Testing of AMD Radeon HD6800 series video cards. AMD (ATI) Radeon video card families Reference information Gaming tests: Crysis Warhead

AMD Radeon HD 6800 a popular series of video cards, which at one time was quite popular among gamers and fully satisfied all user requirements. For the video card to work, you need to install the driver on your computer, after which the system will be able to detect the card and bring it into working condition. The driver installation process is quite simple and almost any computer user can handle it. WITHdownload driver for AMD Radeon HD 6800 series video card and the entire line is available for free using the link below.

Driver installation procedure:

1. Run the installation file;
2. Let us choose if desired;
3. We agree with the user rules;
4. We are waiting for the installation to finish.

The link below provides the following drivers for the Windows operating system:

• driver for x32bit and x64bit operating systems Windows 10 / Windows 8.1 / Windows 7;
• driver and additional software Catalyst x32bit and x64bit operating system Windows 7 / Windows 8 / Windows 8.1 / Windows Vista;
• component of Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 libraries;
• driver for the Windows XP x32bit and x64bit operating system.

Download AMD Radeon HD 6800 series driver:

Windows 10 x32bit:
Windows 10 x64bit:
Windows 8 x32bit:
Windows 8 x64bit:
Windows 7 x32bit:

Video cards of the new AMD Radeon HD6800 series were announced this fall. Our test laboratory received Radeon HD6850 and HD6870 video cards with a reference design of the printed circuit board and cooling system. Since these models are in the upper price range, we compared them with the two closest competitors of the previous series - the Radeon HD5830 and HD5870.

Before we talk about the testing methodology and the results obtained, let's look at the main innovations implemented in the new line of video cards. A detailed description of the Barts architecture, which is used in these video cards, was published in the November issue of the magazine in the article “AMD Radeon HD6850 and HD6870 - first release.” Here we will consider only the main points of this architecture and its differences from previous graphics chips of the Cypress series. For several years now, autumn has become a traditional time for AMD to release new or update graphics architectures of previous generations. Alas, the development of more advanced technical processes at the Taiwanese TSMC factory was delayed, since the transition to the 32 nm standard was completely canceled, and the next step should be the transition to the 28 nm standard. Because of this, graphics chip manufacturers who use TSMC factories are forced to continue using the previous 40-nanometer process technology, which was also difficult to implement and bring to fruition. Therefore, the transition to a new process technology for AMD Radeon GPUs with the updated Barts architecture was also canceled, and new chips were released based on the 40nm process technology.

Note that the main slogan of the new line of Radeon HD6800 video cards is “Today, the best just got better,” which loosely translated means: “Everything is the same, but a little better.” Therefore, you should not be surprised that the Barts architecture is practically no different from the solutions of the previous line on the Cypress chip. Due to problems with the factory and the new technological process, AMD was unable to release a completely updated architecture this time, so it modified the existing one. Video cards based on the Barts architecture do not belong to ultra-high-performance solutions and are intended only to expand the line of Radeon HD5800 video cards and improve performance in new applications due to new tessellation technologies, but not to replace it. Also, the new architecture is optimized to reduce power consumption of video cards and reduce the cost of their production based on the price/quality ratio.

In general, there are very few changes in the new chip and they are aimed primarily at more efficient processing of geometry and tessellation, as well as improving image quality due to anti-aliasing effects and higher-quality anisotropic filtering. In addition, users are provided with slightly modified AMD Eyefinity technology. And although AMD expects to completely fill the upper segment of the video card market with new video cards based on the Barts architecture, in fact, the new HD6850 and HD6870 video cards are not much inferior to the top-end video card of the previous HD5870 series in terms of performance in real applications, and in some cases even surpass it. We will talk about the performance of new solutions in this article, and in addition, we will consider the power consumption of video cards and their cooling systems.

Testing methodology

To test video cards, we used the test script ComputerPress Game Benchmark Script v. 5.0, which allows you to fully automate the entire testing process, select games for testing, screen resolutions at which games are launched, as well as setting games for maximum display quality or maximum performance, and setting the number of runs for each game.

The methodology for testing video cards is described in detail in the article “New gaming benchmark ComputerPress Game Benchmark Script v. 5.0”, published in the April issue of the magazine, and therefore we will not repeat it. We only note that in this testing we used Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit as the operating system. For all video cards, the latest AMD Catalyst 10.9 driver was installed at the time of testing. Since only video cards based on AMD Radeon HD chips took part in this testing and all of them supported the DirectX 11 API, we used two settings for maximum quality in the games Heaven Benchmark 2 and Dirt 2. Thus, three rather than two results were obtained for these games. In this testing, unlike previous ones, the concept of a reference configuration is not used, and the results are reduced to the calculation of an integral performance assessment for each individual game (benchmark), which is not tied to the reference configuration. Therefore, for the games Heaven Benchmark 2 and Dirt 2, the geometric mean was taken from three results in order to get a more realistic picture of performance in these games and to use the new DirectX 11 API. In other tests, the geometric mean was taken from two results - when configured for maximum and minimum image quality.

Test results

Comparative testing results in the form of integral indicators for each game are presented in Fig. 1-9.

Rice. 1. Integral results of video cards in the game Gun Metal Benchmark	Rice. 2. Integral results of video cards in the game Call of Juares Demo
Rice. 3. Integral results of video cards in the game Crysis	Rice. 4. Integral results of video cards in the game Left 4 Dead 2
Rice. 5. Integral results of video cards in the game FarCry 2	Rice. 6. Integral results of video cards in the game Heaven Benchmark 2
Rice. 7. Integral results of video cards in the game Dirt 2

The technical characteristics of all tested video cards, as well as their approximate prices, are shown in the table.

AMD Radeon HD6870

The AMD Radeon HD6870 video card in its performance in some tests successfully catches up with the previous single-processor Radeon HD5870, which is especially noticeable in tests using games with the DirectX11 API. Thus, we can confidently say that this series of video cards was just as successful for AMD as the previous one. Upgrades to the new Barts architecture provide greater performance in gaming applications using the new DirectX11 API. This graphics card features some of the highest single-GPU performance available on the latest AMD GPUs. The main technical characteristics of this video card are given in the table, so let’s look at its appearance and cooling system. The cooling system used in this model, compared to the system installed on the reference video cards of the previous Radeon HD5870 series, has undergone significant changes. The length of the printed circuit board and along with it the cooling system have decreased, while the weight of the video card has also decreased.

At the top of the board, in the usual place, there are two 6-pin power connectors. On the same part of the board, but closer to the interfaces, there is a Crossfire connector for connecting two video cards. Unlike previous versions of AMD video cards, this model has two air outlets located on the back wall next to the interfaces and on the top next to the Crossfire connector. The cooling system is built on the basis of a 4-pin controlled fan made in the form of a turbine. The air from the fan is cooled by an aluminum heatsink that covers the graphics processor and memory chips. This heatsink has a copper base in contact with the graphics chip. And from the copper base extend four copper tubes, cooled by an aluminum radiator.

This model uses GDDR5 memory chips manufactured by Samsung, which are labeled K4G10325FE-HC04. The access time of these chips is 0.4 ns and the nominal frequency is 1.25 GHz (5 GHz QDR). The memory chips in the video card operate at a frequency of 1.05 (4.2 GHz QDR) GHz, so the video card has some headroom for slight overclocking. The back of the video card, on which the interfaces are located, has two DVI connectors, as well as HDMI and two mini-Display-Ports.

Note that compared to previous reference cooling systems from AMD, the new cooling system is much quieter. Temperatures at maximum load in idle mode also decreased compared to the reference Radeon HD5870 video cards.

AMD Radeon HD6850

The younger model AMD Radeon HD6850, built on the new Barts architecture, is a modified version of the Radeon HD6870 graphics adapter. In addition to reducing the graphics core frequency and lowering the memory frequency, this video card has fewer unified processors and texture units. To ensure reliable power, this model is equipped with an additional 6-pin power connector.

The AMD Radeon HD6850 is equipped with a stripped-down version of the cooling system used in the older Radeon HD6870 model. The dimensions of the card are reduced, and the cooling system only cools the graphics processor and does not come into contact with the memory chips. This model also uses heatpipes designed to efficiently transfer heat away from the GPU. According to testing results, this system successfully copes with the task and does not allow the graphics core to warm up above 83 °C.

In terms of performance, the Radeon HD6850 graphics card is not much inferior in performance to the Radeon HD6870 graphics card, although it actually has lower performance in all applications without exception. Alas, we could not compare the results of the new model with the results of testing the HD5850 video card due to their absence, however, the new model successfully surpasses the Radeon HD5830 video card in all tests.

conclusions

Based on the test results, it can be argued that AMD's new series of video cards based on the Barts architecture turned out to be very successful. Increased performance in modern applications using DirectX11 suggests that AMD still has quite a lot of potential to improve its GPUs. A unique response to NVIDIA's release of new high-performance GeForce GTX580 graphics processors allows AMD to gain a foothold in the performance graphics market.

In conclusion, we note that the new model provides the user with very high performance in gaming applications, while being inferior to the previous Radeon HD5870 model. In addition, we cannot ignore the fact that this video card allows you to comfortably play modern games that support the new DirectX11 API, since in tests with DirectX 9 and 10 APIs, the HD6850/HD6870 video cards are inferior to the HD5870 solution. The new models have demonstrated high potential in tessellation speed. In the Heaven Benchmark 2 and Dirt 2 tests, which have full support for DirectX 11, the new Radeon HD6870 video card is ahead of the previous generation HD5800.

The stable operation of PC components depends not only on their compatibility with each other, but also on the availability of up-to-date software. There are different ways to install a driver on an AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series video card, and we will look at each of them below.

The model of this graphics adapter is no longer completely new, so after some time some driver installation options may become irrelevant. We will list several methods for searching and installing software, and you will have to choose the most suitable one for yourself.

Method 1: Official website

If there is a need to install/update a driver, the best solution is to download the required software version from the manufacturer’s official website. Let's figure out how to find the necessary driver for the AMD video card model you are interested in.

1. Use the link above to go to the manufacturer's official resource.
2. In the block "Selecting a driver manually" fill in the fields as follows:
   • Step 1: Desktop Graphics;
   • Step 2: Radeon HD Series;
   • Step 3: Radeon HD 6xxx Series PCIe;
   • Step 4: Your operating system along with bitness.

   

   When finished filling out, click on the button "DISPLAY RESULTS".

3. This will open the download page where you need to make sure that all the requirements meet yours. In this case, the specific model (HD 6800) is not among the supported products, but it is part of the HD 6000 Series, so the driver will be fully compatible in this case.

   There are two types of drivers for a video card, we are interested in the first one - "Catalyst Software Suite". Click on "DOWNLOAD".



4. Once the software has been downloaded, run the installer. In the window that opens, you will be asked to select the path for unpacking using the button "Browse". It is better to leave it by default, but in general there are no restrictions on changing the directory. To go to the next step, click "Install".



5. The files will begin unpacking. No action is required.



6. The Catalyst Installation Manager will launch. In this window, you can change the interface language of the program installer, or you can immediately click "Further".



7. The next step is to select the installation type. You can immediately change the location on the disk where the driver will be installed.

   

   In mode "Fast" The installer will do everything for you using standard driver installation parameters.

   

   Mode "Custom" prompts the user to manually configure what they need to install. We will analyze further installation in this mode. For a quick installation, you can skip the next step of our instructions. After selecting the type, click the button "Further".

   

   A short analysis of the configuration will occur.



8. So, a custom installation shows which components the driver consists of and which of them may not be installed into the system:
   • AMD Display Driver- the main component of the driver, which is responsible for the full functioning of the video card;
   • HDMI Audio Driver- installs the driver for the HDMI connector on the video card. Relevant if you use this interface.
   • AMD Catalyst Control Center- an application through which settings for your video card are made. Item that must be installed.

   However, if you encounter any problems with the operation of a particular component, you can uncheck it. Typically, this method is used by people who install some of the driver components of an outdated version, and some of the latest ones.

   

9. A license agreement will appear, which you must accept to continue with the installation.



10. The installation will finally begin. Upon completion, all that remains is to restart the PC.

This is the safest method, but it doesn’t always work: it’s not always possible to find drivers for graphics adapters that are too old, so over time you have to look for alternative methods. Plus, it's not the fastest.

Method 2: Official utility

An alternative to manually searching for a driver is to use an application that scans the system and then automatically selects the latest software version. It is somewhat faster and simpler than manually downloading software for a video card, but it itself only works in semi-automatic mode.

1. Go to the company’s website using the link above, find the block "Automatic detection and installation of driver" and press "DOWNLOAD".



2. Run the downloaded installer. Here you can change the unpacking path if necessary. Click to continue "Install".



3. The files will be unpacked, this will take a few seconds.



4. In the window with the license agreement, if you wish, you can check the box next to the item about sending data about the use and configuration of the system. After that click on "Accept and install".



5. The system and video card will begin scanning.

   

   As a result, 2 buttons will appear: "Express installation" And "Custom installation".



6. The installation will launch the Catalyst Installation Manager, and you can read how to install the driver using it in Method 1, starting from step 6.

As you can see, this option simplifies the installation slightly, but is not much different from the manual method. At the same time, the user can choose other options for installing the driver, if for some reason these are not suitable for you (for example, at the time of reading this article, the driver had already been removed from the official website).

Method 3: Specialized programs

In order to facilitate the installation of drivers for various PC components, programs have been created that automatically clean install them and update them. The most important time to use such applications is after reinstalling the operating system, negating all the efforts that users usually make to manually install drivers step by step. You can see the list of such programs in our selection at the link below.

The most popular is DriverPack Solution. It contains perhaps the most extensive database of supported devices, including the HD 6800 Series video card in question. But you can choose any other analogue of it - problems with updating the graphics adapter should not arise anywhere.

Method 4: Device ID

The identifier is a unique code that the manufacturer equips each device with. Using it, you can easily find a driver for a different version of the operating system and its bit depth. You can find out the video card ID via "Device Manager", we will simplify your search and provide the HD 6800 Series ID below:

PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6739

All that remains is to copy this number and paste it into a site that specializes in searching by ID. Select the version of your OS and from the list of suggested driver versions, find the one you need. Installing the software is identical to what was described in Method 1, starting from step 6. You can read about which sites to use to search for a driver in our other article.

Method 5: OS Tools

If you don’t want to look for a driver through websites and third-party software, you can always use the Windows system capabilities. using "Device Manager" you can try to install the latest driver for your video card.

To do this, just find in "Video adapters" AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series, right-click on it and select "Update driver", then "Automatically search for updated drivers". Then the system itself will help you search and update. Learn more about the graphics adapter driver installation process via "Device Manager" you can read in a separate article at the link below.

We looked at all possible ways to install the driver for the Radeon HD 6800 Series from AMD. Choose the one that is most suitable and simplest for you, and in order not to search for the file again next time, you can save the executable file for later use.

AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series video cards are a series of graphics chips from AMD that were quite popular at one time. Today, these video cards can be used in legacy systems and are low-performance by modern standards. However, the characteristics of the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series allow the use of these chips in ordinary desktop computers, which are not tasked with running modern game releases.

Appearance of the series

People who follow related news know that AMD regularly updates its series of graphics chips. 2010 was no exception, and then a series of AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series video cards appeared, the characteristics of which were impressive. The models in this series were designed to replace the then flagship Radeon HD 5870 video card.

On October 22, the first model from this series was presented. Then during the performance she collected positive reviews. Note that it was on this line that the rebranding was completed. Starting from this series, the manufacturer's video cards were called AMD, not ATI.

Let's figure out what the characteristics of the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series are and what's new in this line? Let us remind you that there are only 2 video cards in the series - the HD6850 and HD6870 models. According to the developers, the number 8 in the name no longer denotes the flagship ambitions of video cards in this series since the 6900 line appeared.

Characteristics of AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series video cards

Let's start with the obvious changes. The line used the new Barts processor. Already from the presentation it was clear that AMD is following a different development path, which differs from the chosen path of Nvidia. If Nvidia developers are chasing the power and performance of their platforms, AMD prioritizes the balance between cost and performance.

If ATI previously set trends in terms of developing graphics chips, then under the wing of AMD the developer took a step back. The Barts GPU is definitely weaker than its predecessor - in specs and on paper. The fact is that the developers chose to simplify the architecture to ensure reliability and create a balance between performance, price and speed. Thanks to the simplification of the architecture, Barts has become smaller in size and simpler in structure, and its performance allows it to be classified only in the low class of video cards from AMD. It is for state employees that video cards with a memory capacity of 1 GB AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series are included. Their characteristics are as follows:

1. Supports DirectX 11 and 5 shaders.
2. The memory capacity on both models in the series is 1 GB.
3. HD6850 and HD6870 GPU frequencies: 775 MHz and 900 MHz, respectively.
4. Memory operating frequency of HD6850 and HD6870: 1000 MHz and 1050 MHz, respectively.
5. Memory bus width: 256 Bits for both models.

At the time of their introduction, the cards cost $180 and $240 for the 6850 and 6870 models, respectively. Today these video cards are not produced, so their cost is much lower. And you can only buy these chips secondhand.

Differences between HD6850 and HD6870

In this line, the AMD Radeon HD6850 model is the youngest. Here the characteristics are reduced compared to the older card. Moreover, everything here is weaker, including even the cooling system. Considering the lower performance and weak cooling system, the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series temperature under load, in particular the HD6850 model, remains the same. And this is an obvious drawback of this model.

If we compare the result of testing this chip in the 3DMark program with the HD6870 chip, then the result of the latter will be 2-3 thousand points higher. The FPS difference in demanding games like Crysis or Far Cry 2 will be 10-15 FPS, and this is a fairly large gap. Hence the price difference between these cards, which averages $60.

The older model HD6870 is a worthy competitor to the flagship of that time - the TOP video card HD5870. The advantage of this solution is its low price compared to its competitor from Nvidia and the ability to use DirectX11 functionality to the fullest. However, we will talk about the results of testing this card and its comparison with its competitor GTX 460 below.

Competitors

Considering the price at the time of release and the characteristics, the main competitors of the line can be imagined as models from Nvidia - these are the GTX460 and GTX470 video cards. Their specifications are slightly better compared to AMD models. For example, the GTX460 and GTX470 have cores that operate at 675 and 607 MHz respectively, but the memory clocks are higher - 1800 MHz for the GTX460 and 1674 MHz for the GTX470. But the key feature of the GTX470 model is the memory bus width - 320-bit GDDR 5, which puts this video card head and shoulders above the competitive model from AMD with a 256-bit bus width. However, the performance difference is minimal. This indirectly confirms the excellent optimization of AMD video card components and good software for it.

Testing AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series 1024 MB video cards

The following hardware was used for testing:

1. CPU Core i7 3.3 GHz.
2. 6 GB RAM.
3. Windows 7 64-bit OS.

In the first game we tested, Battlefield Bad Company 2, AMD's solution turned out to be better. The HD 6800 video card scored 30 FPS at maximum graphics settings, while the GeForce 460 card showed a result of only 22 FPS. And if 30 FPS can still be called a “playable” result, then at 22 frames per second you will no longer be able to play comfortably.

However, in the game Aliens vs. Predator the situation worked out in favor of GeForce. Here the graphics from GeForce showed 30 FPS at maximum resolution. And when testing the game on an AMD HD6800 video card, the resolution had to be reduced to 1600x900 to get the same 30 FPS.

The fairly demanding game Crysis Warhead ran on both cards only at low screen resolutions. Testing in games only gives an indirect understanding of which video card is better. There is no clear winner here, and both models are worthy options. True, the solution from Nvidia will cost a little more. In any case, the characteristics of the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series allow you to run games released in 2010-2013 at high graphics settings. But modern new video cards of this line will not cope.

Disadvantages of the line

The obvious disadvantage of both boards is the operating noise, which is associated with an insufficiently efficient cooling system. After all, it is easy to make the fan spin at full power. This allows us to conclude that the developers did not pay adequate attention to the cooling system, because when both chips are heavily loaded, the fan makes a lot of noise and can barely cope with heat removal. At the same time, you don’t want to fully load the chip, and when the user hears a hum from the system unit, he intuitively tries to reset the graphics settings to an acceptable level.

Conclusion

The new HD 6800 Series line turned out to be worthy and controversial in its time. Both video cards successfully entered the market and received positive reviews, as they occupied niches between flagship chips and cheap video cards. Compared to more expensive solutions from Nvidia, samples from AMD looked better, which can explain the increase in their popularity. And, of course, it comes down to price. It is worth recognizing that AMD made the best decision to ensure that the price and performance of their products match.

Considering the cooling system is not the best, it is also better to forget about possible overclocking of these chips. After all, even at peak loads it is difficult for the fan to remove heat. However, for experiments with overclocking, it is best to use chips from Nvidia - they are almost always quieter and cooler.

The ATI Radeon HD 5800 video cards, released last fall, greatly influenced the market, cementing AMD as the supplier of the fastest solutions for gaming PCs for almost six months. The release of NVIDIA Fermi in the spring of 2010 forced the company to push back somewhat, and now AMD is again playing its trump card, playing on the price-performance ratio.

Reference AMD Radeon HD 6850

HIS Radeon HD 6870

The ATI Cypress graphics architecture underlying the Radeon HD 5000 was undoubtedly a new milestone in the evolution of video cards from the Canadian developer: the performance increase compared to the previous generation was so significant that the company triumphantly returned with top models to the price niche “above $300.” However, GPU developers receive their main income not from high-end products, which are the prerogative of enthusiasts, but from mid-level video cards available to the mass buyer. It was this niche that AMD paid the most attention to when developing a new generation, codenamed Northern Islands. Its first representatives were the AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850, also called “Barts” (please note that these accelerators were the first to bear the name AMD, and not ATI - the corporation is trying to strengthen consumers’ perception of its brand as a representative of an integral platform with processors, chipsets and GPU).

Note that the priority on video cards for the price range “up to $250” does not mean that AMD does not plan to modernize the top segment: the most powerful Radeon HD 6900 products with one processor (Cayman) and two (Antilles) will be released later, but for now the company is concentrating in a problematic niche for yourself. The fact is that the Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850 are based on a rather complex Cypress GPU, which is expensive to produce, and as a result of the price confrontation with NVIDIA, it no longer brings in sufficient profits for AMD. The Radeon HD 5770 positioned below, on the other hand, is beneficial to the company, but not very attractive to the consumer: the GeForce GTX 460 has extremely high performance at an affordable price. AMD solves this problem by replacing the older single-chip Radeon HD 5800 models with a new generation at a reduced price , intensifying competition in the mainstream segment. NVIDIA, in turn, has already made certain sacrifices in order to remain competitive: the price of the GeForce GTX 460 with 1 GB of memory, which is the main competitor of AMD's new products, has been reduced from $229 to $199, and the most surprising thing is the price of the GeForce GTX 470 with the expensive top-end GPU GF100 also dropped from $349 to $259. And the reasons for concern for this vendor are quite serious.

The AMD Barts architecture clearly shows Cypress heritage, with these GPUs inheriting its compute and texture unit structure. In fact, in terms of stream processors, TMUs and rasterizers, they are identical to the previous generation, and the main work of AMD engineers was to optimize the core and eliminate Cypress weaknesses discovered over the year. One of them was tessellation units: during this time, several games have appeared that actively use this technology, there is a tendency for their number to increase, and therefore the frankly low performance of Cypress in this task was corrected: according to AMD, Barts in optimal modes is twice as good as Radeon HD 5870 for this indicator.

At the same time, the characteristics of the Radeon HD 6800 are clearly inferior to their predecessors: while the Radeon HD 5870 had 1600 processors and 80 texture units, the HD 6870 has only 1120 and 56. The ratio is similar between the younger models: the Radeon HD 6850 boasts only 960 SP and 48 TMUs versus 1440 and 72 for the Radeon HD 5850. The number of ROPs and the capacity of the built-in caches remained unchanged, and AMD is trying to mitigate the weakening of the shader domain of the GPU by increasing the frequency and internal optimizations. Also note that Barts uses a GDDR5 controller from the Redwood core (Radeon HD 5600), which takes up half the space of the one used in Cypress. As a result, the number of transistors in the new GPU decreased from 2.15 billion to 1.7 billion, and the core area - from 334 mm2 to 255 mm2, which, in turn, affected the TDP: for the Radeon HD 6870 it is 151 W, for the HD 6850 - 127 W, and when idle, both models consume and release only 19 W. Barts is produced using the 40-nanometer TSMC process - its long debugging forced AMD to abandon the design of these GPUs at 32 nm, but the next generation will be produced at 28-nanometer standards.

Unlike the computing part of the GPU, other units have undergone much more serious modernization. Firstly, the video processing module has been significantly improved: the third generation of the UVD engine - UVD3 - has the ability to decode several new codecs in hardware. Firstly, the ability to play MVC (Multiview Video Coding) has been added - another addition to the H.264/AVC standard, which describes the transmission in one data stream of two frames with different angles, necessary for stereoscopy. As a result, Northern Islands fully supports hardware playback of Blu-ray 3D and other 3D video compressed with this codec. The second major innovation was the introduction of full support for MPEG-4 ASP decoding and processing, the most common representatives of which are the DivX and XviD codecs. On the one hand, they are already perfectly reproduced in software and do not require significant resource expenditures, on the other hand, now even HTPCs with a weak CPU and a new AMD video card (here we are more likely talking about future budget models of the new generation) will be able to play videos in this format, and portable PCs will also save battery power. Finally, UVD3 now fully supports MPEG-2, including entropy encoding algorithms, which was not available on previous Radeon models.

Major changes have also occurred among the supported graphical interfaces. Firstly, the Radeon HD 6800 is equipped with HDMI 1.4a, which brings support for stereoscopic video in FullHD (1080p24) format. Secondly, support for DisplayPort 1.2 has been introduced, which now looks more advantageous than HDMI and DVI for several reasons. Firstly, the new version of the interface has double the bandwidth (21.6 Gb/s), which makes it possible to transmit a signal over one channel to 2 monitors with a resolution of 2560x1600 or 4 with 1920x1200 and a frequency of 60 Hz. If this is not important for video, then for 3D games this means that you can now connect an output device not only via Dual-Link DVI (HDMI is not suitable for this use, since it has a limitation on the frequency of the transmitted signal: either 2x1080p at 24 Hz , or 2x720p at 120 Hz). It also becomes possible to transmit a high-resolution signal with a greater color depth (up to 30 bits). The capabilities for HD video playback have also been improved: now via DisplayPort you can transmit full uncompressed eight-channel audio in LPCM format simultaneously with FullHD video, as well as a lossless stream in DTS Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD codecs (previously they did not have enough bandwidth) .

Also, the fact that DisplayPort does not require a clock generator for synchronization and is packet-based has made it possible, with increasing bus width, to realize the ability to connect multiple monitors to a single video card output either through a serial connection or through a hub. The packets simply indicate which of the connected devices a particular frame is intended for, and the hub “parses” the stream into its components, sending each monitor the appropriate signal. For AMD, this means a significant simplification of the Eyefinity infrastructure: no longer requires the rare and expensive Eyefinity6 model to connect six displays to one graphics card. The Radeon HD 6800 implements the ability to build such a configuration using only two mini-DisplayPorts (three monitors to each via hubs). Unfortunately, there are no displays with DP 1.2 support or hubs on the market yet - in this case, AMD is playing ahead of the curve - but they should be presented soon (most likely at CES 2011 in January).

Also, with the release of Barts video cards, AMD finally introduced its version of stereoscopic image output technology, called HD3D. However, in this case, the solution is purely software and has nothing to do with the architecture of new products. Moreover, it is implemented using additional drivers from third-party developers - TriDef and iZ3D. Among other improvements, we note the corrected anisotropic filtering, which now does not depend on either the angle or the nature of the textures, and the appearance of the Morphological Anti-Aliasing mode, which allows you to smooth the edges of contrasting objects with less performance loss than with conventional supersampling (in fact, it’s just DirectCompute- a filter, which is applied to a scene that has already been rasterized, finds contrast zones characteristic of the edges of objects and smoothes them out).

As you can see, the first models of the new generation of AMD video cards are a kind of compromise: on the one hand, they are in many ways simpler and clearly weaker than the previous ones, on the other hand, they are much cheaper. Whether the balancing was successful will be shown by the test results.

The reference AMD Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 look very similar to their predecessors: they use similar cooling systems with a turbine fan and a plastic casing that completely covers the boards. The visual differences lie in the video interface connectors: now two DVI and one HDMI are complemented not by a single full-size DisplayPort, but by two mini-DisplayPorts. In addition, the Radeon HD 6850 has only one six-pin power connector, not two, and AMD got rid of the decorative protrusions on the casing, which sometimes made it difficult to connect connectors to them. Note that the older modification will initially be available exclusively in the form of copies of the reference version (apparently, the percentage of usable crystals from TSMC is not yet too high), but the younger new product already exists in many versions with coolers and printed circuit boards modified by several vendors.

First of all, we checked how much the new AMD graphics cards improve their performance in tessellation. The test carried out in Unigine Heaven shows that with increasing complexity, the Radeon HD 6800 actually turns out to be noticeably more productive than its predecessors: already at the Normal level, the Radeon HD 6870 is ahead of the formally faster HD 5870, and at Extreme, the HD 6850 also comes out ahead. Note that about competition with NVIDIA is not in question in this case: firstly, the Unigine engine clearly runs faster on video cards from this vendor (as can be seen from the mode with tessellation disabled), and secondly, Fermi with its Polymorph Engine blocks is in any case much faster than Barts and Cypress this task.

As for more real tests, here we see that AMD really turned out very successful products. In different applications, the balance of forces varies somewhat, but in general the following trend can be noted: the maximum gap between the Radeon HD 6870 and HD 5870 does not exceed 15% and sometimes comes down to a few percent. On average, among the measurements we carried out, the top-end video card of the previous generation is only 7% ahead of the new product, with a formal superiority in the number of execution units and a real difference in price of almost one and a half times. We see similar success when compared with NVIDIA's direct competitor - GeForce GTX 460 with 1 GB of memory: Radeon HD 6870 runs 4-27% faster, depending on the test. We also note that the more expensive GeForce GTX 470 is not much ahead of the new AMD product, and its prices in Ukrainian retail will not soon approach those recommended by NVIDIA after the reduction of $260. True, there are also overclocked versions of the GeForce GTX 460 on the market, and the user himself can easily add performance to this video card, but at best we can only talk about parity.

As for the AMD Radeon HD 6850, this model also looks more than convincing in its niche: with a cost difference of about $50, it is only 15% inferior to the Radeon HD 5850, and is about the same amount ahead of the cheaper NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460, which is only $10 with 768 MB of memory. Here, obviously, there will be more intense competition than between older modifications: both the balance of power and prices are quite close, and NVIDIA also has support for PhysX, CUDA and 3D Vision.

conclusions

The new, or, more precisely, updated AMD graphics architecture is a pronounced manifestation of not revolutionary, but evolutionary development. The company did not continue the trend of annual leaps in productivity; instead, it makes existing capabilities closer to the average consumer. The main trump card of the Radeon HD 6800 is not its performance, but its relationship with the price, and in terms of this factor, the new products are head and shoulders above their predecessors and are in fierce competition with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460, which back in the summer we called the “kings” of the mid-range segment.

With the release of these accelerators, AMD satisfies the needs of the bulk of consumers demanding video card performance, and the company will please their most prestigious (and smallest) category very soon by releasing the Radeon HD 6900.

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