The leaked press image shows a two-slot card with five output marked as "Radeon HD 6870."
The first picture of AMD's reference-build Radeon HD 6870 has been leaked ahead of its launch, and reveals an impressive collection of connections.
The image, which was posted to Chinese-language site
it.com.cn from an unknown source, reveals that - as expected - the Radeon HD 6800-series will no longer bear the ATI name, with a logo on the fan featuring the new AMD Radeon branding in its place.
The rear of the two-slot card features a pair of DVI-I connectors, an HDMI port, and two MiniDisplayPort connectors. Supplementary material included with the leaked picture shows that the Radeon HD 6870 will include support for AMD's Eyefinity multi-monitor technology, although how many individual displays the five connectors on the card can drive simultaneously is not yet known.
Chinese-language vendor details that formed part of the leak indicated that the pictured Radeon HD 6870 would be based around AMD's Barts Pro GPU, and will be joined by a cheaper Radeon HD 6850 at launch. For the gamer on a budget, an even cheaper AMD Radeon HD 6800 looks to be on the cards, featuring the Barts XT GPU.
Absent from the leak was details of cards based around AMD's next-generation Cayman GPU. Although the company is thought to be launching Radeon HD 6970 and 6950 models that use the new GPU, but it's not yet known when they'll be launching.
Interestingly, the leaked press details also include reference to an as-yet unannounced technology dubbed 'Eyespeed.'
With press images ready to roll, it can't be long now before AMD launches its latest cards - and we'll be sure to get examples in our labs as soon as we can.
Do you think that AMD's newest cards look to be giving rival Nvidia a run for its money, or are you waiting for the Cayman-based cards to hit the market before planning an upgrade? Share your thoughts over in
the forums.
74 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyWhen will you be getting your hands on them Bit-Tech? "Wink! Wink!, say no more!"
when will they simply put normal displayport on it? i had been looking around, and it seems i need to buy £16 adaptor just to use the normal displayport cable provided by Dell. interestingly, £5 for mini-DP to DP cable.
Well, I suppose we'll all find out really soon. Isn't there a press conference scheduled for 12 October 2010 or something?
(not counting on poor optimized games like Crysis, Stalker, and Metro2033)
http://www.chiphell.com/thread-128230-1-1.html
http://www.chiphell.com/thread-128230-1-1.html
HD 68XX cards will be based on the XT and Pro Barts chips...
So far XT is the top chip (dont think AMD will rebrand the Hierarchy in their chips)...
The part of the article where XT is this, Pro is that - is speculation... based on a misread post...
CHeers
Indeed, we really need a new game that pushes the existing cards... I have the 4870 too and can play pretty much anything on it hence can't justify spending £300 on a 5870.
Thats my plan as well. I upgraded my CPU to an i7 920 from an E8400, and got a board with SATA3 and USB3 (Asus P6X58D-E) with the idea to upgrade the graphics at a later date. In theory I have a machine that I won't need to actually upgrade for 5 or more years, with a little overclocking.
I have a 1Gb 4850 that cost me £75 in july 2009, and thanks to the wonderful world of DX9 console ports (he says in a sarcastic manner)...i have yet to find a game i cant play at very high frame rates with the settings mostly maxed out....
I have decided i am not going to upgrade my GPU until i know what the requirements are for the only game im interested in 2011....Battlefield 3.
At £75, the Radeon 4850 is turning out to be the best value Gfx card i have EVER owned.....
More seriously. I will wait for reviews and non-reference cooling. Reference VGAs are only for peps going with water cooling.
Why don't you wait for some facts before shooting your mouth off about something.
BFBC2 with all the lovelys on would cripple it at high res.
FFXIV is brutal and kills my 1GB 4870 @ 1920x1080 so some settings turned down
Crysis - well its crysis
Empire Total war - turn on the settings on high/highest and watch your machine grind to a halt.
these are just a few. the 4850 is a brilliant card but at high res you have to make compromises which to some people isnt acceptable.
im prolby gunna look at a 6x00 card as i dont like turning settings down but ill wait for reviews first.
its nice bit-tech is trying to keep us up to date with the latest news, but c'mon... this isn't news, this is predictable and uninformed.
This doesn't pose a problem for the HD5870 (it runs relatively cool and quiet) so it shouldn't for this.
From what little information has been released, it seems like the 6770 will be close to the 5850 in performance, and the 6870 will be quite a bit faster than the 5870.
I don't think it's pointless at all, you can't just assume that everyone has read all the other websites that you've already been to. As a stand-alone publication, bit-tech are just trying to be full and comprehensive - I can't see anything wrong with that.
As an analogy I'd compare it to a meal, (because I'm currently quite hungry):
- A full article is the main meal.
- A detailed preview is a starter.
- This little snippet then could be likened to an hors d'oeuvre. Or perhaps even an amuse-bouche...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOsdS5irjAo
:)
If the 6770 is priced at what the 5770 or 5830 is now people will buy nothing else if it's quicker than the 5850 as that card alone can run most games
Of course, that's taking for granted that the heat output does indeed remain the same or lower, and that the heatsink design isn't completely botched either by AMD or third parties.
Yes your right it does seem a bit pointless
anyone who can count could work out that the next release would be HD 6xxx and the one after that will be the HD 7xxx and so on.
Very little other information has been given other than some connection ports and a codename.
But as you say, at least their trying
Look at the lettering, there is a distinct lack of background consistency. The actual fan looks like it has been drawn on, the metal and PCB connector look photoshopped ...
Or maybe I'm wrong ...
I agree with this ^^^^
There are plenty of games that will murder a 4850. You either have a small monitor and playing at a lower res or your version of max settings is different from everyone elses.
I have a 4890 and find games that I cannot max out and its surely faster than a 4850.
To be fair everyone version of playable is different and I have a feeling what is playable for you wouldn't be for me.
Yup, the text's perspective doesn't match the card's perspective.
actually i haven't been to any other websites, and thats my point - unless amd goes out of business, its obvious that they're going to release a new video card with a name like hd6xxx and that it will simply be better than the previous series. and guess what, nvidia is going to release a gtx5xx series and that will probably be released in 2011, but theres no article on that anywhere.
the point is, why write about an article about obvious information, when all you have to supply people is with obvious information? the codename and eyespeed are the only non-obvious instances, but we have no info on them anyway so thats irrelevant.
I didnt mean to suggest a 4850 can play EVERY game at max settings......just that the games that i have bought play at max settings..
I dont want or own ANY of the games suggested as being too much for a 4850.....
Whether it is coming soon or years away.
Duh?
Well there will probably be £250 difference between those cards and an even bigger margin on performance. Unless you have aging hardware, is there any reason to upgrade?
This just feels like AMD trying to claw sales before Christmas to lower their losses this quarter. Unless you are going to buy the top end 6870 then you may as well buy the GTX460 since it will still be in the recommended section for some months yet.
until then, 460 is my best bet for my Q6600 @3.6 with 1680x1050 monitor...
Well I intentionally skipped the 5 series so Im running two 4870 1gb in Crossfire but ya Im leaning towards getting a single 6870 and then going to crossfire later down the road when I get into more DX11 based gamed. The reason why I was thinking of a 6770 was simply that all the games I play are DX10, one or two are DX11 and well if those specs are correct about the 6770 it could handles all those games with no issue so I was like hmm save some money and wait to do a bulldozer build or sandy build but ya I think Im just going to bite the bullet and get a 6870.
I'd like to upgrade but my case hasn't got a lot of room.
How do we know that Nvidia aren't taking a hit on pricing the 460 at the current level - plus poor sales of the 465, 470 & 480?
The 460 will still be a great buy if AMD can't get something out equivalent to a card performing somewhere between a 5850 and a 5870 at a similar price though.
I'm with you on this one, i'm running Dual 22 inch monitors at 1680x1050. While there is a very nice performance gap from a 4890 to 5870 it wasn't going to make much of a difference at the res I play at so skipped 5 series all together.
Being on a overclocked i7 with the 4890 has really given it some extra legs so will look at the 6 series when its out but even still most games are playable aslong as I don't crank up the AA to high.
Frontline, even though the 470 and 480 performed "OK" and made great toast. They still sold to the high end watercooling enthusiast due to SLi running better than crossfire. To such an extent that Nvidia is still pulling in tasty sales figures even if they are below expectations. AMD's losses even with the 5XXX doing so well are not a good sign and I was just asking the question whether they are rushing the 6XXX release in a knee jerk reaction to the success of the GTX460. Since the GTX460 covered such a large segment in the market place, AMD had to do something to combat that area since most upgrades would be in that area and not always high end.
ATi has sold the HD 5000 series very well and AMD release of the HD6000 is a learning process for their HD7000 series or whatever that will go to 28nm.
AMD has stated they wanted to manufacturer a 32nm die with an existing or upgraded chip to work out the process before putting a HD7000 on it. (Unlike Fermi's new chip new die whole lotta problems)
The GTX460 is a great card but if really threatened all AMD has to do slash the price of the HD5850 which out performs the GTX 460
look at intel, the went from core 2 to core i7, i5,i3
This is what Bit-tech said about the GTX460 1GB vs HD5850:-
"The GTX 460 1GB even has the measure of the £220 HD 5850, so your next graphics card option is the £280 Radeon HD 5870"
CustomPC said:-
"More surprisingly is the GTX460 1GB's ability to compete effectively with the HD5850, despite being £45 cheaper"
It was only without AA did the HD5850 show any grunt against the GTX460 1GB. Turn AA on 4X and the HD5850 buckled at the knees at 1680 X 1050. Surprisingly, at 1920 X 1200 with or without AA the HD5850 was pipped again by the GTX 460 1GB at the crucial minimum frame rate results.
AMD can't afford to be cutting prices and does not have prior evidence of doing this so unless you want a high end card the GTX 460 768mb and GTX460 1GB is the ONLY solution for low and mid range upgrades and builds. Unless of course you buy with your heart instead of your head.
5850 uses less power than the 460. So it (5850) could still be the better buy for some people.
but the amount is so small it hardly warrants the extra initial outlay and performance loss.
Unless getting a 460 would require you to buy a new psu. It would for me.
Whats your PSU? Maybe you could put the £45 you are clearly going to spend towards the more important component of a decent PSU.
The GTX460 is better than the HD5850 only because it is cheaper, not because its performance is better than the 5850. Once AA comes in to play, its the 460 that suffers not the 5850.
Also, there is no point in looking at other resolution than the 1920*1080, unless of course you still have an older monitor and dont plan on changing it. 1920*1080 is THE resolution from 21,5" to 27".
I have no intentions of buying either card, I was just saying that there could be a valid reason for getting a 5850 over a 460. My psu is decent, it is just old.
Greetings Impar
I'm only quoting the evidence from this site and the sister mag. If you question it then go talk to the editor.
At 1920 X 1080 the GTX460 was the clear winner with or without AA.
You're dead right, nothing wrong with that PSU and with the right Watts would handle both cards whichever one you choose. What's the watts btw?
I`m wondering if an equal step will be taken with the 6 series ?? i dont think so somuch. From what i can see for now, is the added 3D capability ?? What i would like to see is added Physics support processing, this is where Nvidia might still be holding cards.
Best of luck AMD.
x
On the positives I skip the 5 series, get DX11 and ATi 3D. The only negative at the moment and a burning question, how much improvement in FPS will I see at my native 2560 res and will an Nvidia card be a better choice ... I look forward to seeing the results!
It's a 500W psu with a combined output of 36A/432W on the twin 12v rails.
I'm guessing you havn't tried eyefinity? A 5870 is barely enough to max out new games with 3 monitors.
That shouldn't need changing for either card really.
I know it will run a 5850. I'm not so sure about 460 1GB especially if it is overclocked. But like I say, I don't intend to buy either. I am far more interested in seeing what the 6770 can do and where it's priced at.
3DMark Vantage Performance Preset
5870: P17924
6870: P16270
5850: P15593
6850: P14872
I guess it's impressive they've been able to replicate 5800 series performance with less shaders. But it's clear AMD has just moved what would normally be the 6700 series up to 6800 and completely negated the expected generational boost. It's an almost Nvidia-esque marketing move and I can't say I really approve.
...the shown card is ATI branded...I thought the new cards weren't supposed to be ATI branded anymore.
Ah who knows what the heck they tested :D