either, and this is only a theoretical «maybe», for which the user is invited to pay a little extra.

    — The picture is clickable —

    5. What technical problems have been identified with video cards at the moment?
    Today, technical problems of AMD Radeon HD 6950/6970 video cards can be associated with the appearance of annoying «whistle» at high loads on the graphics solution. As a rule, these are the elements of the video card power system — chokes. The main reason is the lack of power of the power supply or the drawdown of the supplied voltage of 12 volts. Drawdown leads to an increase in current demand, which increases the strength of the current flowing through the chokes, which leads to the appearance of annoying squealing.

    Unfortunately, the problem is not always in the power supply, it can also be in the video card itself. No one is immune from desoldering a somewhat poor-quality choke. This problem is solved quite simply. By ear, a whistling throttle is detected, a video card is removed and the identified element is filled with varnish for radio electronics.

    It should be understood that this manipulation completely and forever deprives you of the warranty for the video card. As a rule, a whistling throttle is not recognized as a warranty case by any of the service centers.

    There may be a simpler solution to this problem. Experience shows that the level of performance of video cards Radeon HD 6950/6970 is enough for many, and most of the computing power of video cards is wasted. Therefore, it makes sense to limit the maximum frame rate by enabling the VSync function in the driver. Reducing the load on the video card will lead to a decrease in both power consumption and the disappearance of annoying sound.

    In general, Radeon HD 6950/69 graphics cards70 are under warranty no more often than competing solutions and even less, since they have two BIOS chips on board and users need to try to destroy both entries of the boot system.

    We also haven’t seen any complaints about the incompatibility of video cards with equipment from other manufacturers.

    — Clickable image —

    6. Why is the overclocking potential of Radeon HD 6970 video cards higher than that of Radeon HD 6950?
    Indeed, both video cards are based on the same core. It’s just that the younger model has a stripped-down core combined with lower power consumption, which is ensured by the difference in voltages applied to the core in 2D and 3D modes. Also, the video memory chips of the Radeon HD 6970 video cards work at a voltage of 1. 6 volts, and for the younger Radeon HD 6950 video card at a voltage of 1.5 volts.

    In principle, no one bothers you to increase this voltage. This can be done by uploading a new BIOS version to the video card. Some users have noted chip burn-in after increasing the voltage on the video memory chips. As experience shows, the number of these cases does not exceed the average values ​​even among non-modified video cards, so 1.6 volts for memory chips can hardly be called fatal.

    — The picture is clickable —

    7. What drivers do you recommend using with these video cards?
    We have no preference and try to always use the latest drivers. As a rule, the latest versions of drivers can be found either on our Mega Review website or on the official AMD website.

    The only key requirement is to clean the operating system from the «remnants» of the drivers of the previous video card, especially if it was an NVIDIA video card. This is done quite simply, several programs are presented on the network and on our Mega Review website, for example, Driver Sweeper.


    Conclusion
    Concluding our first article on what you should pay attention to when buying AMD Radeon HD 6950/6970 video cards, we want to note that these video cards are very popular among domestic users. Almost the only drawback of video cards of this family is the lack of support for Nvidia PhysX technology, which is why some users give unconditional preference to competitor products. Enthusiasts solved this problem a long time ago by installing a second graphics card from NVIDIA to support this technology in games. At the same time, NVIDIA PhysX will work without problems only in Windows XP and Windows 7 operating systems, the problem of activating this function in Windows Vista could not be solved.

    Screenshots of the use of new AMD drivers that enable PhysX on AMD Radeon HD 6950/6970 video cards are circulating on foreign sites. Unfortunately, no one has seen these drivers in our country, and all this still remains simple screenshots.

    In the second article devoted to AMD Radeon HD 6950/6970 video cards, we will try to give advice on the correct operation of these video cards.

    Overview of the new video card Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB Dual Fan

    Author:

    Jordan

    Date:
    12/20/2011
    All photos of the article

    Introduction

    I think it’s not a secret for anyone that this year we will not see video cards based on the new AMD and NVIDIA hi-end class graphics processors. It is quite probable that in the first quarter of next year it is also not necessary to wait for their appearance. Therefore, we will continue to get acquainted with the latest products that are relevant today, and today the object of our close attention will be the video card Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 Dual Fan . It should be noted that Sapphire released two new graphics cards based on the AMD “Cayman” GPU at once — the second is called the Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5, but the first is still more attractive in terms of performance and cooling system, which is why we asked for it on testing. Let’s check how interesting and successful the new product turned out to be, and what is its performance in comparison with other classmate video cards.

    Specifications

    Packing and Contents

    The box that comes with the video card is large and beautiful. On its front side is depicted a futuristic form of a girl with a sword, captured in two angles. Next to it is information about the key features of the product and its support for various modern technologies:

    The back of the package contains additional information of the same kind, and also briefly lists the package contents.

    Underneath the thin colorful shell is a sturdy box with the graphics card in the center and the following accessories in a separate compartment below it:
    adapter from PATA power connector to an eight-pin connector;
    DVI-I → D-Sub adapter;
    HDMI cable, 1.8 meters;
    miniDP → DP adapter;
    CrossFireX jumper;
    Sapphire TriXX driver and utility CD;
    Sapphire holographic sticker;
    installation instructions;
    Sapphire promotional leaflet.

    The Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 Dual Fan is priced at $359, which is on par with most other manufacturers’ Radeon HD 6970 graphics cards.

    Design Features

    Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 Dual Fan looks very attractive, thanks to a stylish plastic cooling shroud and two fans with glossy black blades:

    In terms of dimensions, the graphics card is nothing special — its length is 270 mm, height 111 mm, and thickness is 45 mm.

    The novelty is equipped with a complete set of outlets. Among them, one DVI-I with support for high resolutions (Dual Link), one DVI-D, one HDMI (v1.4a), a pair of Mini-DisplayPort:

    In the kit, as you remember, there is an adapter with Mini- DisplayPort to DisplayPort v1.2. Despite such an abundance of outputs, there is still room for a grille for partial ejection of air from the case of the system unit by a heated video card. But, in the case of Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 Dual Fan the presence or absence of such a grid is not critical, due to the features of the cooling system, which we will definitely study in today’s article.

    Two MIO connectors for creating CrossFireX systems are in their usual place, as is the BIOS switch:

    , which, according to the specifications, for a system with one Radeon HD 6970, a 550W power supply is recommended, and for two such video cards in CrossFireX mode, 750W.

    The printed circuit board of the video card belongs to the second revision of the reference PCBs and can only boast of a digital eight-phase power supply system on the CHiL Semiconductor CHL82289 controller:

    AMD «Cayman» GPU released in Taiwan at the end of August this year (week 34):

    The GPU configuration is standard for the Radeon HD 6970 and includes 1536 Unified Shader Processors, 96 Texture Units (ROPs), and 32 ROPs. The chip frequency in 3D mode is 880 MHz at a voltage of 1.174 V, which corresponds to the specifications of the reference Radeon HD 6970. But the new Sapphire video card still has one feature — when the load on the GPU increases, its voltage increases to 1.2 V, which higher frequencies during overclocking and stability. Note that the second BIOS chip has a standard voltage for all 3D modes. Add that in 2D mode, the frequency drops to 250 MHz, and the voltage drops to 0.9V.

    There are no distinguishing features in terms of video memory — the novelty is equipped with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory manufactured by Hynix Semiconductor Inc., located in eight FCFBGA chips on the front side of the printed circuit board:

    1.6 V and a theoretical effective frequency of 6000 MHz, but, in accordance with the specifications of the AMD Radeon HD 6970, the memory operates at an effective frequency of 5500 MHz. In 2D mode, the effective video memory frequency is reduced to 600 MHz. The memory bus is 256 bits wide.

    The final specifications of the Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 Dual Fan are as follows:

    Let’s supplement this subsection with a link to the BIOS and move on to studying its cooling system, which is of the greatest interest in this video card.

    Cooling system and noise level

    The cooler consists of five copper heat pipes, an aluminum radiator and a plastic casing with two fans:

    Heat pipes penetrate thin aluminum plates, thus distributing the heat flow over them:

    The contact of the tubes with the plates, as well as with the copper base, is made by soldering, which promises us a high efficiency of this radiator. The tubes at the base lie in grooves, with two extreme tubes with a diameter of 8 mm, and three middle tubes — 6 mm:

    Apparently, due to such a non-standard layout of the base, the developers of this cooling system sought to ensure more uniform heat removal from the GPU chip and increase temperature the most effective cooling.

    Two 90 mm fan impellers:

    Their speed is automatically controlled by pulse-width modulation in the range from 1100 to 3200 rpm.

    According to the sticker on the stator, the fans are manufactured by FirstD and their maximum power consumption should not exceed 4.2 W: Predator (2010) at maximum graphics quality at 2560×1600 with 16x anisotropic filtering and 4x anti-aliasing:

    MSI Afterburner version 2.2.0 Beta 9 and GPU-Z version 0.5.6 were used to monitor temperatures and other parameters. All tests were carried out in the closed case of our test system unit at a room temperature of 25 degrees Celsius.

    As it turned out, the efficiency of the proprietary Sapphire Dual Fan cooling system is at a very high level, both at maximum power and in automatic mode:

    Automatic modeMaximum power

    In the automatic mode of the cooler fans, the temperature of the GPU only rose to 67 degrees Celsius, and the maximum fan speed was 2500 rpm. At the maximum power of the cooling system at 3200 rpm, the temperature did not exceed 64 degrees Celsius. These are excellent results, but how noisy is the cooling system? Compared to Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 Toxic Edition and MSI N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition:

    * vertical dotted lines mark the boundaries of the fans of the respective cooling systems in automatic mode.

    Indeed, the Sapphire Dual Fan cooling system is quieter than the coolers of today’s two competitor video cards. However, if the practically reference cooler Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 Toxic Edition has no chance to compete with the new product, then the MSI N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition cooling system is quite competitive in this regard, and in automatic fan mode it operates in a comparable to Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 Dual Fan sound range. At the same time, it should be noted that none of these original coolers in the 3D mode of the video card is quiet or at least comfortable. This requires cooling systems such as the Arctic Accelero XTREME Plus II.

    Overclocking potential

    Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 Dual Fan demonstrated a decent frequency potential — the graphics processor was able to function at 9 without loss of stability and appearance of image defects.90 MHz, and video memory — at 5880 MHz:

    Most likely, a good result of overclocking the core was achieved not only due to the highly efficient cooling system of the video card, but also due to an increase in the GPU voltage to 1.2 V, because most often the Radeon HD 6970 do not chase above 950 MHz on the GPU. But the memory did not impress with its overclocking, it was just unlucky.

    After overclocking the video card, its temperature conditions deteriorated insignificantly — the peak core temperature was 72 degrees Celsius at a fan speed in automatic mode of 2660 rpm:

    Recall that AMD Radeon HD 6970 graphics cards with reference turbine cooling systems operate, as a rule, at temperatures 15-20 degrees Celsius higher than the temperatures shown today by the Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 Dual Fan.

    Test results

    Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 Dual Fan blitz was run on AMD Catalyst 11.11c drivers:80X, overclocked to 4.5 GHz:

    As competitors, we chose the powerful MSI N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition 3 GB and the Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2 GB Toxic Edition video card, interesting for its ability to simply “switch” to HD 6970:

    Moreover, the latter was tested specifically in the HD 6950 mode to evaluate the difference in speed with the original HD 6970 in the face of the Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 Dual Fan. Let’s look at the results of individual tests.

    3DMark Vantage

    3DMark 2011

    Unigine Heaven Demo

    Predator (2010)

    Batman: Arkham City

    By and large, we do not observe any surprises in performance testing. The Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 Dual Fan was slightly faster than the Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2 GB Toxic Edition and predictably slower than the MSI N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition 3 GB. Note that when overclocking the new Sapphire video card to frequencies of 990/5880 MHz, it comes close to the MSI graphics card in Aliens vs. Predator (2010) and the quality game mode Batman: Arkham City.

    Conclusion

    The Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 Dual Fan is another great top-of-the-line AMD graphics card. What distinguishes Sapphire from other similar products is a very efficient cooling system, the noise level of which is much lower than the noise level of the reference Radeon HD 6970 cooler. additional cooling of the video card, since the Sapphire Dual Fan can easily cope with its cooling at high frequencies. I would like to wish Sapphire to include one of the new gaming hits in the package of this video card, as well as to reduce the recommended cost by 25~30 dollars. In this case from Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB GDDR5 Dual Fan will turn out to be an unconditional bestseller, which will be relevant until the release of new graphics processors and video cards based on them.

    Radeon HD 6970 [in 2 benchmarks]

    Radeon HD 6970

    • PCIe 2.0 x16 interface
    • Core frequency 0
    • Video memory size 2048 MB
    • Memory type DDR5
    • Memory frequency 1375
    • Maximum resolution

    Description

    AMD started Radeon HD 6970 sales on December 14, 2010 at a suggested price of $369. This is a Terascale 2 architecture desktop card based on 40 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. It has 2 GB of DDR5 memory at 1.38 GHz, and coupled with a 256-bit interface, this creates bandwidth.

    In terms of compatibility, this is a dual-slot PCIe 2.0 x16 card. The length of the reference version is 267 mm. The connection requires one 6-pin cable and one 8-pin cable, and the power consumption is 550 watts.

    It provides poor performance in tests and games at the level of

    9.65%

    from the leader, which is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.


    Radeon HD
    6970

    or


    GeForce RTX
    3090 Ti

    General Information

    Price now 233 $ (0.6x) of 49999 (A100 SXM4)

    The price quality 900

    for obtaining the HOUSE taking into account the cost of other cards.

    • 0
    • 50
    • 100

    Features

    Radeon HD 6970’s general performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. They indirectly speak about Radeon HD 6970’s performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

    Number of stream processors 1536 out of 18432 (AD102)
    Boost frequency

    RAM

    Parameters of the memory installed on Radeon HD 6970 — type, size, bus, frequency and bandwidth. For video cards built into the processor that do not have their own memory, a shared part of the RAM is used.

    from 128 (Radeon InstinTin MII250x)70 technological solutions and APIs. You will need this information if your graphics card is required to support specific technologies.

    Memorial type DDR5
    The maximum memory volume 2 GB

    Overall benchmark performance

    This is our overall performance rating. We regularly improve our algorithms, but if you find any inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in the comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

    HD 6970
    9.65

    • Passmark
    • 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics
    Passmark

    This is a very common benchmark included in the Passmark PerformanceTest package. He gives the card a thorough evaluation, running four separate tests for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11, and 12 (the latter being done at 4K resolution whenever possible), and a few more tests using DirectCompute.

    Benchmark coverage: 26%

    HD 6970
    2835

    3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

    Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests showing a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature that appears to be made of lava. Using resolution 1920×1080, Fire Strike shows quite realistic graphics and is quite demanding on hardware.

    Benchmark coverage: 14%

    HD 6970
    3470


    Mining hashrates

    Radeon HD 6970 performance in cryptocurrency mining. Usually the result is measured in mhash / s — the number of millions of solutions generated by the video card in one second.

    AppAcceleration
    CrossFire 1
    Enduro
    HD3D
    Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 273 Mh/s

    Game tests

    FPS in popular games on the Radeon HD 6970, as well as compliance with system requirements. Remember that the official requirements of the developers do not always match the data of real tests.

    Average FPS
    Popular games
    • Full HD
      Low Preset
    • Full HD
      Medium Preset
    • Full HD
      High Preset
    • Full HD
      Ultra Preset
    • 1440p
      High Preset
    • 1440p
      Ultra Preset
    • 4K
      High Preset
    • 4K
      Ultra Preset
    Cyberpunk 2077 10-11
    Assassin’s Creed Odyssey 10-11
    Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 10-11
    Battlefield 5 10-11
    Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 10-11
    Cyberpunk 2077 10-11
    Far Cry 5 10-11
    Far Cry New Dawn 10-11
    Forza Horizon 4 10-11
    Hitman 3 10-11
    Horizon Zero Dawn 10-11
    Red Dead Redemption 2 10-11
    Shadow of the Tomb Raider 10-11
    Watch Dogs: Legion 10-11
    Assassin’s Creed Odyssey 10-11
    Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 10-11
    Battlefield 5 10-11
    Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 10-11
    Cyberpunk 2077 10-11
    Far Cry 5 10-11
    Far Cry New Dawn 10-11
    Forza Horizon 4 10-11
    Hitman 3 10-11
    Horizon Zero Dawn 10-11
    Metro Exodus 10-11
    Red Dead Redemption 2 10-11
    Shadow of the Tomb Raider 10-11
    The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 10-11
    Watch Dogs: Legion 10-11
    Assassin’s Creed Odyssey 10-11
    Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 10-11
    Battlefield 5 10-11
    Cyberpunk 2077 10-11
    Far Cry 5 10-11
    Far Cry New Dawn 10-11
    Forza Horizon 4 10-11
    The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 10-11
    Watch Dogs: Legion 10-11
    Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 10-11
    Hitman 3 10-11
    Horizon Zero Dawn 10-11
    Metro Exodus 10-11
    Red Dead Redemption 2 10-11
    Shadow of the Tomb Raider 10-11
    Assassin’s Creed Odyssey 10-11
    Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 10-11
    Battlefield 5 10-11
    Cyberpunk 2077 10-11
    Far Cry 5 10-11
    Far Cry New Dawn 10-11
    Forza Horizon 4 10-11
    Watch Dogs: Legion 10-11
    Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 10-11
    Hitman 3 10-11
    Horizon Zero Dawn 10-11
    Metro Exodus 10-11
    Red Dead Redemption 2 10-11
    Shadow of the Tomb Raider 10-11
    The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 10-11
    Assassin’s Creed Odyssey 10-11
    Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 10-11
    Battlefield 5 10-11
    Cyberpunk 2077 10-11
    Far Cry 5 10-11
    Far Cry New Dawn 10-11
    Forza Horizon 4 10-11
    Watch Dogs: Legion 10-11

    Relative capacity

    Overall Radeon HD 6970 performance compared to its nearest desktop counterparts.


    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
    107.05

    AMD Radeon HD 6990
    106.22

    AMD Radeon R7 260
    101.97

    AMD Radeon HD 6970
    100

    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB
    96.68

    AMD Radeon RX 550
    95.44

    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560
    95.44

    Competitor from NVIDIA

    We believe that the closest equivalent to Radeon HD 6970 from NVIDIA is GeForce GTX 460 768MB, which is slower by 3% on average and lower by 6 positions in our rating.


    GeForce GTX
    460 768MB

    Compare

    Here are some of NVIDIA’s closest competitors to the Radeon HD 6970:

    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost
    116. 68

    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470
    109.64

    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
    107.05

    AMD Radeon HD 6970
    100

    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB
    96.68 909eighteen

    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560
    95.44

    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465
    94.61

    Other video cards

    Here we recommend several video cards that are more or less similar in performance to the reviewed one.


    GeForce GTX
    560 Ti

    Compare


    GeForce GTX
    470

    Compare


    GeForce GTX
    590

    Compare


    Radeon HD
    6870

    Compare


    Radeon HD
    7770

    Compare


    Radeon HD
    5850

    Compare

    Recommended Processors

    According to our statistics, these processors are most often used with the Radeon HD 6970.


    Core i5
    2400

    2.8%


    Core i7
    2600K

    2.3%


    Core i3
    9100F

    2.3%


    Phenom II
    X6 1055T (95W)

    2.3%


    Core i5
    2500K

    2.1%


    Core i5
    4460

    1.8%


    Core i5
    3470

    1.8%


    Core i3
    2120

    1.6%


    FX
    6300

    1.6%


    Core i3
    10100F

    1. 6%

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    Radeon HD 6970 vs. GeForce GTX 580

    Let’s rejoice — the competition in the discrete accelerator market between AMD and Nvidia has reached its climax. New graphic solutions are pouring in from all sides, and along the way, freshly baked prices bribe more and more users.

    Before Nvidia announced the GeForce GTX 580 and sent out several press releases on the theme of «the fastest accelerator», here’s a response solution for you — the Radeon HD 6970. And it ripened just in time. According to the statistics of the Steam system, almost three-quarters of real users (more than 30 million in total) use DirectX 10 generation accelerators. This means that in the light of the total invasion of toys under DirectX 11, a noticeable wave of computer upgrades for all enthusiasts — AMD and Nvidia — is coming in anticipation of big money.

    Last time we applauded the GeForce GTX 580, now it’s the turn of the Radeon HD 6970. And we can only sympathize with the developers of both companies, because their hot new products have to be made in a stagnant 40nm process technology.
    Thus, AMD engineers completed the task of upgrading the Cypress architecture, which formed the basis of the 5800 series boards. The new Cayman core turned out to be more productive, compact and energy efficient. As a result, the IT world has received encouraging news about the GPU architecture VLIW4 instead of VLIW5, which underlies the Evergreen family.

    How We Tested

    All tests were based on the following test bench configuration: AMD Phenom II X4 970 processor, Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H motherboard, Transcend TX2000KLU-4GK (DDR3, 1333MHz, 4GB, 9- 9-9-24, 2ch), Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX (2 GB, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64 MB cache, 7200 rpm), Plextor DVDR PX-810SA optical drive, block power Tagan SuperRock TG880-U33II (880 W). Work with the test platform was carried out with the connected Philips Brilliance 202P7 monitor at graphic resolutions of 1600 x 1200, 2048 x 1536, 1366 x 768 and 1920 x 1080.

    Program tests were performed under Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. The video drivers ForceWare 64-bit version 262.99/263.09 and Catalyst 64-bit version 8.79.6.2RC2/10.10 were used to work with the graphics subsystem. As a measuring tool, we used the scenario test SmartFPS.com version 1.13 to automatically determine the performance in gaming applications Aliens vs Predator (DirectX 11), DiRT 2 (DirectX 11), Crysis (DirectX 10), Serious Sam 2 (DirectX 9).), Call of Juarez (DirectX 9), Unreal Tournament 3 (DirectX 9), Enemy Territory — QUAKE Wars (OpenGL), The Chronicles of Riddick (OpenGL). We also used the 3DMark 11 v1.0 test suite.
    3D performance study conducted with quad antialiasing (AA:04) and 16x anisotropic filtering (AF:16) enabled. All rendering quality settings were controlled using global settings in the respective video drivers.

    Solid tuning

    AMD specialists have seriously revised the existing shader architecture. First, we increased the number of SIMD clusters to 24.

    Recall that the Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5870 processors have 18 and 20 active SIMD engines, while the 6850 and 5870 GPUs have 12 and 14 active SIMD engines, respectively. We increased the number of texture units to 96. Secondly, we changed the structure of stream processors. If earlier one such block consisted of five units (Unit), which differ in functionality, now there are four units in each flow block that perform all types of operations. This conversion, according to AMD, allowed to reduce the number of transistors, reduce the die area by 10%, and at the same time maintain efficiency in terms of performance.
    We are sure that pretty soon AMD engineers will return the size of the graphics chip to its previous limits due to «extra» units that multiply the computing power. We are waiting for the AMD-ATI Radeon HD 6980 solution.
    Along the way, we will note some improvements in the so-called backends (Back-Ends) of rasterization units that write pixels to the framebuffer. The optimization carried out will affect when anti-aliasing and heavy HDR modes (High Dynamic Range — visualization in a wide dynamic range) are enabled. I remember that four years ago (before the advent of a couple of GeForce 8800GTX and GeForce 8800GTS), the possibility of simultaneous operation of various anti-aliasing methods and HDR technology was inherent only in ATI solutions.
    Today’s users have become even more picky: in addition to the AA + HDR bundle, they expect special efficiency in working with calculations on floating point numbers in 32-bit format. And in this regard, the Radeon HD 6970 will not disappoint anyone.

    If we are counting game frames, then the main data stream, consisting mainly of textures and vertices, is sent in one course — from the CPU to the GPU. But if you focus on other applied tasks, then the information flow will go in all directions. And here the Cayman core pleases with the second additional DMA block with direct memory access. Regardless of the main one, DMA-engine 2 can send data in the opposite direction via PCI Express lines. Of course, this increases the efficiency of double precision calculations and takes DP (double precision) performance to a new level for 69 series boards.00.
    Now a few words about the most important thing in DirectX 11, that is, tessellation. This was a weak point in the Cypress architecture, but with the release of the 6800 and 6900 series boards, the problem disappeared. AMD-ATI engineers have doubled the number of internal blocks associated with tessellation technology (so-called rasterizers and tesselators). As a result, in synthetic tests, where the tessellation factor corresponds to nine, the performance of the AMD Radeon HD 6970 tripled compared to the AMD Radeon HD 5870. In real games like Metro 2033, Aliens vs Predator and Lost Planet 2, the progress indicators of the new product are much more modest — only +30 %.

    Note that in addition to the new Morphological AA anti-aliasing mode, which appeared with the 6800 series boards, another anti-aliasing mode appeared — Enhanced Quality AA. With conventional anti-aliasing, a large number of samples are stored in the frame buffer (for example, 4 for AA:4x or 8 for AA:8x), which leads to the loading of video memory and an increase in the amount of data transfer from memory and back. In practice, most information is lost, because the entire set of co-pixels is compressed to one. All the excess load is needed only in order to understand what part of the pixel is covered by a certain texture. So, when Enhanced Quality AA is enabled, the buffer stores half as many samples for each point, but it takes into account whether the texture falls on the remaining subpixels. It turns out an amazing sketch when, when Enhanced Quality AA 4x is turned on, the quality of the game picture reaches Multi Sampling AA 8x, and the performance remains at the usual AA: 4x level.
    Moreover, on top of EQAA, you can turn on Morphological AA, reminiscent of the work of smoothing filters from Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photo-Paint on a framebuffer frame. When it doesn’t matter where the pixel lies — on the edge of the triangle or inside the texture —
    there is an additional pass through a specific picture and all the «stairs» are smoothed automatically. What happens visually, users will have to judge with their preferences, but everyone can be guaranteed a drop in performance. Therefore, experiment on gaming hits of the past, such as Serious Sam 2 or The Chronicles of Riddick.

    Eating right

    In the process of designing a new core, the flight of engineering thought is limited by the maximum level of power consumption. You have to experiment with the operating frequencies of the crystal and memory in order to stay within the given limits. At the same time, only synthetic applications that are far from real games (for example, Furmark) can create maximum loads. And this is the technology that AMD came up with in order to squeeze the maximum performance out of accelerators (due to frequency characteristics) and not lose reliability.
    Hundreds of special sensors are scattered around different areas of the Cayman graphics core, monitoring the state of the chip. In essence, they check whether a particular set of transistors is turned on in the logic of the crystal. All information received is analyzed within the integrated controller, which evaluates the level of current energy consumption. If unacceptable values ​​are found in the GPU load assessment, then the operating frequencies of the crystal decrease — voids appear between cycles. This allows you to stay within TDP (Thermal Design Power — a metric of thermal power), and at the same time cool the processor.
    The presented technology is called AMD PowerTune — it is completely hardware-based, it does not depend on the operation of drivers. It is not possible to understand at what frequency the crystal is operating at a given time. However, little in the future will prevent AMD programmers from adding a frequency tab to the Catalyst Control Center panel or making a corresponding utility.

    Note that in the current version of CCC, the Power Control settings slider appeared in the AMD Overdrive window. It allows you to shift the border of the AMD PowerTune innovation operation within 20% both in one direction and in the other. For example, shifting throttling to the “-10%” position in the test game Aliens vs Predator does not affect the playability of frames per second, but it gives a noticeable reduction in power consumption of the entire PC. What’s more, according to AMD’s testing, GPU idles are extremely rare. So far, throttling can be achieved in the default settings for AMD Radeon HD 69 boards50 in the 3DMark Vantage: Perlin Noise test case. At the same time, a temporary decrease in clock frequencies has little effect on the final performance.
    By the way, AMD PowerTune technology can speed up the appearance of a dual Cayman, because the main problem of the future Radeon HD 6990 board will be the TDP bar.

    The right to make a mistake

    In continuation of the conversation about AMD PowerTune technology, it should be noted that the main trigger settings are set in the board’s BIOS firmware. You can also set the operating frequencies for the crystal and memory. Dare and do not worry about the sad outcome when your desires exceed the capabilities of the accelerator.

    AMD Radeon HD 6970 and AMD Radeon HD 6950 reference boards have two BIOS storage areas and a corresponding switch (next to the CrossFireX pad). In the standard position «1» you can modify the BIOS routine as you like. Get a black screen — go to indestructible mode «2» and boot with factory settings. In our opinion, the Dual BIOS feature will be appreciated by all overclockers and not only by them.

    Where are we aiming?

    Let’s commend AMD’s marketers for their unexpected modesty. In market positioning AMD Radeon HD 6970 (MSRP $369) was placed below the competing Nvidia GeForce GTX 580, while the Radeon HD 6950 (MSRP $299) was pushed behind the GeForce GTX 570.

    But AMD has a good sense of humor. Do you know which board is at the very top of the hiend marketing tree? The AMD Radeon HD 5970, a rather outdated dual-processor solution with a suggested price of $499, is located here. It was this single board that set the world performance record in the 3DMark Vantage test at x14240. And such a significant event happened just a couple of weeks before the official announcement of the AMD Radeon HD 69 video card.70, that is, December 1st.

    It is clear that AMD remains committed to its established philosophy of creating dual-processor cards for ultra-high performance solutions. And if at the time of the appearance of the AMD Radeon HD 6990 accelerator based on a couple of Caimans, Nvidia will have empty sleeves, we will see a “baby beating”. In the meantime, the miracle has not happened and the GeForce GTX 580 looks more desirable.
    In terms of technical specifications when comparing Radeon HD 6970 and Radeon HD 5870, we see a leap forward only in double precision processing power — 675 Gflops. As a big plus, we will write down 2 GB of GDDR5 video memory, which are especially necessary when building Eyefinity multi-display technology or when working in CrossFireX mode. There are positive shifts in core frequencies and the number of texture units.

    What the tests showed

    In all OpenGL hits, at various resolutions, the GeForce GTX 580 outperforms both the Radeon HD 6970 and the Radeon HD 5970 — here AMD-ATI’s loss has become traditional. In the DX9 game Call of Juarez, a rather curious picture developed, when the Radeon HD 6970 noticeably loses to the GeForce GTX 580, but at the same time the ancient Radeon HD 5970 goes head to head with Nvidia. Swapping the HD 6970 and HD 5970 in the results for the DX9 Serious Sam 2 test, the dual-processor solution loses, while the Cayman is equal against the GeForce GTX 580.
    Let’s focus on games under DirectX 11 in a separate paragraph. In both Aliens vs Predator and DiRT 2, we feel similar performance between the Radeon HD 6970 and GeForce GTX 580, but Nvidia is slightly better.