Review of amd radeon hd 6800 series card. Testing of AMD Radeon HD6800 series video cards. Test platform configuration and performance testing methodology
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Nvidia. This review examines the pros and cons of the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series. Characteristics, description and test results - you can find all this below.
The emergence of a series of video cards
AMD regularly updates its line of graphics processors and video cards. 2010 was no exception: the 6800 series was presented to the public. This line was created to replace the flagship 5870 video card.
On October 22, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series video card was presented. Feedback on the progress of the line's presentation was only positive. In 2010, AMD was just gaining popularity with its video cards, so everyone was expecting a technical breakthrough from them or at least a very good flagship series.
It was on this line that the manufacturer’s rebranding completely ended: from now on, video cards bore the name of AMD, not ATI. This was done due to the expiration of the contract after the merger of the companies. Perhaps this decision was made to popularize not only graphics chips, but also processors from AMD. This conclusion suggests itself due to the constant advertising and presentation of configurations assembled only on the AMD platform (processor + video card).
Let's figure out what's new that the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series line brought to the market of video cards for desktop computers, the characteristics of which will be presented below. The entire series is represented by the following video cards: HD 6850 and 6870. According to the creators themselves, the number 8 in the index no longer means belonging to the top line of graphics chips, since the 6900 series appeared.
AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series: technical specifications
First, it's worth talking about the platform change. The new line uses the Barts processor. From the first presentation, it became clear that AMD chose a different development path than Nvidia. If the latter are constantly in pursuit of power and maximum performance, then Radeon video cards are designed to be a balanced ratio, no matter how trite it may sound, price and quality (performance).
Specialists from the former ATI company were often called true innovators. They set trends for the entire graphics chip market. After moving under the wing of AMD, the company took a step back. The new generation of Barts processors is even weaker than the previous one on paper and in specifications. The creators went by simplifying the architecture to achieve an excellent balance between speed, reliability and performance. Barts has become simpler in structure and smaller in size. This processor is the basis for mid-class and budget video cards, which include the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series. The characteristics are presented below.
Both representatives of the series (HD 6850 and 6870) support DirectX11 and version 5 of shaders. The cost of video cards is $180 and $240, respectively. Compared to high-performance and overclocked competitors from Nvidia, AMD boards are truly budget-friendly, but the difference in performance is not that great. The amount of video memory on both cards is 1 GB. The series is a direct competitor to the GeForce GTX460 with 1 GB of RAM and the GeForce GTX470.
AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series video card: characteristics and test results
To test the line of video cards, the following computer configuration was used as a test bench: a Core i7 processor with a frequency of 3.3 GHz, 6 GB of RAM and a 64-bit Windows 7 operating system. All games used are configured for graphics quality and detail in order to check the maximum performance of tested video cards.
The first game of the test was Aliens vs. Predator. It immediately becomes clear that the HD6800 series will be difficult to compete with the GeForce 460 1GB: only at a resolution of 1600x900 and lower can the AMD board produce a playable 30 frames per second.
In the game Battlefield Bad Company 2, the situation evens out, and purchasing an AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series no longer seems such a bad decision. Technical characteristics at maximum graphics and resolution settings (6850 and 6870) allow you to outperform the GeForce by as much as 8 frames per second (30 versus 22). Let us remind you that the cost of an Nvidia video card starts from $230. Using the new line from AMD is becoming more and more attractive. But without making hasty conclusions, let's look at the following tests.
In the very demanding game Crysis Warhead, both video cards perform well only at low screen resolutions. STALKER Call of Pripyat allows the Nvidia video card to take the lead by 10 frames per second. But do not forget about the significant difference in price.
Conclusion after tests
In general, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series video card performs well in all games. After the update, the drivers began to support all new games, so the budget version of the graphics chip from AMD produces a tolerable 25-30 frames per second in modern gaming projects at high graphics settings.
AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series: Pros and Cons
The following points can be highlighted from the advantages of this video card. Firstly, good performance in most modern games. Secondly, low power consumption. You can also note the low price, for which the buyer will receive good performance and all the “tricks” of top-end video cards, such as image output on 6 monitors, compatibility mode with similar video cards.
The disadvantages are hidden in the increased noise of the video card and a frankly weak cooling system. At high enough loads in video games, the chip begins to quickly overheat.
Bottom line
For those who are not chasing breakthrough power and high test numbers, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series line is perfect. The characteristics of the video cards allow you to safely play with high FPS at medium or close settings for the graphics component of the game. AMD video cards also have a low cost compared to Nvidia GeForce 460 and 470. But the performance differs little, so the choice of a mid-budget class video card is obvious.
AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series is a series of mid-class video cards from the famous company AMD. These video cards have replaced the series with index 5. All technical characteristics, test results in special programs and in games are described below.
History of the creation of a video card
It is worth clarifying that the 6800 series was the first to be produced under the AMD logo, and not ATI, after the merger of the two computer component manufacturing companies.
In 2010, there was a need to once again update the line of video cards offered by the company. During the presentation, AMD revealed all the details about the technical data and capabilities of the new series. AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series includes two models of video cards: HD 6850 and HD 6870. The last two digits conditionally determine the class of the video card. Accordingly, 6850 was the youngest, and 6870 was the older and more powerful.
These video cards were created to replace the flagship HD 5870, but, oddly enough, they were no longer leading, but occupied a middle-class position. The flagship of the company was the series with index 9 - HD 6900.
AMD Radeon HD 6800: characteristics
When developing all previous video cards, specialists from ATI followed the same principle as their colleagues from Nvidia. This means that efforts were put into all new developments and lines of video cards to achieve maximum performance and hardware power. After merging with AMD, the company's policy and approach to creating video cards took a slightly different vector.
AMD set out to create video cards with balanced power, performance and price. This series should compete with the 460 GTX and 470 GTX. For this, the creators decided to develop a new graphics processor. There is still debate about whether Barts is a breakthrough or a step back. On the one hand, the creators simplified the architecture and reduced the size. On the other hand, power consumption and performance have become much higher compared to the previous generation of AMD video cards.
According to the company itself, they did not make any revolution or breakthrough. The Barts graphics chip is a repeat of the previous generation, only with a new approach to old technologies. One of the reasons for this decision was problems with production and factory at the time of the release of the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series, so the creators decided to upgrade the old generation.
But the goals of filling the hi-end video card segment based on upgrading the previous generation architecture were not achieved. The new series matches the performance of the HD 5870, but does not surpass it.
The entire series is based on the Barts processor, has support for shaders version 5, and a fixed amount of video memory - 1024 MB. Each video card has two DVI connectors, two miniDP outputs and one for HDMI. Both devices support CrossFire technology and display images on 8 monitors simultaneously. The junior video card 6850 operates at a frequency of 775 MHz, the senior 6870 operates at 900 MHz. The cost of video cards is $180 and $240, respectively. DirectX11 is also supported, which was important at the time the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series was released.
Testing video cards
Both 6800 series video cards were tested under the same conditions and on the same bench configuration. All tests were carried out in 3D Mark and computer games released at the time of the release of the series of video cards.
AMD Radeon HD6850
This model of the line is the weakest in the AMD Radeon Hd 6800 series. The characteristics are greatly reduced compared to the older video card. Moreover, absolutely everything has been cut, including the capabilities of the cooling system. But the creators did not take into account one thing: despite the lower power, the video card heats up just the same. This is a definite disadvantage.
According to the results in 3D Mark, this video card is inferior to the older one in the series by only 2-3 thousand points. Let's take the most productive and demanding games of those years - Crysis and Far Cry 2. The difference in FPS is from 10 to 15 frames per second. If we compare this difference with the difference in price, then purchasing the HD 6850 looks like a very attractive decision.
AMD Radeon HD6870
The older model of the series is comparable in performance to the company's flagship HD5870. It is especially noteworthy that the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series video card, the price of which is much lower than the cost of competitors from Nvidia, allows you to use the full capabilities of DirectX11. The HD 6870 copes especially well with this task.
The modernization of the Barts graphics processor made it possible to achieve competitiveness with the flagship of AMD itself and the GTX 460 from Nvidia with 1 GB of memory.
Summing up
The new generation of AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series, which received mixed reviews, is definitely worth your attention and your money. Both video cards occupy a niche between budget models and the flagship HD 5870, but at the same time, the line can compete with competitors in its segment from Nvidia. Samples from AMD look much better. The performance gain for Nvidia video cards is minimal, but the cost is $30-40 higher.
Obvious disadvantages include a noisy cooling system with a cooler. In an effort to save money and simplify the architecture, the creators forgot to take care of proper cooling. A noisy cooler that can barely cope with the load discourages any desire to use the video card's capabilities to the fullest. But this is not necessary, because for experiments and overclocking there are video cards from Nvidia.
Positioning among AMD video cards
An AMD slide visualizes the placement of the AMD Radeon HD 6800 series in the AMD product hierarchy:
As we can see, some reforms have emerged here. Two new solutions have been prepared to replace ATI Radeon HD 5800 series video cards:
AMD Radeon HD 6800 video cards will represent AMD products in the $150-250 price range, and in the near future, solutions based on AMD “Cayman” GPUs will occupy a higher level. ATI Radeon HD 5700 series video cards will continue to exist for the time being.
The next slide demonstrates the positioning of the new video card lines in relation to performance:
Thus, at the beginning of 2011, instead of three lines of AMD video cards, the market will already be occupied by four lines. In the fourth quarter of 2010, the ATI Radeon HD 5970 will be replaced by AMD Radeon HD 6990 accelerators, leading the highest level of AMD products. Below will be the AMD Radeon HD 6950 and Radeon HD 6970 video cards, while the performance of the Radeon HD 6900 should significantly exceed the current line of ATI Radeon HD 5850 and Radeon HD 5870 accelerators. The new AMD Radeon HD 6800 actually replaces the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series line. ATI Radeon HD 5770 will remain on the market for now, closing the AMD lineup.
As a result of the reforms, we get AMD Radeon HD 6800 video cards at a price of $150-250, with performance almost comparable to the more expensive ATI Radeon HD 5800 adapters.
Market positioning
AMD Radeon HD 6800 should compete with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 graphics cards. In the future, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 and GeForce GTX 480 accelerators will be opposed by solutions based on AMD “Cayman” graphics processors that have not yet been presented. The market should be led by AMD Radeon HD 6990 (“Antilles”) video cards, but this is in the near future, but for now let’s return to the already announced AMD Radeon HD 6800.
Along with the announcement of AMD Radeon HD 6800 series video cards, NVIDIA announced a reduction in the recommended price for some accelerators.
As a result, the market for graphics accelerators in the $150-250 range looks like this:
| HD 5770 | GTX 460 768MB | HD 6850 | HD 5830 | GTX 460 1GB | HD 6870 | HD 5850 | GTX 470 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | Juniper XT | GF104 | Barts Pro | Cypress | GF104 | Barts XT | Cypress Pro | GF100 |
| Technical process | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm |
| Number of transistors, million pcs. | 1040 | 1950 | 1700 | 2154 | 1950 | 1700 | 2154 | 3200 |
| Shader Units | 800 | 336 | 960 | 1120 | 336 | 1120 | 1440 | 448 |
| TMU | 40 | 56 | 48 | 56 | 56 | 56 | 72 | 56 |
| ROPs | 16 | 24 | 32 | 16 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 40 |
| GPU frequency | 850 MHz | 675 MHz | 775 MHz | 800 MHz | 675 MHz | 900 MHz | 725 MHz | 607 MHz |
| Memory size/type | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 768 MB GDDR5 | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 1024 MB GDDR5 | 1280 MB GDDR5 |
| Memory interface capacity | 128 bit | 192 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 320 bit |
| Memory frequency | 1200 MHz | 900 MHz | 1000 MHz | 1000 MHz | 900 MHz | 1050 MHz | 1000 MHz | 837 MHz |
| Recommended price | $140 | $160 | $180 | $190 | $200 | $240 | $260 | $260 |
Nvidia. This review looks at the pros and cons of the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series. Characteristics, description and test results - you can find all this below.
The emergence of a series of video cards
AMD regularly updates its line of graphics processors and video cards. 2010 was no exception: the 6800 series was presented to the public. This line was created to replace the flagship 5870 video card.
The video card was presented on October 22. Feedback on the progress of the line's presentation was only positive. In 2010, AMD was just gaining popularity with its video cards, so everyone was expecting a technical breakthrough from them or at least a very good flagship series.
It was on this line that the manufacturer’s rebranding completely ended: from now on, video cards bore the name of AMD, not ATI. This was done due to the expiration of the contract after the merger of the companies. Perhaps this decision was made to popularize not only graphics chips, but also processors from AMD. This conclusion suggests itself due to the constant advertising and presentation of configurations assembled only on the AMD platform (processor + video card).
Let's figure out what's new that the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series line brought to the market of video cards for desktop computers, the characteristics of which will be presented below. The entire series is represented by the following video cards: HD 6850 and 6870. According to the creators themselves, the number 8 in the index no longer means belonging to the top line of graphics chips, since the 6900 series appeared.
AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series: technical specifications
First, it's worth talking about the platform change. The new line uses the Barts processor. From the first presentation, it became clear that AMD chose a different development path than Nvidia. If the latter are constantly in pursuit of power and maximum performance, then Radeon video cards are designed to be a balanced ratio, no matter how trite it may sound, price and quality (performance).
Specialists from the former ATI company were often called true innovators. They set trends for the entire graphics chip market. After moving under the wing of AMD, the company took a step back. The new generation of Barts processors is even weaker than the previous one on paper and in specifications. The creators went by simplifying the architecture to achieve an excellent balance between speed, reliability and performance. Barts has become simpler in structure and smaller in size. This processor is the basis for the middle class, which includes the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series. The characteristics are presented below.
Both representatives of the series (6870) support DirectX11 and version 5 of shaders. The cost of video cards is $180 and $240, respectively. Compared to high-performance and overclocked competitors from Nvidia, AMD boards are truly budget-friendly, but the difference in performance is not that great. on both cards - 1 GB. The series is a direct competitor to the GeForce GTX460 with 1 GB of RAM and the GeForce GTX470.
AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series video card: characteristics and test results
To test the line of video cards, the following was used as a test bench: a Core i7 processor with a frequency of 3.3 GHz, 6 GB of RAM and a 64-bit Windows 7 operating system. All games used are adjusted for graphics quality and detail in order to check the maximum performance of the tested video cards
The first game of the test was Aliens vs. Predator. It immediately becomes clear that the HD6800 series will be difficult to compete with the GeForce 460 1GB: only at a resolution of 1600x900 and lower can the AMD board produce a playable 30 frames per second.
In the game Battlefield Bad Company 2, the situation evens out, and purchasing an AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series no longer seems such a bad decision. Technical characteristics at maximum graphics and resolution settings (6850 and 6870) allow you to outperform the GeForce by as much as 8 frames per second (30 versus 22). Let us remind you that the cost of an Nvidia video card starts from $230. Using the new line from AMD is becoming more and more attractive. But without doing so, let's look at the following tests.
In the very demanding game Crysis Warhead, both video cards perform well only at low screen resolutions. STALKER Call of Pripyat allows the Nvidia video card to take the lead by 10 frames per second. But do not forget about the significant difference in price.
Conclusion after tests
In general, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series video card performs well in all games. After the update, the drivers began to support all new games, so the budget version of the graphics chip from AMD produces a tolerable 25-30 frames per second in modern gaming projects at high graphics settings.
AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series: Pros and Cons
The following points can be highlighted from the advantages of this video card. Firstly, good performance in most modern games. Secondly, low power consumption. You can also note the low price, for which the buyer will receive good performance and all the “tricks” of top-end video cards, such as image output on 6 monitors, compatibility mode with similar video cards.
The disadvantages are hidden in the increased noise of the video card and a frankly weak cooling system. At high enough loads in video games, the chip begins to quickly overheat.
Bottom line
For those who are not chasing breakthrough power and high test numbers, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series line is perfect. The characteristics of the video cards allow you to safely play with high FPS at medium or close settings for the graphics component of the game. AMD video cards also have a low cost compared to Nvidia GeForce 460 and 470. But the performance differs little, so the choice of a mid-budget class video card is obvious.
- Amd radeon hd 6800 seriesAdvantages: no
Disadvantages: no
Radeon HD 6800 unleashed worldwide. This new line of video cards from AMD consists of the Radeon HD 6870 and 6850. Retail prices for these cards range from 12,000 to 16,000 thousand rubles, respectively.
However, despite the names and as their prices suggest, these cards are not intended to replace the Radeon HD 5870 and 5850. Replacements for these cards will appear at a later date and will be reviewed at that time. This marks a change in both nomenclature and product positioning for AMD, which will be explained later in this article.
Adding to the 6800 series is the new Barts core, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) from the Evergreen family that runs across the entire Radeon HD 5000 line, but with some new tricks. This Barts core is part of the Northern Island graphics processing unit (GPU) family. Among these new tricks is improved tessellation performance, thanks to a new tessellation dubbed "Generation 7". Filtration quality has also been improved, and a new Anti-Aliasing (AA) mode is introduced after processing labeled Morphological AA (MLAA). This new AA method is designed to be compatible with all DirectX applications, allowing players to enable AA in all games. Also new to the 6800 series is stereoscopic 3D support, dubbed "HD3D". This applies to both 3D games and 3D Blu-ray movies. 3D gaming support was included for the 5000 series cards, but 3D Blu-ray support is currently exclusive to the 6800 series. Video decoding gets a nice boost with the new Unified Video Decode (UVD) 3 edition. What's unique to this version is Entropy decoding for various popular video formats, as well as Blu-ray support.
Note: A single test bench was used for all tests and no overclocking was performed. The I7 970 was used in an attempt to minimize CPU limitations, but is not guaranteed to be free of CPU limitations. Built-in time tests in the timedemo style were used.
Architecture:
I mentioned earlier that Barts is a new ASIC from AMD, descended from the previous generation Evergreen architecture. The Bars have been consolidated to support two SKUs, Radeon HD 6870 and 6850, internally named "XT" and "Pro". Physically these chips are identical. The difference lies in the counting of functional units and clock frequencies. Pre-launch speculation included a reorganization of the ALUs feeding the fifth processor, known as the "T" block, however Barts has the same ALU organization as its predecessor. Barts also features the previously mentioned 7th generation tessellation unit, which significantly improves performance tessellation thanks to changes in flow control and buffering.
Characteristics:
As mentioned earlier, both 6800 series SKUs share the same Barts GPU, but their differences aren't all that different. Physically, Bars has an area of about 255 mm and consists of 1.7 billion transistors. Above we see what makes the Radeon 6870 different from the 6850. The 6870 has a healthy boost in clock speeds built into it, as well as two additional Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) modules that account for a 160 increase in ALU. Accompanying these SIMDs are two more units with four textures (TMU). A 5% increase in the number of frequencies over the 6850 is also shown in the 6870. 
The biggest difference between the 6870 and 6850 comes in the form of its texturing and math capabilities, with timing at just over 35% thanks to the additional function blocks and increased clock speed of the 6870. The remaining differences in padding - triangle tuning speed and bandwidth - are due solely to their respective clock speeds. approximately 16% and 5%.
The 6870 is the largest of the 10.5, 11.0 cards with a fan shroud. The 6850 profile is much shorter at just 9.0, and the regular 6850 Sapphire is even shorter at 8.5. The cooler does not extend beyond the PCB for any of the 6850s. The 6870 is unsurprisingly the heaviest of the cards, compared to the reference 6850, which is somewhat smaller due to a smaller heatsink and shorter PCB dimensions. The Sapphire 6850 is significantly lighter than the reference variant, despite using a much larger cooler. This is due to the use of a large metal bracket that cools the RAM chips and voltage regulators, something Sapphire chose to do without using their 6850. This seemed to negatively impact board temperatures or Sapphire board stability. 
Upon closer inspection, you can see that Sapphire has decided to move the power phases to the rear of the card, away from the GDDR5 chips. This was likely a wise move on the part of the engineering team at Sapphire, since the GDDR5 chips are not connected to heatsinks, and the power phase components are some of the hottest components on any graphics card.
Like Sapphire's custom design, the 6870's power phase components are located at the rear of the card, away from the GDDR5 chips.
Both the 6870 and 6850 offer a variety of connection options that allow the user to connect multiple monitors simultaneously. The reference design for the 6870 and 6850 features two Mini Display Port 1.2 (DP) connectors, each of which can support up to three monitors when used in conjunction with a DP 1.2 hub. However, none of the 6850 partners used mini-DP connectors, but instead had a single full-length DP connector that provides three monitor connections in the same way as mini-DP connectors. Also common to both the 6870 and 6850 are two DVI ports, only one of which is dual-link. Additionally, both cards show an HDMI 1.4a port. The Sapphire 6850 even has an HDMI cable. 
The HD 6800 series provides some of the image quality (IQ) improvements from the HD 5000 line. Anisotropic filtering (AF) quality has been improved with an advanced algorithm designed to reduce noise within textures and smooth transitions between filter levels. Another important new IQ enhancer is MLAA, a post-processing filter that passes through the shader core via the DirectCompute core. MLAA is supposedly compatible with all DirectX 9/10/11 applications. MLAA first appeared in the console world in the Playstation 3 title Saboteur and later in God of War 3.
These new IQ amplifiers are available in the 3D section of the redesigned control panel in the Catalyst Control Center (CCC). A new slider has been added for Catalyst AI Filtering Quality, which allows the user to choose between different levels of AF quality, High Quality, Quality and Performance. The High Quality setting disables all texture optimizations that may cause visual artifacts. Both Quality and Performance options allow optimization of anisotropic and trilinear filtering to improve performance, with little to no impact on IQ for Quality and "small impact" on IQ for Performance tuning.
The AI filtering quality slider is the Enable Surface Format Optimization checkbox. The feature is designed to improve the performance of certain textures in games using 16-bit HDR rendering and is said to have "no noticeable impact on image quality." 
With these quality settings, if you look at the center of the image, you will see that as you increase the quality, the textures become sharper in the center. Some "flicker" texture was observed in both the reference filtering implementation and the AMD TMU filtering implementation during this test, much less the AMD TMU implementation. However, this flicker becomes less noticeable as you increase the filtering quality.