| AMD Radeon HD 6870 Barts Video Card |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | |
| Written by Olin Coles | |
| Thursday, 21 October 2010 | |
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AMD Radeon HD 6870 Video Card ReviewFeaturing a reconfigured Cypress GPU, the Barts architecture delivers AMD's HD3D technology with better performance and price.The Radeon HD 6870 is AMD's latest DirectX-11 video card, and uses an updated Cypress back-end to offer 'Barts' GPU architecture. Built to deliver improved performance to the value-hungry mainstream gaming market, the $180 AMD Radeon HD 6850 and $240 Radeon HD 6870 video cards supplement their 5800-series counterparts. The most notable new feature is Bart's 3rd-generation Unified Video Decoder with added support for DisplayPort 1.2. AMD's UVD3 accelerates multimedia playback and transcoding, while introducing AMD HD3D stereoscopic technology with multi-view CODEC (MVC) support for playing 3D Blu-ray over HDMI 1.4a. In this article Benchmark Reviews tests the AMD Radeon HD 6870 video card, a DirectX-11 graphics solution that doesn't really have direct competition at the $240 price point but costs less and still performs better than the Radeon HD 5850. Graphical frame rate performance is tested using the most demanding PC video game titles and benchmark software available. DirectX-10 favorites such as Crysis Warhead, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and PCMark Vantage are all included, in addition to DX11 titles such as Aliens vs Predator, BattleForge, Lost Planet 2, Mafia II, Metro 2033, and the Unigine Heaven 2.1 benchmark.
According to information presented at the AMD Editor's Day event in Los Angeles on October 14th, approximately 33% of all AMD graphics solutions are sold for the desktop platform, with over 25-million AMD Radeon DirectX-11 compatible products shipped to date. In many ways this data reinforces my position in the recent Desktop Platform article series, but it could also mean that manufacturers are listening ever more intently to the changing needs of their remaining consumer base. This doesn't always leave room for innovation, but AMD manages to introduce emerging technologies nevertheless. For those who have been patiently waiting for news on ATI Stream technology, it's been re-tasked as AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing, or APP technology. AMD Eye-Definition represents their commitment to PC gamers, PC game developers, and the PC gaming industry. Through Eye-Definition AMD delivers their "Gamers Manifesto", which they assert will enable the best experience possible regardless of hardware manufacturer. Visitors have proven they're impatient and want everything up front and in small doses. Keeping in that spirit, I'll reveal that AMD Radeon HD 6850 and Radeon HD 6870 video cards offer improved PC gaming performance while also including innovative new technologies at an affordable price point. This has become the repetitive central thesis with each new graphics card launch, running opposite the excitement manufacturers often build up. Marketing departments do their best to tout these fresh changes, all the while knowing that the more things change the more they remain the same. And so it begins once again: consumers are given more for less, and the AMD Radeon HD 6850/6870 affords them this opportunity. Thankfully, it's the glory of these details that makes a new product launch much more interesting. Benchmark Reviews has previously gone to great lengths to provide comprehensive details within each of the video card project we've published, however these overly verbose articles are going to be modified the modern online audience. In each review, we test a large selection of comparison products and provide more than twenty pages of introspective details. We enjoy doing it, mostly, and feel that our more experienced readers deserve the added illustration to fully explore newly revealed technology. Beginning with this project, the topic is delivered in three separate portions: this video card review, a separate editorial piece on AMD HD3D stereocopic technology, along with AMD's own whitepaper documents on their new display and video technologies (Adobe PDF). Now everyone should be happy, and the world can be a better place.
Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by AMD.
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Comments
I love this review ( but would have likes multi gpu setup test)
With sandibridge around the corner, the entrylevel gpus will be dimineshed, AMD is stepping up its game in the mid level gpu section. ( because it will soon be entry level and not midlelvel)
I don't like that ATI and NVIDIA cards are so far apart as to how they do Phys-X and other newer game technologies. I'd like to see them both cleave to standards so we could rate them in a better and fair way against one another. ATI says that Phys-X is closed by the other guy, and NVIDIA say's it isn't,..........what a crock. They should both do it all.
Not knowing if Phys-X and Cuda will take off and be a part of every game makes me lean towards buying the cards that have it built-in to them just to ensure that I don't have to buy all over again later just to be able to play the next new wazoo games that developers are dreaming up. Thanks for the considered look at these new AMD Cards.
thats what i get, cause with the new prices 460 worth more and better tesselations VS non
otherwise ati boys stay with the 5850
So the 5830 doesn't exist anymore !
ROFLMAO - It's a hoot seeing so many geeks claiming to know something, and the entire red rooster set of intertards cannot bring themselves to type 5 8 3 0 .
Wow.
What card has 1120 shaders ? LOL
There are no less than 8 different 5830's available on the egg right now, exceeding a few other " quantity models".
Out of the 20-30+ reviews, I've seen ONE that logically and honestly claimed one of the cards "being replaced" was the 5830.
We have 5870, 5850, 5830 - not like it's easy to miss the 3rd card. You really have to work at it.
Those the masses and the two competing companies rely on for releases, affect the market quite substantially, yet they miss the single 1120 shader card ATI had on the table, when the 2nd 1120 shader hits ? Widely IT'S NOT EVEN MENTIONED NOR CHARTED IN ENTIRE ARTICLES.
"It's low in production" is a joke.
I have no idea if it's pressure or brainwashing or incompetence, but in any case no excuse will satisfy, period. I'm certain you understand that.
Now that AMD has released another set of competitors to the 460 in very short order, the 5830 falls into the amnesiac category. 8 different 5830's are currently available on one of the very popular online purchasing sites.
I've seen just one review actually mention the 5830 when reviewing the Barts 6000 release.
Those of us who are awake, obviously in the minority, have reason to be disturbed.
26 cards in total.
No 5830.
I'm not here to criticize you, but your last response is quite surprising to say the least. I don't suppose any card other than the GTX460 1gig "has anything to do with a $250 6870" , or perhaps we could just have a review with the 6870 compared to the 5850 or just the 5870, whichever the 6870 happens to be closest to. I suppose by your statement that's the 5850.
I will find more than the 5850 in the bench charts won't I.
I am sorry logic and comprehension and honesty isn't in the mix, all too often.
Believe me, it's not a conspiracy. I don't think it could be even if we really, really tried.
While you're at it, go back and re-read the 6850 review. It was re-written to compare against the 5770 and 5830.
i wanna play crysis2 on max settings so... which graphic card sholud i bu.
plzzz help me :(
ma budget is around 350-400$