HD 6850 2GB or 6870 1GB??

Hello guys,

Planning to buy a new gpu very soon, and since I'm upgrading from a old GTX 260 the hd6850 and 6870 both are good improvements for a nice price. But I'm still not sure which one to choose..

The sapphire hd6850 with 2GB or the faster hd6870 but with 1GB RAM?

The 6870 certainly has a small advancement over the 6850 when it comes to speed and all, but is that enough to choose it over a 6850 with double RAM? They cost almost exactly the same so thats not a point.

Any thoughts about this issue are very welcome to help me make my choice! :)

hd 6870 OR look online for a sued hd 5870 in your area. if you wanted to stick with nvidia a gtx 460 1gb (NOT THE SE VERSION) is where i would go

The 6870 is noticeably faster than the 6850. Even with less memory.

But what about the "next gen" games? I read that these will eventually use more and more RAM even when using only 1 monitor.. (1920 * 1080 lcd tv of 42" in my case)

Isn't the double memory going to be more useful then the performance gap between the cards in a couple of years?

But what about the "next gen" games? I read that these will eventually use more and more RAM even when using only 1 monitor.. (1920 * 1080 lcd tv of 42" in my case)

Isn't the double memory going to be more useful then the performance gap between the cards in a couple of years?

Max-Elite

No I'm not talking about system RAM, I meant that people are talking about future games (and even some games today) are using more then 1GB of VRAM for 1 monitor. When I run Skyrim its always using all of my cards VRAM. It's not like I'm experiencing any troubles but clearly the game could and will use more then it has available now. It's highly likely that this also goes for future games.. And although I have no doubt these will also run with 1GB VRAM, I am wondering if the difference in performance between the 6850 and 6870 really is that much more noticeable then the extra GB of VRAM when you look at it in 2 or 3 years from now.. Max-Elite

2-3 years from now both cards are going to be outdated where it wouldn't matter if they had 1gb or 10gb of ram. Also by the time 2gb becomes standered your not going to be using either card.

Hello guys,

Planning to buy a new gpu very soon, and since I'm upgrading from a old GTX 260 the hd6850 and 6870 both are good improvements for a nice price. But I'm still not sure which one to choose..

The sapphire hd6850 with 2GB or the faster hd6870 but with 1GB RAM?

The 6870 certainly has a small advancement over the 6850 when it comes to speed and all, but is that enough to choose it over a 6850 with double RAM? They cost almost exactly the same so thats not a point.

Any thoughts about this issue are very welcome to help me make my choice! :)

Max-Elite

Alright, thanks everyone for your comments!! (IceQ version is really beautiful!) You've got me convinced. The hd6870 would indeed be the better choice then. But 1 more off-topic question for the sake of it.. What if I would lay down some more cash and get the GTX 480? It scores considerable higher in the benchmark, but the memory- and graphics clock speeds are lower then those of the hd6870.. Is that because of it's bigger interface (384 bit)? And is it THAT much better then the 6870?Max-Elite

1) it runs VERY HOT and unless you do a custom cooling overhaul with new blocks new fan or go water cooling it will be a space heater.

2) it scarfs power currently i know of no power supply certified for quad sli gtx 480's tri has a handful i dont recommend you sue anything less than a 700 watt on a single gtx 480

3) it is noisy. this card can get very noisy. with its fan on full blast its just quieter than a vaccum cleaner being used in the next room

Thanks again guys! I won't get the gtx 480 after reading about it's darker side.. I have barely enough power to supply it anyway (cooler master 650W) and the hd cards require a lot less to run compared to that.. After all this I decided to get a Sapphire HD 6950 oc 2GB. Although it hasn't got the price/performance ratio of the hd 6870 I'm happy to pay a little more because it has the vram I would like and even a little more power then the hd 6870. Unless someone can think of a big disadvantage of this card that I have missed..? Max-Elite

Depends on what games you wanna play. Even games such as GTA IV released a while ago needed more than 1gb of vram to max out. Games out today like max payne also need more than 1gb to max. If your planning on getting GTA V, go for the 2gb card. Alternately you could just keep saving money and get a 7000 series card where 2Gb is standard. STAR_Admiral

I was in the same situation. I wanted a budget gaming computer and wanted one of those two cards. I debated for a long time and realized that they would be outdated within a year or so. I mean, look at Hawken. I very much doubt that a 6850, or even a 6870 can max hawken. They are both weaker than my brothers GTX 560ti and his card is already struggling with Metro 2033. Then i considered that UE4 and CE3 are going to be the standard soon, and i pretty much knew that the 68** series wouldn't run those well on max settings at high resolutions. I ended up saving extra $ and bought a GTX 670 which i hope will last me a few years longer than the 68** series.

Most reviews show that the 68** series will max most games right now. The question is how long you want to wait to upgrade.

[QUOTE="STAR_Admiral"]Depends on what games you wanna play. Even games such as GTA IV released a while ago needed more than 1gb of vram to max out. Games out today like max payne also need more than 1gb to max. If your planning on getting GTA V, go for the 2gb card. Alternately you could just keep saving money and get a 7000 series card where 2Gb is standard. jedinat

i suggest you should buy one of the 7000 series, in my opinion, they are much better than the 6000series

dont know if anyones mentioned it but certain games limit your graphics options to the amount of GPU ram you have. so even though the 6870 is better, the 2gb 6850 will allow you higher graphics settings. its a completely retarded way of doing things but thats what they do. both will run todays games perfectly fluently, so it probably makes sense to go with the 6850.

seer what are you doing. get out of here.

or at least answer me for the umtilliopnth time what game do you play professionally? step up. you claim to be a progamer but refuse to hand out a tag or a real name. i cant trust you im srry and your advice is always full of useless bits and half truths.

assuming this is your xfire i found in conjunction with others your not a pro gamer you play CoD4 less than most of us have played tf2 or CSS XD

seer what are you doing. get out of here.

or at least answer me for the umtilliopnth time what game do you play professionally? step up. you claim to be a progamer but refuse to hand out a tag or a real name. i cant trust you im srry and your advice is always full of useless bits and half truths.

assuming this is your xfire i found in conjunction with others your not a pro gamer you play CoD4 less than most of us have played tf2 or CSS XD

ionusX

dont know if anyones mentioned it but certain games limit your graphics options to the amount of GPU ram you have. so even though the 6870 is better, the 2gb 6850 will allow you higher graphics settings. its a completely retarded way of doing things but thats what they do. both will run todays games perfectly fluently, so it probably makes sense to go with the 6850.

seercirra

I was in the same situation. I wanted a budget gaming computer and wanted one of those two cards. I debated for a long time and realized that they would be outdated within a year or so. I mean, look at Hawken. I very much doubt that a 6850, or even a 6870 can max hawken. They are both weaker than my brothers GTX 560ti and his card is already struggling with Metro 2033. Then i considered that UE4 and CE3 are going to be the standard soon, and i pretty much knew that the 68** series wouldn't run those well on max settings at high resolutions. I ended up saving extra $ and bought a GTX 670 which i hope will last me a few years longer than the 68** series.

Most reviews show that the 68** series will max most games right now. The question is how long you want to wait to upgrade.

hoola

buy a used graphics card on kijiji or craigslist. There are geforce 480's selling for $180, which is the same price as a 6870 will cost you. Difference is, the 480 is much more powerful than a single 6870. In my experience ive purchased 2 video cards new and 2 from craigslist, all of them were solid. In fact the used GPU's could be thought to be a safer buy since with new graphics cards their is always a chance that you get a DOA.

i'd go for the 6870, but as many others suggested, if you can wait a bit longer save up some extra cash and go for the 7900 series, i've read ATI is planning an iminent price reduction on their high end 7900 series of cards...

infact thats my plan, going for a 7900 series & increasing the RAM from 4 to 8GB...

7950 series cost 310-$ + in sales they might drop in price during release of GK104 Aka GTX 660 Rumour price is around 280$USD : will launch Witin August Third Week Spirit sucessor of GTX 570 in price range and might crush HD7950 if that where the case it would force AMD to price drop a little or selling less

However I think if he ad (the money) he should look for a 7870 which is a little bit Stronger then GTX 570 in lot of game or a GTX 570 at 249.99$ AFTER MIR

Else TC IS Beetween a 6870 or a GTX 560 : Because 6850 doesn't worth it 25% Performances loss over 6870 for about +20$ if you PICK MIR (Mail In Rebate)

i'd go for the 6870, but as many others suggested, if you can wait a bit longer save up some extra cash and go for the 7900 series, i've read ATI is planning an iminent price reduction on their high end 7900 series of cards...

infact thats my plan, going for a 7900 series & increasing the RAM from 4 to 8GB...

Malta_1980

[QUOTE="Malta_1980"]

i'd go for the 6870, but as many others suggested, if you can wait a bit longer save up some extra cash and go for the 7900 series, i've read ATI is planning an iminent price reduction on their high end 7900 series of cards...

infact thats my plan, going for a 7900 series & increasing the RAM from 4 to 8GB...

godzillavskong

7950 series cost 310-$ + in sales they might drop in price during release of GK104 Aka GTX 660 Rumour price is around 280$USD : will launch Witin August Third Week Spirit sucessor of GTX 570 in price range and might crush HD7950 if that where the case it would force AMD to price drop a little or selling less

However I think if he ad (the money) he should look for a 7870 which is a little bit Stronger then GTX 570 in lot of game or a GTX 570 at 249.99$ AFTER MIR

Else TC IS Beetween a 6870 or a GTX 560 : Because 6850 doesn't worth it 25% Performances loss over 6870 for about +20$ if you PICK MIR (Mail In Rebate)

marcthpro

Not against XFX's Radeon HD 7950 Black Edition (900Mhz). http://techreport.com/articles.x/23150

From http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/video-card/#c=71&sort=a5 the cheapest ($314.98) Radeon HD 7950 is an overclock version i.e. MSI R7950 Twin Frozr 3GD5/OC has 880Mhz.

Note that AMD plans to release 7950 "Ghz Edition". http://www.techpowerup.com/168620/AMD-Readies-Radeon-HD-7950-GHz-Edition.html

7950 1Ghz overclocked rivals 7970 (925 Mhz) reference.

i know you like amd but the GTX 670 AMP ! Result you shlwn me didn't tell me the resolution nor the setting was maximumed : if AA Was on and more importantly what clock was the Video card and What Driver they used into the review



because i know someone with Asus GTX 670 DC II TOP at Core clock 1110 MHZ - Memory Clock 1890 MHz When default (already overclock is 1050 & 1500 respectively) and it made a 10.6% Difference according benchmark but to him ? well 6FPS in BF3 which is about what benchmark say Drver is 304.48 for him however review was tested with 301.34



anoywayhof GK104 (GTX 660) cannot touch close a HD7950 it will at least crush a 7870 i don't know if 7950 will stop costing 2.1X more then an HD6870 after MIR and as i was saying when you can pick 6870 : for like +20$ get it : when you can't ? content of having a video card weaker then up to 27% Weaker then HD5870 however it consume alot less so it fit on low end power supply

i know you like amd but the GTX 670 AMP ! Result you shlwn me didn't tell me the resolution nor the setting was maximumed : if AA Was on and more importantly what clock was the Video card and What Driver they used into the review



because i know someone with Asus GTX 670 DC II TOP at Core clock 1110 MHZ - Memory Clock 1890 MHz When default (already overclock is 1050 & 1500 respectively) and it made a 10.6% Difference according benchmark but to him ? well 6FPS in BF3 which is about what benchmark say Drver is 304.48 for him however review was tested with 301.34

marcthpro

Lol, actually , the TR's review did show the settings.Techpowerup's review doesn't ussually set the MSAA beyond 4X. The point of purchasing a high end GPU is to max details. MSAA 4X for "high end" GPU is LOL worthy.

From http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_670_Direct_Cu_II/18.html

My post was for GTX 660 > 7950 claims. 7950 still has most of 7970's hardware with lower 28 CUs vs 32 CUs and lower clock speed with the same ROPs.

For Skyrim http://techreport.com/articles.x/23150/7

For Crysis 2, http://techreport.com/articles.x/23150/9 Note that Crysis 2 PC has Global Illumination (screenspace version) i.e. refer to one of Unreal Engine 4's key features.

Dirt Showdown is another game with Global Illumination enabled. http://techreport.com/articles.x/23150/6 Also, Dirt Showdown uses compute heavy Forward+ Rendering method instead of lighter weight Deferred Rendering for Lights (e.g. Battlefield 3, Crysis 2).

On Deferred Rendering, refer to http://www.develop-online.net/features/407/BUILD-Defered-rendering

"Because you project your lights into the scene as a post-process, you're not lighting any pixels that are hidden behind any other pixels," says Jan-Bart van Beek, art and animation director at Guerilla, describing one of the advantages that convinced the studio make the early decision to use deferred rendering in Killzone 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Engine#Unreal_Engine_4

"One of the major features of UE4 is the support for real-time global illumination via voxel raycasting, which no longer requires any lighting precomputation"

--------------

re-edit found what i wanted to know

Driver GeForce 304.48 beta Zotac GTX 670 AMP Not Extra overclocked : Core c ock 1098Mhz Memory clock 1652Mh zwhile that a lot lower then what my Friend have which mean it stock (not the to up to 10.5% performances) the Reviewier need to know how to overclock is card better to obtain true result

because he clearly didn't load MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision to overclock the gpu at the paramater that should be 100% stable take example iv overclocked my GTX 570 from 780mhz to 845mhz for coreclock and the Shader clock 1680 instead of 1560 and Memory clock +200mhz and that without play with voltage

but im thinking of mess with my voltage and go all up to near 900mhz CC and 1750 SC and keep the 2Ghz Memory in the Setting

re-edit found what i wanted to know

Driver GeForce 304.48 beta Zotac GTX 670 AMP Not Extra overclocked : Core c ock 1098Mhz Memory clock 1652Mh zwhile that a lot lower then what my Friend have which mean it stock (not the to up to 10.5% performances) the Reviewier need to know how to overclock is card better to obtain true result

because he clearly didn't load MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision to overclock the gpu at the paramater that should be 100% stable take example iv overclocked my GTX 570 from 780mhz to 845mhz for coreclock and the Shader clock 1680 instead of 1560 and Memory clock +200mhz and that without play with voltage

but im thinking of mess with my voltage and go all up to near 900mhz CC and 1750 SC and keep the 2Ghz Memory in the Setting

marcthpro

The reviewer doesn't need to overclock since both camps allows the end-user to OC.

Note the Radeon HD 7950 Ghz Edition starts at ~1Ghz base clock. I haven't increased my voltage for 1Ghz run.

From http://www.techpowerup.com/169113/GeForce-GTX-660-Arrives-Mid-August-Report.html

Also, Geforce GTX 660 has degraded to 192bits wide VRAM, while 7950s still includes 384 bits wide VRAM (now at $314.98 price range) i.e. 7950 1Ghz OC version can still play like a flagship card since it has most of 7970's hardware.

that not what i mean i mean't the review on techpower up despite the card was ALREADY 20% OC he oced it another 5% for CC and 20% for MC what it does ? it give an aditional 10% performances which make 66FPS 71FPS on Battlefield 3 1920x1200 4x AA All max (Window 7) Driver 301

well now you have a point : the GTX 660 Will cost about 7870 which is superior to GTX 570 and can sometime beat a GTX 580 Slightly and will beat it probabely but maybe overclock it will come close to 7950 (not Ghz edition)

well know the result in 4 week lol i guess it just a 7870 Beater :for 7870 Price after all and nothing like GTX 670 AMP! / DC II


as for The Techpowerup Review What Iv mean is that let say the Card is default 750mhz : the OC eiditon is 780-790 mz the Super clocked is 820-850mhz : the potential ibeing 900-950 mhz for all version include the 750mhz as much it is for the 820-850mhz edition but since the Premium overclock version it got a better cooler then reference it can perhap even do a 950mhz With Lower Temp but will perhap be unstable

so The Review they play it safe and do a +10% OC and do a test see if it stable then already OC : Follow Overclocker.net & Xtreme Tech and you will understand however doing this will in all result make the card more hot which the only work around by Increase Fan rotation speed into MSI Afterburner or Similar utility OC genie / Precision X / ROG Overclocker which mostly all work for AMD CARD even if the manufacturer of the software doesn't make AMD card of that Series it did work as intend

So Basically Im saying you should post a Benchmark as Second source showing also the AMD(GHZ) Edition being extra overclocked and see how they far into the game (if they can be Extra Overclock) As you see even the ZOTAC AMP! at +50$ then Retail is not overclocked to is stable potential for heat / TDP reason

that not what i mean i mean't the review on techpower up despite the card was ALREADY 20% OC he oced it another 5% for CC and 20% for MC what it does ? it give an aditional 10% performances which make 66FPS 71FPS on Battlefield 3 1920x1200 4x AA All max (Window 7) Driver 301

well now you have a point : the GTX 660 Will cost about 7870 which is superior to GTX 570 and can sometime beat a GTX 580 Slightly and will beat it probabely but maybe overclock it will come close to 7950 (not Ghz edition)

well know the result in 4 week lol i guess it just a 7870 Beater :for 7870 Price after all and nothing like GTX 670 AMP! / DC II


as for The Techpowerup Review What Iv mean is that let say the Card is default 750mhz : the OC eiditon is 780-790 mz the Super clocked is 820-850mhz : the potential ibeing 900-950 mhz for all version include the 750mhz as much it is for the 820-850mhz edition but since the Premium overclock version it got a better cooler then reference it can perhap even do a 950mhz With Lower Temp but will perhap be unstable

so The Review they play it safe and do a +10% OC and do a test see if it stable then already OC : Follow Overclocker.net & Xtreme Tech and you will understand however doing this will in all result make the card more hot which the only work around by Increase Fan rotation speed into MSI Afterburner or Similar utility OC genie / Precision X / ROG Overclocker which mostly all work for AMD CARD even if the manufacturer of the software doesn't make AMD card of that Series it did work as intend

So Basically Im saying you should post a Benchmark as Second source showing also the AMD(GHZ) Edition being extra overclocked and see how they far into the game (if they can be Extra Overclock) As you see even the ZOTAC AMP! at +50$ then Retail is not overclocked to is stable potential for heat / TDP reason

marcthpro

Note that non-GHz edition 7950 range from 800Mhz to 950Mhz i.e. Sapphire HD 7950 950 Mhz Edition http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166840

The cheapest ($309.99 USD) 7950 clocks at 880Mhz. http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/video-card/#qq=1&c=71&sort=a5

There's a Chinese HD 7950 A795 Fire Hurricane BIOS that unlocks 7950 into 7970. http://videocardz.com/32782/amd-radeon-hd-7950-modified-to-7970

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2222318 While it didn't unlock the missing shaders, using 7970 BIOS can overclock the 7950 to similar levels.

[QUOTE="godzillavskong"][QUOTE="Malta_1980"]

i'd go for the 6870, but as many others suggested, if you can wait a bit longer save up some extra cash and go for the 7900 series, i've read ATI is planning an iminent price reduction on their high end 7900 series of cards...

infact thats my plan, going for a 7900 series & increasing the RAM from 4 to 8GB...

jedinat