Official AMD Radeon 6000 Series Discussion Thread

[Wrigleyvillain]

I think AMD did a real good job for CrossfireX this time round. It's a good time to Crossfire...

Indeed. Unprecedented scaling esp 69xx and kinda surprised it's not getting a bit more attention and praise both from AMD as well as users. Just got two 6850s here instead of another 5850 and couldn't be happier for $310 shipped AR. 55-60 FPS in Crysis first level 1920x1200 4x AA all Ultra High except shadows. Pretty sweet.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Damn you Wrigley lol im still cpu limited to an extreme... *cries uncontrollably* you bastard lol

 

[Lionheart]

Damn you Wrigley lol im still cpu limited to an extreme... *cries uncontrollably* you bastard lol

Would a 6 core 1090T @ 4ghz help at all, or does adding more cores not really help with bottlenecking

 

[Jmatt110]

I just installed my 2 6970's and updated to 10.12a. Now, my screen brightness is incredibly low (as soon as the drivers installed, the brightness just dropped).

When I uninstalled the drivers to reinstall them, the brightness level returned to normal. As soon as they were re-installed, the brightness dropped again. Gonna try a full driver sweep when I get home to see if that fixes the issue.

I forgot this in my first post. The very first time I installed the cards and updated to 10.12a, the brightness was fine. It was only after I disabled CrossFire that the brightness dropped, and has been like that ever since.

Ok the full driver sweep did nothing. Brightness was fine while the drivers weren't installed. As soon as I reinstalled them, brightness dropped again. I've tried playing around with the brightness and contrast in CCC, but that cant even get close to what it was pre-10.12a.

The best way to describe it is to turn the brightness on the your phone/laptop all the way up (pre 10.12a) and all the way down (with 10.12a)

 

[Boomstick777]

Would a 6 core 1090T @ 4ghz help at all, or does adding more cores not really help with bottlenecking

I have a HD 6970 and came from a Phenom II 965 at 3.8GHZ (Most I could get stable) to a Phenom II 1055t 95W clocked at 4.0GHZ and am getting a big fps boost in games aswell as better 3D Mark 06 and 11 scores. The 1055t even at stock speeds (2.8GHZ) with turbo core turned on scores the same as my 965 was in 3D mark 06 and 11. Must be some improvements somewhere aswell as more cores becuasce this cpu is much faster for me. Best CPU I have owned got it for £150. Doubt i'll uprgade again for a long time, this cpu is more than fast enough at 4.0GHZ for any game or app out there. I'll skip the initial 32nm bulldozer cpu's and probably wait until 28nm version appear in 2012 or whenever we see them.

Was thinking about waiting for sandy bridge but I hate the fact intel have locked the fsb so you can't overclock on cheaper models. Anyway glad I chose to upgrade now 1055T is a great cpu, runs very cool and overclocks rediculously well..

If you get a 1055t 95w you wont be dissapointed

 

[pantherx12]

I find dx11 games really get a boost from the extra cores.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Damn you Wrigley lol im still cpu limited to an extreme... *cries uncontrollably* you bastard lol

Hrm, that sucks. Yeah Crysis is running even better than I thought it would based on perf with my 5850 (at 900Mhz) as well as W1z's 5850 CF review. Though this 55-60 is in the very beginning cruising through the jungle and what not. Once I got to the first base and some action began it would drop into the high 40's at times.

I find dx11 games really get a boost from the extra cores.

Yeah I didn't look at the numbers but definitely noticed a nice minimum fps boost in BC2 on my i5 compared to my e8400 both at 4Ghz. However, it would still drop too far and get jerky for a few seconds in certain scenarios such as when I'm tank gunner zoomed in and the main gun is giving off a ton of smoke. I suppose I will see if the new GPU horsepower can help with that or if it's just all CPU for that type of calculating and rendering.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

6900 series revision coming soon

It's unclear what exactly is being revised with the 6900 series but according to Gabe the release of current 6900 series is considered the initial release while later updated version is called the revision. Some of the changes are: power components, vrm configuration, etc. And article was written about it here.

Its unclear if it will be easy to get a revised 6900 series card. And it's not clear if AMD will announce this change.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

Would a 6 core 1090T @ 4ghz help at all, or does adding more cores not really help with bottlenecking

in most games no you wont

BadCompany2 maybe
in the 3d mark BENCHS sure in 99% of games tested in review fuck no you wont see any changes

examples of what is likely to happen Metro 2033 2cores at 2ghz = same fps as core i7 at 4.4ghz no change at all most games like Unreal Engine based games etc comes down to performance per clock Intel beats AMD all to hell at this point its why even core i3 and i5s beat out overclocked Phenom IIs in games

a good example is Dragon Age or any Bioware game really where an i5 750 vs an 965be the i5 is 30-40% faster with the SAME graphics card. Theres other instances of this as well but in general more cores wont do much for you. Hell shit today barely uses 4 cores let alone 6.

overclocking from 3400cpu 2000nb to 3800/2600 and for personal testing at 4000/2800 those cpu overclocks only netted a 1-2% gain in fps with dual 6970s the cpu just dosent get work done quick enough for dual cards

the big difference is the 6 core Phenom IIs can usually hit Higher North Bridge speeds then the Quads and the higher northbridge usually = better crossfire scaling but ive already tested overclocking and in games that actually NEED more cpu / gpu power no Phenom II is enough regardless of 2 4 or 6 cores

 

[Boomstick777]

in most games no you wont

BadCompany2 maybe
in the 3d mark BENCHS sure in 99% of games tested in review fuck no you wont see any changes...

no Phenom II is enough regardless of 2 4 or 6 cores

That is what I thought until I actually tried the 1055t. I came from Phenom II 965 same as yours to a Phenom II 1055t and am getting massive fps gains in all my games, especially Crysis/ Crysis warhead and Metro 2033.

Also getting huge boost in 3D mark scores compared to my old Phenom II 965...

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

yea and in those games you just mentioned they dont use more then 2 cores so unless your OS is old moldy and clogged with some registry issues its not gonna make that big a difference and your running a single gpu so most likely it may result in SOME performance gain running dual gpus of the 6900 series even the 6 core AMD cpus dont cut it

games like AvP Metro 2033 heavens bench im on par with every other cpu out there in existance

give me games on Unreal Engine 3 anything from BioWare etc the CPU isnt enough it chokes because while theres plenty of cores theres always a single core bottlenecked. Mostly its ATis driver being pretty crappy in terms of optimization for multi gpu situations. Intel CPUs hit the bottleneck to but its less apparent. there was a big dicussion on this back during the 5800 were being played with and benched. an key example is again metro 2033

dual gpu mode 1920x1200 xfire scaling is 69% turn on Depth of Field in the DX11 effects menu and xfire scaling jumps to 89-99% because gpu load went up enough that the bottleneck on the cpu didnt matter.

and 3d mark is a BENCH TOOL its not a damn game 3d mark is nothing more then something id loop to test a gpu overclock if i was bored. If i want to look at something and go ooooohh aaaaaah amazing ill go watch something done in CGI on bluray or w.e

key point is right now no AMD cpu can push dual 6900 cards to there limit in games like Crysis gpu utilization even at max overclocks is below 35% per gpu with an xfire scaling of 8% fully overclocked does nothing u gain 3 fps with an overclock from 880core to 950 and memory from 1375 to 1450 and cpu from 3400 to 4000 nb from 2000 to 2800 theres nothing more then a 3% gain in general single card difference was more noticable. but dual cards have overhead and its to much for a PII

roughly

crossfire scaling
AMD: 50-60%
Intel: 80-102%

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

So...why didn't you buy an Intel CPU?

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

long story but i bought a 940be + 790gx mobo back when the i7 920 + x58 + triple channel DDR3 was in the $800 range for those 3 parts. i then traded a 940be straight up for a 965 sold my 790gx + DDR2 and it paid for a 790fx and my DDR3 due to price drop got a free lic for Win 7 64bit PRO and from there the rest is history pretty much had a free upgrade from AM2 + to AM3 and with both 5850s sold it covered a single 6970 and i grabbed the other card figuring screw it when the time comes ill update cpu mobo ram instead of gpus next cycle

 

[sliderider]

Would a 6 core 1090T @ 4ghz help at all, or does adding more cores not really help with bottlenecking

Not all games would be optimized to run on 6 cores. Hell, some games aren't even optimized for 4 cores yet, so adding more cores won't do any good if the game is not aware of them. For those games more gigahertz would be better than more cores.

 

[Thatguy]

Not all games would be optimized to run on 6 cores. Hell, some games aren't even optimized for 4 cores yet, so adding more cores won't do any good if the game is not aware of them. For those games more gigahertz would be better than more cores.

More game could have simply been multithread, but game devs are typically very lazy when it comes to stuff like that. fanaticall about alot of other things however.There are benefits to multithreading even on a single core system.

 

[HalfAHertz]

What I've found most amazing is how game studios coding for the PS3 would go through amazing lengths to make a game multi-threaded for the PS3s cell processor and then release a game for the PC that could barely use 2 cores...It's similar with the X360 which supposedly has 3 cores but is a much easier platform to design for.

 

[Black Flag]

Latest news for pricing table of upcoming AMD 6990?

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

What I've found most amazing is how game studios coding for the PS3 would go through amazing lengths to make a game multi-threaded for the PS3s cell processor and then release a game for the PC that could barely use 2 cores...It's similar with the X360 which supposedly has 3 cores but is a much easier platform to design for.

while you might think that dont forget that the CPUs in the consoles are from the IBM power pc architecture even the CELL is based on the Power PC arch just a different implementation. and no matter how threaded it is its still only around the same power as a Core 2 Duo E8300 at stock clocks.

Theres even reports that some ports that run like ass will run better if your not overclocked per se but close to the 360s 3.2ghz cpu speed never tried it myself but eitherway no matter how they port something its still generally a giant mess

 

[sneakyserb]

6950 help

if u have a 6950 could u tell me your sc2 fps results 1920x1080 ultra please.i get like only 60fps and it dips below 40 in huge fights.This seems like balls for a 300$ card.i unlocked the card and have 2 running in cross fire but still the same.i feel like i should get more out of one card im sayin at least 100fps.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

its an RTS means cpu is more important

example total war series i have $750 of gpu power im still limited by the cpu due to physics AI pathfinding audio etc etc sc2 is hitting a cpu wall not a gpu wall

a way to look at it is Medieval 2 total war going from a 7800gtx to 8800gts 640mb to 4870x2 to 5850 crossfire to 6970 crossfire the fps has stayed the same because through all those i was limited by the cpu at each and every turn.

 

[sneakyserb]

fml

i have the amd1090t black edition processor....it should be good enough

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

dosent matter already pointed out that if the game dosent effectively use cores it dosent matter how many you have also your running amd cpu with 2x 6900 cards thats a bottleneck in and of itself by nearly 30% in alot of cases.

acording to this article after 3 cpu cores Starcraft dosent scale anymore meaning 3 out of 6 of your cpu cores are still not doing a god damn thing thus my point still stands
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/08/18/how-many-cpu-cores-does-starcraft-2-use/2

to be more blunt SC2 is only using about 2 cpu cores the 3rd just allows windows to offload some extra tasks making the game pick up an entire 1-2fps after which no more scaling thus in essence Star Craft 2 only uses 2 cpu cores. so in reality you got 4 cores twiddling there thumbs bored out of there minds.

 

[campb292]

69xx observations and thoughts

Preface: I am no fanboy of either Nvidia or AMD/ATI. I have been a long-time Nvidia user dating back my MX200 about 10 years ago. With the fermi delays I went with a 5850 and loved it. As for this years new card/s, I wasn't sure which way to go. So, I bought both - a 570 and a 6950.

I am pretty disappointed with the 6950. I am not disappointed because it performs a bit weaker than the 570... it is 60 bucks cheaper and assuming equality, it should. But what I noticed with my previous Radeon 5850 is that it seemed to offer a "bigger bang for the buck" than nvidia - not true this time around.

Gripe #1: Performance. I did upflash and ran tests. It definitely does unlock those shaders. I could see small percentage (2-5%) increases in everything I tested using the 6950 clocks before and after the flash. I ramped up to the 880/1350 (25 under 6970 memory) clocks and was still stable. Problem is, the performance is just weak. Just about everything I ran came in lower than my tests on the GTX 570 (usually about the same or 5-10% lower).

3DMark Vantage GPU score - 570OC 24738 6950>70 20917.
Crysis Warhead Enthusiast 1080p NoAA - 570OC 50.56 6950>70 43.13.
Heaven 2.1 Moderate shaders, normal tess, stropy 4 1080p - 570OC 65.9 6950>70 54.4.
FFXIV 1080p - 570OC 5639 6950>70 4933.

Gripe #2: Voltages. What is with the high voltages on these cards? Are they being read wrong because of the new Volterra chip? Mine shows stock volts of 1.175 in GPU-z and Afterburner. A 5870 has stock volts of 1.088 and 850/1250 clocks. The 6970 has 1.175 volts on 880/1375 clocks. That really isn't going to leave much headroom once voltage tuning comes into play unless I add an aftermarket cooler to this thing.

Gripe #3: The fan. It is noisier than the 570. If I am not using sound, like running 3Dmark 11, I can hear a high pitched whine as it shifts speeds. The only way around it is to set a constant RPM speed. The 570 doesn't do that, nor did the 5850 I had.

Gripe 4: Drivers. If I go to AMD.com I can't download the driver by using the drop down menus. I know how to get the driver, but it should be available right on the main page with the main Catalyst 10 files.

 

[Mussels]

thread approved. it got caught in our automated spam filter (new user, unusually long post)

 

[Thatguy]

Preface: I am no fanboy of either Nvidia or AMD/ATI. I have been a long-time Nvidia user dating back my MX200 about 10 years ago. With the fermi delays I went with a 5850 and loved it. As for this years new card/s, I wasn't sure which way to go. So, I bought both - a 570 and a 6950.

I am pretty disappointed with the 6950. I am not disappointed because it performs a bit weaker than the 570... it is 60 bucks cheaper and assuming equality, it should. But what I noticed with my previous Radeon 5850 is that it seemed to offer a "bigger bang for the buck" than nvidia - not true this time around.

Gripe #1: Performance. I did upflash and ran tests. It definitely does unlock those shaders. I could see small percentage (2-5%) increases in everything I tested using the 6950 clocks before and after the flash. I ramped up to the 880/1350 (25 under 6970 memory) clocks and was still stable. Problem is, the performance is just weak. Just about everything I ran came in lower than my tests on the GTX 570 (usually about the same or 5-10% lower).

3DMark Vantage GPU score - 570OC 24738 6950>70 20917.
Crysis Warhead Enthusiast 1080p NoAA - 570OC 50.56 6950>70 43.13.
Heaven 2.1 Moderate shaders, normal tess, stropy 4 1080p - 570OC 65.9 6950>70 54.4.
FFXIV 1080p - 570OC 5639 6950>70 4933.

Gripe #2: Voltages. What is with the high voltages on these cards? Are they being read wrong because of the new Volterra chip? Mine shows stock volts of 1.175 in GPU-z and Afterburner. A 5870 has stock volts of 1.088 and 850/1250 clocks. The 6970 has 1.175 volts on 880/1375 clocks. That really isn't going to leave much headroom once voltage tuning comes into play unless I add an aftermarket cooler to this thing.

Gripe #3: The fan. It is noisier than the 570. If I am not using sound, like running 3Dmark 11, I can hear a high pitched whine as it shifts speeds. The only way around it is to set a constant RPM speed. The 570 doesn't do that, nor did the 5850 I had.

Gripe 4: Drivers. If I go to AMD.com I can't download the driver by using the drop down menus. I know how to get the driver, but it should be available right on the main page with the main Catalyst 10 files.

ummm you got a nvidia employee bage, personally I think this thread is spam.