ATI Radeon HD 6000 Series ''Southern Islands'' Graphics Cards For Sale from November

This has made my day this news, but after I read all the posts, it was ruined by douches but yeah, I will take a HD6970 4GB good sir lol

 

Awesome news. We'll see how this new tech will change how we see things, or completely pass us as unimpressive. Looking forward to the TPU review.

 

I expect no effective changements cuz for the 40nm, so no real NEW GPU'S...

Maybe ATI will now take to rebrand its graphics cards, like nvidia did...

HD5000 series are freakin great in all aspects, what works well you tend not to change it.

 

Does anyone else get the feeling that the 6000 series will fix the lackluster crossfireX scaling? I don't see the 6000 series being that dramaticatlly different then what's available in terms of raw output (fps). Nvidia's Fermi SLI numbers are very impressive. Hence the 460 SLI comes close to the 5870 Crossfire numbers, but a single 5870 trounces the 460.

I think if dually cards are in your future, I think ATI needs to get their scaling fixed. I'm starting to look at NVIDIA more with their SLI results. Remember folks, minimum frame rate is what we all want to see and right now ATI's crossfire is getting hit hard with the fermi SLI minimum frate rate results.

 

Well i wouldn't call it a rebrand necessarily, i mean it's not like they're calling it HD 5870+ or something. Considering it's a whole new series of cards, i'd hope they'd throw a pretty significant amount of power in them over the 5 series. And yes the 5 series is great, but tech has to move on, and usually that's only a couple months after it's predecessor is released.

 

Hopefully we can get this graph going down (an example from Finnish price tracking service)

ASUS HD 5850 1GB

[dates are dd-mm]

This is kinda historical, at least IMO.

 

Imo there is nothing wrong with Tessellation on the 5 series.

I run Unigine 2.0 as well and sure it looks a bit choppy at times but turn on V sync. Sure the frams are capped but it runs beautiful.

The framrates for me in the dragon scene was 51 fps and thats with everything maxed out.

I guess its just how you precieve the benchmark, all I know is its extremely smooth running.

 

i just want better xfire scaling 30% - 70% is a huge gulf compared to around 60%-90% of sli if the 6k cards offer better xfire scaling im on that shit like white on rice but only if the price is right

 

better start putting the pennies away then Ray

Im going to grab 2 6870's this time around

 

well if i sell the 5850s on the cheap then i can probably afford 1 6850 and if i save my pennies till xmass i might be able to get a 2nd for crossfire

 

First nVidia started using model numbers that sounded like old ATI cards (9600, 9800, etc), now ATI is using model numbers that sound like old nVidia cards. lol

At any rate, I hope they hire a better driver team to code for these cards. Their hardware has been great, but their software has been garbage. If they don't get a better driver team, my money is still going to nVidia on my next card purchase, even if it leaves me a gen behind.

 

So many people saying they're choosing to wait now because of this, and so many others are complaining about having waited too long.

I sourced my 5870 at the start of the year, during a bad shortage. If a graphics or platform is 2 gens newer then what you have and you have the itch for better performance, then review it without hesitation, decide weather the benefits outweigh the drawbacks for early adoption.

Sure, pricing is not as good as compared to if you wait, so may be the drivers and bios. IMO if you want to enjoy the performance of new tech, you have to do your research, then jump on board without hesitation if you believe it will keep you satisfied throughout its lifespan and hopefully for the next generation too, if you don't want to burn too much money, just don't go for the highest best of the best product, go for second best and you get the awesome speeds without most of the stupid price inflation.

If I get several months of far better gaming performance then others for a minor hundred or so dollars difference, I'm going to go for it. Provided I am jumping (over) a generation and feel the tech is all its made out to be.

 

Even with a 1Ghz overclock on my 5870 I could still use about 20% more performance to keep frame rates up in GTA.

I won't go nvidia due to the better image quality ATI gives, and the performance/price I have gotten with all my recent cards from them. I have had no noticeable issues with drivers, but I don't run any pirate software, and keep my system clean from malware, and I have a stable overclock.


About half of the driver issues with ATI cards could probably be traced to faulty overclocks, malware, incomparable software, or faulty pirate software that has been hacked.

 

Seems you've got fabrication process and chip design confused XD

 

I don't have malware, pirated software, or incompatible software. And the drivers are still shit at stock clocks on a fresh install. These aren't user caused issues.

And ATI no longer has an advantage in IQ. They are both slightly different, but neither is better anymore. ATI is strong in IQ where nV is weak, and vice versa.

 

Radeon is already tunned up with 5000 series, they will try to open some more SP but who knows, not sure if this will be good series, Series 4000 was a bit cranky also.

 

Interesting. There are many controversial "guesses" about how Southern Islands will perform. Some say, it's only 5-10%, some claim that it will bring improvements up to 30%.

I wouldn't expect much, since it's still 40nm. I would guess, that it will have e.g. improved tessellation, since Nvidia has been beating them in that, and maybe 10-15% improvement in general performance. Also, they might have been able to improve the thermal performance.

But we won't know how Southern Islands will perform until Q1 2011, when the high-end cards of the lineup will be released, if not delayed that is. The good side is, that because it has some elements of Northern Islands (the upcoming 28nm architecture), we might be able to gain some information about Northern Islands possible performance.

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

One thing i'm certain about performance is that the 6750 will be about the same perf. as the 5850, the 6770=5870, 6650=5750, 6670=5770. And so on. Its the 6970 performance that is unpredictable

 

It's a shame how some countries get raped like this. I resell my cards eventually and always get asked if I'll consider overseas shipping. This is why.. :shadedshu

 

Bro, your so...... gonna get 2 HD6970's aren't you hahaha

 

That's a possibility, but what makes you so certain?
I'm less worried about the performance and more so about the price.:shadedshu

EDIT: @SteelSix
In South Africa (where I'm forced to buy often), the price equivalent of the 5850 was close to US$500 when it was about US$300 on NewEgg.

 

I hope the 6970 won't be any bigger than the 5970... the 5970 barely fit in my case :S

 

Here's my prediction.

3870x2 = 4850
4870x 2= 5870
5830x2 = 6870

 

That makes the 6870 barely faster than the 5870....
Since the 5830 is actually no better than a 4890.

Whats the point in releasing a new high-end if it is only around GTX 480 speeds?