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Today AMD is officially unveiling their new Radeon HD 6870 and 6850 GPUs, designed to deliver even greater value than previous generation products. Despite the naming scheme and the fact that these are next-generation products, they are not designed to be Radeon HD 5800 series replacments. Rather, these new Radeon HD 6800 series graphics cards are aimed at mainstream users...
AMD shocked the world on September 23rd 2009 with the Radeon HD 5870, which at the time we dubbed “the world’s fastest single-GPU graphics card” as well as “the best value option of any high-end graphics card”. Having struggled with the GeForce 8 series and then the GeForce 200 series for so long AMD was in pretty bad shape, the new Radeon HD 5000 series looked to change all that.
With the success of the Radeon HD 5870, another eleven Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards were to follow within the next 6 months. Nvidia on the other hand were caught with their pants down and with no real answer to the flood of new Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards. Some 6 months after the release of the Radeon HD 5870, which was holding back sales of remaining GeForce GTX 285 stock, Nvidia released the long awaited Fermi architecture. The Fermi architecture, which gave way to the GeForce GTX 400 series, almost appeared to be too little too late for Nvidia. However after an uphill struggle they came up with a real gem, with the GeForce GTX 460 on July 12th 2010. The GeForce GTX 460 killed the AMD competition, laying waste to their mid-range Radeon HD 5830 while seriously undermining the value of the Radeon HD 5770 and 5850 graphics cards. So why the long history lessons you ask? Well today marks the release of AMD’s next generation Radeon HD 6800 series, which is designed to tackle the looming threat of the GeForce GTX 460. The GeForce GTX 460 is an affordable mid-range part which is available with either 768MB ($170) of 1GB ($230) frame buffers. Therefore it seems odd that AMD is releasing two new products with the model numbers 6850 and 6870 to tackle a mid-range Nvidia product. Traditionally these model numbers have been reserved for high-end AMD parts, such as the Radeon HD 3870/3850, 4870/4850 and then the 5870/5850. All three examples have been the most expensive AMD/ATI graphics cards at the time of launch. The Radeon HD 6870/6850 cards on the other hand will come in at $239 US and $179 US respectively, while the average Radeon HD 5870/5850 cards still cost $380 US and $280 US respectively. AMD has informed us that the new Radeon HD 6800 series graphics cards are not designed to replace the existing Radeon HD 5800 cards, but rather co-exist with them. Instead the upcoming Radeon HD 6950 and 6970 are designed to replace the 5870/5850 cards and should be released next month. The naming scheme is if anything extremely confusing, and we must admit it took some time for us to wrap our heads around all this new information. |
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ProX |
Posted on: 10/22/2010 03:02 AM
haha and I just bought two GTX 460 cards LOL  |
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dlochinski |
Posted on: 10/22/2010 03:58 AM
@ProX Sorry man, I bought a 5850 in July and this 6870 makes me feel jealous indeed, I couldn't wait but dang. |
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Vadoom |
Posted on: 10/22/2010 08:18 AM
Awesome review thanks. I have been holding out myself Still have a Radeon HD 4870 and this looks like my new card. |
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archange Posts: 9 Joined: 2010-07-22 |
Posted on: 10/22/2010 09:44 AM
Just ordered an HD5830. They haven't been able to ship it and I was quite pissed off about the whole deal, to say the least. Seems that they're fresh outta stock everywhere - I kept wondering why. Then, this article hit me in the morning :P So now, I have the amount prepaid and no board. Which reminds me... xD Thanks for the heads-up! |
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Minx |
Posted on: 10/22/2010 12:27 PM
So this is just really the Radeon HD 6770 then?  I am waiting till next month for the real cards  |
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znik Posts: 1 Joined: 2010-10-22 |
Posted on: 10/22/2010 07:31 PM
I still feel pretty good for buying the HD 5870 when it was launched 1 year ago The naming of 6870 card wasnt the most logical naming in history but i guess we will survive ^^long live the hd5870! |
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Horribleron Posts: 13 Joined: 2010-03-26 |
Posted on: 10/23/2010 02:54 AM
I think this new card will also hasten the retirement of my 4870. The 6870 look's to be AMD's new 4870 in that it is a lot cheaper to make than the Cypress based products. I see GTX460's already dropping in price! I love video card price wars! |
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forleg Posts: 1 Joined: 2010-10-31 |
Posted on: 10/31/2010 03:05 PM
It would have been nice if AMD, at the release time of these new cards, would have clearly stated that the number/(name) identification of their actual and next GPUs would stand for a significant change. Something like, disclosing that: top extra range=xaaa, top=xbbb, mainstream=xccc, value=xddd budget=xeee, a.s.o. This is the behaviour that consumers expect, in order to better plan their purchases, and is a "trade mark" of all real market leaders. |
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ProX |
Posted on: 10/31/2010 10:53 PM
@ forleg - yeah in a perfect world they might The naming is really annoying though I agree. Good news is we will find out what the 69xx series is all about soon. |