also @ TechSpot: Huawei Ascend P6 smartphone is the thinnest in the world at 6.18mm

AMD Radeon HD 6970 benchmark numbers leaked?

By

On October 27, 2010, 10:48 AM

AMD might have just launched the new Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 graphics cards a week ago, but many are already looking forward to the company's real high-end offering: the Cayman-based Radeon HD 6970. We don’t expect the new cards to hit stores until sometime next month, but Chinese-language site Zol.com claims to have got its hands on a sample and has posted some benchmark results for the world to see.

The site’s numbers cover both 3DMark Vantage and the Unigine Heaven benchmark, with the Radeon HD 6970 allegedly scoring 23,499 on the first one while delivering 36.6fps on the Unigine benchmark running at 1920 x 1,080 with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering. By comparison, a GTX 480 on the same platform scored 21,106 in 3DMark and ran Unigine Heaven at 29.5fps, while an HD 5870 managed 19,337 and 17.3, respectively.

Going by these numbers it looks like AMD’s upcoming card will bring a 10% performance improvement over Nvidia’s flagship card, the GTX 480, while boasting around 20% greater performance the Radeon HD 5870 it’s replacing. With the Radeon HD 6870 putting on an impressive show, we're definitely looking forward to see how the new Cayman-based Radeon cards perform. For now, though, we’ll take this leak with a grain of salt.

User Comments: 82

Got something to say? Post a comment
  1. looks good

    the market is on fire new card every few weeks

    to be honest the 6870 is already a hit performance vs price

  2. Now the question is much much is this going to retail for?

  3. It's exciting how ATI and Nvidia keep turning out quality cards, but my HD4890 is already starting to look really slow. Sign me up for one!

  4. i might actually switch over to radeon for a change

  5. 'with the Radeon HD 6970 allegedly scoring 23,499 on the first one while delivering 36.6fps on the Unigine benchmark running at 1920 x 1,080 with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering.' ...Without consuming a nuclear power plant and heating more than a volcano in eruption

  6. Cueto_99 said:

    'with the Radeon HD 6970 allegedly scoring 23,499 on the first one while delivering 36.6fps on the Unigine benchmark running at 1920 x 1,080 with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering.' ...Without consuming a nuclear power plant and heating more than a volcano in eruption

    Let's hope so :P

  7. How is it all these video card leaks are coming from China? Same thing with the two 460 GPU card mentioned the other day.

  8. The 6970 looks great if it can deliver on the performance side without killing everyone's PSU. I personally would love to have one of these bad boys. i would have thought that the 6970 would have been 30% faster than the 5870 to make it a worth while upgrade for most people looks like the 7000 series are going to be the next big thing from AMD.

  9. TomSEA said:

    How is it all these video card leaks are coming from China? Same thing with the two 460 GPU card mentioned the other day.

    Cause videocards are manufactured there... So they have early access to products...

  10. ATI has definitely stepped up it's competition in the last year or two. Prior to that I didn't even consider purchasing an ATI card.

  11. looks pretty good but ill wait until i see some ingame stats. I wonder how much it gonna cost

  12. "the company's real high-end offering"

    Technically, the Cayman is a replacement for the 5870. The 'Real' high end offering is the Monster 'Antilles' supposedly due for an early December release.

  13. I think they might have to have to recreate a new way to liquid cool. I won't say anything official till the official specs come out.

  14. Nice card. I wonder how i will compare to the new GTX 580

  15. I'm surprised at how well my 9800GTX+ has kept up with the times, but looking at this, I may have to upgrade sometime this year

  16. Seeing as how the 6850/6870 Is such a vast improvement over its REAL predecessor (the 5770), I'd say this is entirely possible, and more.

    This means that there's going to be a 6950 as well... right? :3 Somehow just looking at the numbers gets me off xD

    OH, and its about time AMD gave a beating back to nVidia anyway. Team green has been too complacent, sitting back on their recliners, getting shiatsu massages while drinking whiskey, talking about good times haha

  17. My HD 4850 looks like a baby now, im rellay really getting deperate waiting for Xmast.

  18. Any guess on how much will it cost?

  19. The numbers are indeed impressive. I wonder what the performance/watt is.

  20. I will gladly invest my savings in this card, I just hope the price will be awesome like the card

  21. Is not all that impressive when the next gen Dual-GPU (6970) produces approximately 19% more fps than 5870!

  22. How is it all these video card leaks are coming from China? Same thing with the two 460 GPU card mentioned the other day.

    Firstly, I'd say that NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) means nothing in the Chinese tech community- You may have noted that China plays by it's own set of rules. Secondly, most "leaks" like this are condoned, if not prompted by the company itself. Gradual "leaking" of specs and appearance ramp interest in a product without the company itself having to resort to a "paper launch" (Fermi excepted) and risking a waning of that interest by the time of actual product launch.

    Speculation on what could/should/will be fuels the internet forums generating a much more long-lived PR campaign than does a simple company press release and slide deck at a trade show.

    Regarding the HD 6970....I thought the numbers seemed a little low. I was fully expecting a 25-30% improvement over the HD 5870 (so 15-20% over the GTX 480 by extrapolation). Either AMD is leaving some performance on the table for future upgrades, they are foxing just in case nvidia is toying with a GTX 580 release, or the thermals of the new chip are higher than expected.

  23. Depending on price of the HD6970 the HD6870 looks good to me right now.

  24. 6850 and 6870 are based on Barts single core technology

    6950 and 6970 will be based on Cayman single core technology

    6990 will be based on Antilles dual core technology

    this means that 6970 is a Single core GPU and it is the replacement for today's 5870 GPU.

  25. I'd bank on the final performance numbers being higher. As dividedbyzero noted, they may be lowballing some of the specs, to lull the competition into a false sense of security (and giving them a misleadingly low performance target to try to best). But, it's also quite possible that it's just the base numbers running off current drivers, with no optimization for the new cards in place yet. Judging by AMD's previous recent launches, there is usually a performance jump right as the product is launching, when they have shiny new drivers that can really get those graphics hamsters in there running on their wheels.

Recently commented stories

Add New Comment

TechSpot Members
Login or sign up for free,
it takes about 30 seconds.
You may also...
Get complete access to the TechSpot community. Join thousands of technology enthusiasts that contribute and share knowledge in our forum. Get a private inbox, upload your own photo gallery and more.
TechSpot on:

Subscribe to TechSpot

Get free exclusive content, learn about new features and breaking tech news.