ASUS EAH6970 2GB Review

With the arrival of Cayman, let’s see what ASUS have added to their HD6970 to give it the edge.

Product on Review: ASUS EAH6970 2DI2S/2GD5
Manufacturer and Sponsor: ASUS
MSRP: £289
Street Price: £299.37

The release of AMD’s new line-up of graphics cards has to be one of the most hyped up technological release this year, especially amongst gamers and enthusiasts alike. And there is good reason for this, the HD58XX series proved to be a success right from its release over a year ago. Inevitably, our expectations have grown. Can AMD deliver round of high performance graphics card at competitive prices? Two months ago, we were greeted with AMD’s Barts architecture. Naming scheme aside, the HD6850 and HD6870 proved to be excellent mid-range graphics cards, performing nearly on par with the previous flagship HD5870 and yet priced much lower. The release prompted a series of event that cascaded down to benefit consumers the most. On the one hand, we had AMD producing highly efficient, low power GPUs with tremendous overclocking headroom to satisfy enthusiasts and on the other hand we saw Nvidia responding with reduced pricing on the high end GF100 based GTX470 and mid-range GF104 based GTX460. If that wasn’t enough, Nvidia promptly released more efficient GF110 based GPUs derived from the power hungry GF100 cores in the form of the GTX570 and GTX580. Inherently, the high end market has now become saturated with choice but for the consumers it has translated to cheaper high end solutions.

AMD are taking their revised architecture further with the release of the HD6970 and HD6950. The former is their flagship single GPU solution and targets Nvidia’s GTX570 whilst the HD6950 is priced in a class of its own. The Cayman architecture brings a number of benefits in the form of more efficient graphics through their refined VLIW4 architecture, 96 texture units and upgraded render back for improved anti-aliasing performance. What it also means is that the two cards will provide improvements in performance per die size. It should therefore come as no surprise that the HD6970 and HD6950 will sport 1536 and 1408 stream processors respectively to maintain increased performance in a smaller package. Much higher memory bandwidth is also expected compared to their Cypress counterparts, thanks to the on board 2GB framebuffer and higher clocked memory. Many of the features first introduced on the Barts architecture will also be carried forward such as Morphological AA and enhanced tessellation performance. AMD’s HD6970, which we will be looking at today, heads up their new line up of card and promises to be a significant step above the HD5870.

The HD6970 card we have received for review today is courtesy of ASUS. The HD6970 represents the higher end variant of the Cayman core, poised to compete with Nvidia’s GTX570 at a shade under £300. Its main appeal is its enthusiast level performance at a fairly affordable price point, no doubt the growing competition being the culprit. Compared to the HD6950 reviewed earlier, the HD6970 boasts 1536 stream processors and normally comes clocked at 880/5500MHz. The fully fledged Cayman GPU that is being utilised also features 96 texture units, all within a 250W TDP envelope. ASUS have gone one step ahead of their competition by applying a mild 10MHz overclock to their HD6970 core clock speed. As is typical of ASUS, Voltage Tweaking is also supported through their famed SmartDoctor application to provide additional overclocking headroom. Apart from that, the card has remained vastly unchanged from the reference design and thus sports the same cooler and components.

A bit about ASUS:

ASUS comes from the last four letters of Pegasus, the winged horse in Greek mythology that represents the inspiration of art and learning. ASUS embodies the strength, creative spirit and purity symbolized by this regal and agile mythical creature, soaring to new heights of quality and innovation with each product it introduces to the market.

ASUS pursues technological and aesthetic perfection through continuous innovation. We place ourselves in our customers’ shoes to develop a deep understanding of, and genuine empathy for, their needs—enabling us to create user experiences that transcend the norm.

ASUS Design Philosophy

ASUS Design develops high-quality solutions our customers will enjoy.
Our design process is built on thorough research, early anticipation and well-planned execution.

We act with a global vision and a focus on local strengths, conditions and heritage.

Let’s see what more AMD and ASUS have to offer this round.

Specifications

Cayman is the rightful heir to the successful Cypress core. For the most part, the architecture is much the same with some tweaks to increase efficiency and performance per die size. The GPU comes in two variants, Cayman Pro and Cayman XT, the former found on board the HD6950 and the latter on the HD6970. Originally, the Cayman core was poised to be manufactured on the 32nm manufacturing process which would have brought along many new features and possibly better performance in the same package. However, TSMC cancelled the process so Cayman had to resort to the more mature 40nm process, sacrificing many of the new features promised.

The biggest change to the architecture is the use of the VLIW4 design instead of the VLIW5 design used since DX9 graphics cards were first introduced. The main reason was to increase efficiency in newer DX10/11 titles and to put more emphasis on GPGPU computing. The VLIW4 architecture introduces a narrower Stream Processing Unit, in which the 5th stream processor named the “t-unit” has been removed leaving just 4. Despite the Unit only being able to process 4 operations instead of 5, the advantage is that the space saved allows the core to have more SIMD clusters. The end result is that Cayman can have up to 24 SIMD clusters (24 on the HD6970 and 22 on the HD6950) whereas Cypress only had up to 20 SIMDs (20 on the HD5870 and 18 on the HD5850), giving Cayman a 10% improvement per mm squared compared to previous VLIW5 architecture (as used on Barts also). The architecture is now more catered towards GPU Compute than before and the higher SIMD count also gives additional texturing performance. Each SIMD from both architectures contains 4 texture units so Cayman now benefits from up to 96 units rather than the 80 available on Cypress.

Cayman: VLIW4, 24 SIMD clusters, 96 texture units
Cypress: VLIW5, 20 SIMD clusters, 80 texture units

Another benefit of the new core is its improved dual 8th generation tessellator that bring up to 3 times the tessellation performance of the HD5870.

As mentioned, Cayman comes in two variants as found on the HD6950 and HD6970. The key difference is that the HD6950 has 22 SIMD clusters instead of 24 on the HD6970, leading to fewer texture units (88 vs. 96) and fewer stream processors (1408 vs. 1536). The GPU boasts an impressive 2.64 billion transistors on a die size 389mm squared. For reference, the mainstream Barts core sports 1.7 billion transistors on a 255mm squared package. A 256-bit GDDR5 memory bus is still supported but this time 2GB of VRAM is provided to compete with Nvidia’s offerings.

Cayman is a step ahead of Cypress and Nvidia when it comes to texturing performance but the stream processor deficit means that the pixel fill rate and shader operation can’t quite match up to the HD5870. The question is whether the more efficient design can give better performance in real gaming situations. One downside of the Cayman core is its maximum power consumption but that is always the risk with packing more transistors into ever larger cores. AMD have PowerTune to regulate the TDP so we don’t expect the power draw to exceed 250W. More will be revealed about PowerTune later on.

Product Specifications

Graphics Engine: AMD HD6970
Model: ASUS EAH6970 2DI2S/2GD5
Bus Standard: PCI Express x16 2.1 (Compatible with 1.1)
Memory Size (MB): 2048 GDDR5
Memory Interface: 256-bit
Core Clock Speed (MHz): 890
Stream Processors: 1536
Shader Clock (MHz): 890
Memory Clock Speed (MHz): 5500

3D API: Direct X 11 & OpenGL 4.0
DVI Output: 2 (DVI-I & 1 DVI-D)
HDMI: 1 (HDMI 1.4a w/audio (8 channel LPCM & bitstream))
DisplayPort: 2 mini DPs 1.2 (1 DP-to-mini DP adapter supplied)
VGA: Supported using DVI-to-VGA adapter
Display Output (Max Resolution): 2560 x 1600
Crossfire Support: Yes
Card Dimension (mm): 274 x 115 x 35

Features

Get Immersed with AMD Eyefinity Technology
•Enable ultra-high resolution multi-monitor gaming with 2GB of high speed GDDR5 memory.
•Expand your favourite games across up to 4 displays with AMD Eyefinity technology for an expansive field of view.
•See more of the battle than ever before with up to 4 simultaneous displays.
•Get the freedom and flexibility to upgrade. This modular solution enables you to add additional displays.
•Put your productivity into overdrive and let up to 4 displays put all the information you need right before your eyes.
•Don’t choose between play and work. Let up to 4 displays help you enjoy games, movies and the web at the same time.

Get Amazing EyeDefinition Graphics with DirectX 11 Technology
•New and advanced architecture featuring full DirectX® 11 support and scalable geometry processing.
•Featuring a new and advanced architecture with scalable geometry processing, the AMD Radeon HD™ 6900 Series is purpose-built to dominate your games.
•Maximum efficiency & performance. AMD PowerTune technology puts exceptionally intelligent power management under your control.
•Raise the bar for beautifully smooth image quality with Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing (EQAA).
•Dual advanced programmable tessellation engines for twice the geometry processing performance of previous generations.
•Play your favorite games in full stereo 3D, and get incredibly rich and interactive gameplay with AMD HD3D technology.

Speed Up Applications and Enjoy Brilliant Video with AMD EyeSpeed Technology
•Unleash the most demanding applications with AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) technology.
•Supports double precision floating point arithmetic to handle computationally intense workloads.
•Smooth visual quality with AMD EyeSpeed visual acceleration technology.
•Experience Blu-ray 3D as it was intended with AMD HD3D technology.
•Take advantage of AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 Series graphics’ Dolby TrueHD and 3D HDTV support.

Put out Stunning Visual and Unrivalled Audio Experience with HD3D Technology
•Stereo 3D display/glasses support
•Stereo 3D gaming
•Blu-ray™ 3D support
•3rd Party stereo 3D middleware software support
•Launching with AMD Radeon™ 6900 Series GPUs

Microsoft DirectX 11
Enable PC users to enjoy an advanced computing experience and to do more with their PC

AMD Eyefinity Multi-Display Technology
Unlocks the power of GPU’s processor cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks

AMD CrossFireX™ Technology
Gets up to 1.8X of a graphics performance boost in dual mode.

3rd Generation TeraScale Engine
Provides increased processing power for the latest games and accelerated applications

40nm Process Technology
Provides enhanced processor performance while using less power and better transistor efficiency than previous generation technology

Dolly®TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio Support
Get a fully immersive high-definition audio experience with the latest Blu-ray movies

AMD PowerPlay™ Technology
Power draw scales according to activity so when GPU activity is low, the power draw is minimal

Enhanced Unified Video Decoder (UVD) 3
Watch the hottest Blu-ray movies, online video and other HD content beyond 1080p with low power and low noise with GPU acceleration and enhanced Unified Video Decoder (UVD) 3 features

ASUS Exclusive Innovations

•Voltage Tweak: Full throttle overclocking with exclusive ASUS Voltage Tweak via Smart Doctor – boosting 50% more speed, performance and satisfaction! (The quoted figure of 50% is based on the increased headroom as opposed to actual 50% better performance)
•Full Aluminium Cover: Aluminium label on the cover dissipates surface heat much more evenly than reference. Simply cooler!
•Overclocked: Factory overclocked to perform at 890MHz, 10MHzhigher than stock performance, resulting in higher frame rates in games.
•ASUS Smart Doctor: Intelligent system monitoring for efficient overclocking with an intuitive slide bar
•ASUS Gamer OSD: Real-time overclocking, benchmarking and video capturing in any PC game!
•Splendid Video Intelligence Technology: Optimizes colours in various entertainment scenarios with five special modes — standard, game, scenery, night view and theatre.

Packaging and Content

The ASUS HD6970 Box

ASUS have kept to their traditional red and black themed box as we have seen previously with the HD5870 review a year ago and more recently the EAH6850 review. The packaging depicts a rampaging horseman symbolising ASUS’s dominance and power. The highlight of the ASUS card is its unique voltage tweaking capability, shown on the front. The utility is claimed to potentially increase performance by 50% but this is most likely attributed to the increased overclocking headroom as opposed to actual performance. Some of the key features of the HD6970 are illustrated above the model name, such as support for Eyefinity and the 2GB of on-board memory. ASUS have pre-overclocked mildly by 10MHz on the core and in the words of a famous supermarket chain, “every little counts”.

The back of the box and specifications

The back of the box is more informative and covers some of the card’s key characteristics is greater depth. At the top, the features are listed in 11 languages whilst below that are illustrations of Eyefinity in action and the Voltage Tweak tool, as well a short description of their benefits. Additionally there is an illustration of the different display connectors that can be found on the card’s I/O panel.

A closer look at the features

Looking closer, we see that the new card was built with 2GB GDDR5 RAM for immersive gameplay coupled with Eyefinity technology. Voltage Tweaking has been one of ASUS’s dominating features since the launch of their HD5870 a year ago and it’s good to see that its implementation still appears on all their high end offerings. Voltages can be adjusted using the bundled SmartDoctor application and ASUS claim that the increased overclocking headroom can achieve up to 50% better performance. In reality, this will not be possible but the feature is still a welcomed addition.

The interior box

Upon opening the box, we are greeted with another one emblazoned with the gold ASUS emblem right in the middle. Inside are two compartments, one holding the manual and driver disk, and the other containing the accessories. The graphics card is neatly wrapped in a protective anti-static bag, enclosed within foam padding.

The bundle

The top compartment is reserved to the accessories and installation guide. Included are:

– 1 x Dual 6 Pin to 8 Pin power adapter
– 1 Crossfire Bridge
– 1 x Multi-lingual quick-installation guide
– Driver disc

The bundle is fairly mundane and despite 2 mini DisplayPort connectors on the card, no adapters have been provided to ensure compatibility with regular DisplayPort cables. Another omitted accessory is a DVI to VGA adapter. Given that most high end monitors have DVI ports, it’s not a significant oversight.

The HD6970 2GB

The HD6970 follows on the same design as the reference HD6950 we saw a week back, as can be seen from the rectangular “ribbed” shroud and the standard blower type cooler. ASUS have customised the card with a red striped spanning the length of the graphics card and their emblem snugly stuck in the corner. Their minimalistic approach is unlike the vibrant design of the HIS HD6950 but it still remains appealing. The card is 27.4cm in length.

The back of the card

The back of the card is covered by a metal backplate. The purpose is for additional cooling as well as support for the weight of the card. The heatsink on top is secured by the X shaped bracket and 4 spring loaded screws. To remove the shroud and cooler, it’s a simple task of undoing the 10 screws at the back and two more from the I/O plate. Removing the shroud is not covered under warranty so be great care has to be taken.

Closer Look

The fan

The fan uses a finned blower design to push air towards the rear of the card and hence out of the case. ASUS have retained the reference AMD Radeon logo on the rotor. The fan supports PWM functionality and can be controlled by users or temperature based profiles.

The Crossfire connectors supporting CrossFireX

Unlike the HD6870, the HD6950 sports two CrossFire connectors on the side for up to 4 graphics card to be used in CrossFireX. The side profile of the shroud is dominated by the ribbed design. There are also vents above the CrossFire connectors where heat can be partially extracted from.

The on-board BIOS switch

A new addition to AMD’s graphics card is the BIOS switch shown above. The ‘1’ & ‘2’ labels indicate that users can switch between two BIOS for safer end user update. Since the launch of the HD5870, it has been quite common to see users flash their graphics card to support voltage tweaking or to simply update the BIOS. AMD are ensuring that this process is safer by implementing a protected factory default setting, ‘2’, and an unprotected BIOS, ‘1’, which users can update. The switch is connected directly to the PCB, next to the CrossFire connectors.

One 6-[in and one 8-pin power connectors

Unlike the HD6950, the HD6970 has one 6 pin and one 8 pin PCIe power connectors, immediately suggesting high power draw. These are conveniently situated on the side rather than at the end to ensure that the cables do not get in the way of HDD cages or other components. One dual 6 pin-to-8 pin adapter is bundled for power supplies lacking 8 pin power cables. A minimum 600W power supply with 12V rail current rating of 42A is highly recommended.

The I/O Panel

The rear I/O panel has a wide selection of connectors, more so than on previous reference cards. On the right are two traditional Dual Link DVI-I connectors and for those still using VGA outputs, an adapter is provided. Furthermore, a single HDMI 1.4a port is built in and two mini DisplayPorts supporting the latest 1.2 standard. The ports are an example of AMD’s evolution on their display and video decoding features over the HD5XXX series. The main advantage of the new DisplayPort standard is the double bandwidth over the previous 1.1 ports, taking it from 10.8Gbps to 21.6Gbps. In real world applications, it means that a single port can support up to 2 2560×1600 monitors and 4 1920×1200 monitors through daisy chaining or by using an MST hub. The hub means that the card itself no longer has to sport up to 6 individual ports as was found on the Eyefinity6 special edition cards. As such, the two provided ports can easily drive 6 monitors at 1920×1200. If a hub isn’t available and daisy chaining not feasible, the 5 ports can still support up to 4 displays in Eyefinity as illustrated at the back of the box. The higher bandwidth of the DP is also relied on for AMD’s new 3D stereoscopy initiative. Unfortunately ASUS do not provide adapters for the mini DisplayPorts. Small vents are also present from which heat is exhausted from.

Reference HD6970 vs. HD6950

The HD6970 is 27.4cm in length, the same as the HIS HD6950 which also follows the reference design. The above picture shows the ASUS HD6970 at the top and the HD6950 at the bottom. It’s not hard to see that they are identical in design and size. Fortunately, the power connectors have been conveniently placed on the side to allow installation in smaller cases without cables interfering with HDD bays.

HD6970 vs. GTX580

The Nvidia GTX580 in the picture is slightly shorter at 26.8cm, making the AMD card the longest graphics card this generation.

Closer Look (Continued)

The cooler and shroud

When we remove the cooler and shroud, the sheer size is clearly recognisable. The shroud is a combination of plastic and aluminium on the outer case and metal on the underside to cool the memory chips. The thermal pads are indicative of the 8 memory modules on the PCB itself. The fan is attached to the metal bracing, which pushes air through the heatsink and towards the rear. The heatsink no longer uses a heat pipe design but instead employs a vapour chamber to ensure better cooling and consequently quieter operation. Its construction is a combination of aluminium fins and copper base.

The bare PCB

The bare PCB reveals the layout of the individual components. Unlike the HD6870, the power circuitry has gone back to its traditional placement towards the power connectors. The GPU area is set in the middle and surrounded by 8 memory modules.

HD6970 vs. HD6950 PCB

The PCBs used for both the HD6950 and HD6970 are identical, the only differences being the components used on-board. The near HD6970 sports an 8 pin PCIe power connector instead of a second 6 pin connector. The memory modules and GPU also cater to the higher end nature of the HD6970. Apart from those, it would be hard to distinguish the two boards at a mere glance.

The Cayman GPU

The Cayman core seen here has a die size of 389 mm squared, significantly larger than the 255mm squared Barts core and the 334mm squared Cypress core. This is the largest AMD core since the notorious R600 core design which came at 420 mm squared. The fabrication is still on the 40nm process due to the lack of readily available 32nm or 28nm manufacturing.

The 8 Hynix memory modules

The memory modules are once again GDDR5 chips sourced from Hynix rather than Samsung. The H5GQ 2H24MFR ROC 045A chips operate at 1.5V. The RO denotes that the memory is rated at 6GHz, superior to the modules used on the HD6950. Unlike the HD6870, the memory controller is more robust and can benefit from the full potential of the Hynix module. Each module is 256MB to give a total of 2GB of VRAM.

The VRM circuitry

The CLA1108-4 chokes are unique additions to the card for a robust VRM power circuitry. The card appears to use a 6 phase PWM design, similar to the HD6950.

The Volterra VT1556MF voltage controller

The Volterra VT1556MF voltage controller sees its first use on the HD6900 series. Currently, only ASUS’s SmartDoctor is known to support voltage tweaking.

Test Setup

CPU – Intel Core i7 920
RAM – 6GB (3x2GB) OCZ platinum DDR3 1333mhz
Motherboard – ASUS Rampage III Extreme
Power Supply – Enermax Revolution 85+ 850W
Hard Drive – OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB
Samsung F3 1TB
Samsung F1 320GB
Cooler – Noctua NH-C14

Graphics Cards:

ASUS HD6970 2048MB @ 890/5500MHz & 949/5896MHz Overclocked – ATI Catalyst 10.12a (8.790.6.2)*

HIS HD6950 2048MB @ 800/5000MHz & 865/5500MHz Overclocked – ATI Catalyst 10.11 (8.790.6.0, 8.790.6.2 & 8.800)
Nvidia GTX480 1536MB @ 700/3696MHz & 799/3906MHz Overclocked – Forceware 260.99
ASUS GTX580 1536MB @ 782/4000MHz & 903/4220MHz Overclocked – Forceware 262.99
MSI R6870 2PM2D1GD5 1024MB @ 900/4200MHz & 990/4600MHz Overclocked – ATI Catalyst 10.10
XFX HD5870 1024MB @ 850/4800MHz & 942/5200MHz Overclocked – ATI Catalyst 10.10

Note – The latest 10.12a drivers used from AMD’s website are still identified as 10.11 drivers. They are a slightly updated build of the drivers used for the HD6950 review (8.790.6.2)

Benchmark Suite
MSI Afterburner & Kombustor
ASUS SmartDoctor
GPU-z
Crysis Warhead using the FRAMEBUFFER Crysis benchmark tool
Far Cry 2
Metro 2033
Resident Evil 5
Street Fighter IV
Unreal Tournament 3 using the HOC Bench tool
Colin McRae DIRT 2
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Mafia II Demo
Colin McRae DIRT 2
Alien VS Predator
H.A.W.X 2
3DMark 11
3DMark Vantage
Unigine V2.1 DX 11 Benchmark

Software Bundle

The driver CD includes the user manual, drivers and ASUS utilities, presenting them in an attractive bubbly user interface. The CD comes with modified 10.11 Catalyst drivers but the latest 10.12a drivers can be downloaded here.

The ASUS SmartDoctor tool is an overclocking utility that has the unique capability of allowing users to increase the GPU core voltage. The user interface isn’t as sophisticated as MSI’s Afterburner application but keeping it simple is not always a disadvantage. At the bottom are three slider bars where users can select the VCore and clock speeds. The maximum limit for the voltage is 1.5V while the clock speed is limited to 1780/11000MHz (limited is probably not the right word…), plenty of headroom for this card. On the main screen, the application displays the temperature or selecting the fan tab will show you the fan speed. Going into the settings, it’s possible to create a fan profile based on temperatures.

Here, we can see how easy it is to overclock. Simply use the sliders to set the desired clocks and it’s good to go. Of course, this doesn’t imply that all clock speeds will work and users will still have to go through the usual steps of testing for stability.

The GamerOSD utility is akin to the popular FRAPS application allowing users to record gameplay movies and take screenshots. It also handily displays the user’s IP at the top.

The latest drivers currently still bundle the old Catalyst Control Centre but we can expect a new interface to be made available very soon. Meanwhile, there are some new features implemented in the Overdrive section. Firstly, Overdrive gives uses the ability to overclock their graphics card and monitor temperatures and fan speed. Whilst not as thorough as MSI Afterburner, it is still a very useful tool. The new feature, shown above as Power Control Settings, is AMD PowerTune.

AMD PowerTune

Overclocking is nothing without stability and for most enthusiasts; applications such as Furmark, OCCT or MSI Kombustor have been the stress test of choice to truly load graphics cards. However, both AMD and Nvidia have voiced their concerns against the use of such applications due to the number of cards killed as a result of high temperatures and unforgiving load. They believe that stress tests are not representative of gaming loads and should therefore not be used as an indicator for stability.

This is where PowerTune comes in. The basic concept is that it locks the GPU’s thermal design power (TDP) to a pre-determined value such that when it is exceeded, the GPU will try to lower power usage. This is achieved by simply lowering the clock speed when the pre-determined TDP is attained under load. On the HD6950, the PowerTune Maximum Power is set to 200W whilst on the HD6970, it is set to 250W. AMD claim that typical gaming loads would draw 140W using the HD6950 and up to 200W using the HD6970, meaning that in typical scenarios, gamers shouldn’t worry about their cards reaching the maximum TDP and throttling. The main situation where it PowerTune would kick in is under heavy loads from programs such as the stress test applications mentioned above.

Overclocking presents another scenario where throttling might occur. Not surprisingly, overclocking will increase the power draw both in game and in stress tests closer to 200W/250W. This means that the card will be more susceptible to throttling as they exceed the PowerTune maximum TDP. AMD realise that PowerTune may not appeal overclockers but rather than giving them the option to disable the feature, they provide power control settings in Overdrive. Raising the limit to 20% sets the new maximum TDP to 240W on the HD6950 and 300W on the HD6970, still within ATX specifications. This gives overclockers additional headroom before throttling occurs. It also means that at stock clocks, the chance of getting reduced performance is much less. Conversely, to increase power efficiency, the power control settings can be reduced by 20%, making it ideal in situations where higher clock speeds are not needed.

In some ways, the system is akin to Turbo mode on both AMD and Intel CPUs. In the latter case, if power draw is within the TDP, the CPUs will have their speed boosted. Therefore, under light load, the CPUs will operate faster and simply clock to default speeds when the TDP is reached. In the HD69XX’s case, the core works at its default clocks and throttles when the TDP is reached. Nvidia have employed a similar feature on their GTX580/570 for the same reasons as AMD.

Throughout the benchmarks, the PowerTune limit was set at 20% to ensure overclocking headroom. However, at stock speeds, there was no noticeable performance difference between the 0 and 20% settings.

Temperature & Overclocking

The ASUS HD6970 comes pre-overclocked at 890MHz on the core, 10MHz above reference speeds. It is rather mild in comparison to the headroom available on the card. However, no other manufacturer currently offer pre-overclocked HD6970 so ASUS have to be commended, more so for their voltage tweaking implementation. Typically, HD6970s are clocked at 880/5500MHz and the ASUS has been boosted to 890/5500. The card operates at 1.0V at idle when it clocks down to 400/5500MHz and 1.175V under load. It has to be noted that the high 2D clocks is due to two monitors being used, otherwise the card clocks down to 157/900MHz.

Stock

To overclock, AMD Catalyst Overdrive, ASUS SmartDoctor and MSI Afterburner were used. Initially, all three applications limited the core speed to 950MHz but removing the limiting in MSI Afterburner had the same effect in Overdrive and SmartDoctor. Increasing the overclocking headroom meant that the voltage had to be increased and in the end a final stable clock speed of 949/5896MHz was achieved at 1.24V. This represents a 7% increase across both the core and memory, not an impressive final result given the benefits of voltage tweaking. In this case, voltage tweaking also has its disadvantages. As expected, increasing the voltage also raises power consumption so improved headroom is inhibited by PowerTune’s maximum TDP limit. Getting optimal performance without TDP reducing the core speed dynamically requires a fine balance of lower voltages and stable clock speeds. The power control setting was set to 20% throughout testing. When overclocked, the core idles at 500MHz instead of 400MHz.

Stock

The 7% boost in clock speed is mirrored by the same increase in Pixel/texture fill rate and shader operations and similarly the 7% increase in memory speed is reflected by the same increase in memory bandwidth.

In actual performance, the 7% overclock only translates into an average 4% performance improvement. With the HD6950, the performance scaling was almost linear with increased clock speeds suggesting the PowerTune may be affecting the HD6970’s performance as a result of higher voltages and consequently higher power draw.

Temperature

The reference vapour chamber cooler did a decent job cooling the HD6970. At idle, the fan operated at 28% remaining very quiet. Under load, the temperature delta was 67C, comparable to the HD6870. Under load, the fan operated at 51%, making it somewhat intrusive noise-wise. The delta when overclocked was only 2C higher, with the fan operating at 57% under load. The limiting factor when overclocking isn’t the temperature but the core itself.

Crysis Warhead

Following the success of Crysis, the stand alone expansion “Warhead” was hotly anticipated to bring more game play, more weapons, improved visuals whilst maintaining better performance, the latter being what gamers wanted most. After all how many people upgraded their rigs just to play this game… In the game, you play as the upbeat Brit Sergeant “Psycho” Sykes, chasing down a Korean nuclear warhead. Throw in some ice shooting aliens and we’re bound to have a great game. It sure delivered.

Testing was done using Framebuffer’s Crysis Warhead benchmarking tool. The tests were configured to DirectX 10 at Enthusiast levels. Each test on the Ambush map was looped three times from which the average FPS was recorded.

The HD6970 gets off to a very good start on Crysis. At stock speed, it outperforms the HD5870 by 15-20% where the lead extends under 4xAA. Similarly, it beats the HD6950 by around 12%, an impressive margin for two cards based on the same Cayman architecture. The AMD card also beats Nvidia’s GTX480 by 7-10%, clawing a bigger lead at 4xAA thanks to the 2GB of on-board VRAM.

When overclocked, much of the performance advantages the HD6970 held is diminished. It still outperforms the HD5870 by a smaller 10% lead and the HD6950 by the same amount. The overclocked GTX480 manages to catch up with the overclocked HD6970 but at the highest resolution and 4xAA, the AMD card still retains a healthy 13% lead.

Far Cry 2

One of the most hyped games of 2008, Far Cry 2 had some big shoes to fill. It was built to be the next best thing since well… Far Cry I suppose. Combining an open-world game play with highly detailed graphics, physics and AI, what more could we possibly want? The game puts us in the body of a malaria inflicted mercenary hunting down the “Jackal” in the heart of Africa, in a bid to stop an on-going conflict between two rival factions. The storyline can be hard to follow sometimes but I’m no game reviewer, so let’s concentrate on the graphics and performance. After all, we all need to know if our hardware will be able to handle the scorching savannah burning at the hands of our flamethrowers.

The bundled benchmarking tool was used on Far Cry 2, configuring the settings to Ultra and DX10. The small ranch level was chosen and each configuration was looped three times from which the average FPS was recorded.

Far Cry 2 responds to the updated Cayman architecture very well. The HD6970 pulls ahead of the HD5870 by 20-40%, the larger difference down to 2GB of RAM at the higher settings. The stock HD6970 still retains a 12% lead over the HD6950, as seen on Crysis. However, in this scenario, the GTX480 reigns supreme by an average of 10%.

Looking at the overclocked results, the HD5870 manages to catch up but the HD6970 is still ahead by approximately 12%. The 12% lead it had over the HD6950 is now reduced to 7%. Conversely, the overclocked GTX480 increases its lead to around 14% over the overclocked HD6970.

Metro 2033

Based on Novel by the same name, Metro 2033 is a first person shooter with elements of survival horror. As Artyom, you trawl through the mutant infested metro systems of post-apocalyptic Moscow. The game delivers presents a grim ambience that reflects on the overall atmosphere of the underground setting. Metro 2033 uses the setting as a back drop to showcase some of the best visuals of any games out now, making it the ideal benchmark for those looking for the best graphics card.

The bundled benchmarking tool was used on Metro 2033, configuring the settings to Very High and making use of DirectX 11. The frontline scene was looped 3 times for each configuration. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

Metro 2033 is where the HD6970 really flexes its muscle in showcasing Cayman’s architecture over Cypress. The 2GB of VRAM and superior tessellation performance gives it an 18% lead over the HD5870 at 0xAA and up to 46% lead with 4xAA. The difference is much less when comparing the HD6970 to the HD6950, at 9%. The AMD card also takes a slight lead over Nvidia’s GTX480.

Looking at the overclocked results, the HD5870 is still left behind by a large margin whereas the performance gap between the HD6950 and HD6970 is reduced to 3.5%. Meanwhile, the overclocked GTX480 manages to outperform the overclocked HD6970 by up to 4.5%

Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 is the sequel to the Resident Evil series, exploring the life of main protagonist, Chris Redfield. You play as either Chris Redfield or Sheva Alomar in an African desert area in Kijuju. In true Resident Evil fashion, your main objective is to investigate a terrorist bio-organic weapon threat whilst killing infected “Majinis” on your way.

The Resident Evil 5 benchmark tool was used to test performance. All settings were set to the maximum possible and the average FPS was recorded at the end.

Stock results show the HD6970 outperforming the HD5870 by around 16% and the HD6950 by 10%. On the other hand, the GTX480 outperforms the HD6970 by up to 5% except in the last case where the AMD card manages to win by nearly 4%.

Overclocked results show the HD6970 outperforming the HD5870 by around 12% and the HD6950 by 6.5%, a smaller lead than previously. This time, the GTX480 claims victory at all settings by up to 6%.

Street Fighter IV

Street Fighter is back in its 4th iteration and it’s bigger and better than ever. Combining fluid, fast based sparring with stunning artistic visuals, the game delivers tremendous game play. Be reacquainted with some of the most popular characters in video game history while you battle your way to the top, be it with Ryu or the mighty Bison. The game might be frustratingly hard in some cases but there’s nothing like the satisfaction of K.O’ing your opponent with a well stringed death bringing combo.

The Street Fighter IV benchmark tool was used to test performance. All settings were set to the maximum possible and the average FPS was recorded at the end.

The HD6970 manages to outperform the HD5870 by 14% and the HD6950 by 12% at stock speeds. It is no match for the GTX480 and falls behind by 16-26%.

Looking at the overclocked results, the HD6970 leads the HD5870 by a smaller 6.5% margin and the HD6950 by 6%. The GTX480 extends its lead to 21-32%

Unreal Tournament 3 & Batman Arkham Asylum

Unreal Tournament 3

Built around the unreal 3 engine, Unreal Tournament is all about mindless fast paced shooting, decapitation with a plethora of game modes to so in. Not much else can be said really except that it promises hours of enjoyment on multiplier whether it be against bots, your friends at a LAN or online. It was one of the more popular games out there to adopt PhysX in the form of partially destructible maps, tornadoes and hail.

The Hardware OC UT3 benchmarking tool was used to test the game. The maximum in game settings were used including motion blur. Anistropic filtering was set to 16x and no Anti-Aliasing was used. The Containment was benchmarked and the average FPS recorded at the end.

Unreal Tournament shows the HD6970 surpassing the HD5870 by 12% at 1680×1050 and extending that to 19% at 1920×1200. The performance difference between the HD6970 and HD6950 is much smaller at 4-8% at the respective settings. Nvidia claims another win here with their GTX480.

Overclocking doesn’t improve the HD6970’s performance in-game so its lead over the HD5870 is diminished to 8-13% and similar its lead over the HD6950 is reduced to 3-8%. Consequently, the GTX480 extends its lead from 7 to 9%.

Batman Arkham Asylum

The Dark Knight takes on his greatest challenge yet when he becomes trapped with all of his most dangerous villains inside the insane asylum of Gotham City – Arkham Asylum. The game exposes you to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure that takes you to the depths of Arkham Asylum, Gotham’s psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.

The in-game benchmarking tool was used to test performance. All the display settings were set to very high. No AA was used and PhsyX was only enabled if specified in the charts. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

Batman tells a similar story as before. At stock speeds, the HD6970 leads the HD5870 and HD6950 by 12% and 9% respectively. The GTX480 is on par with the AMD card in this situation.

The HD6970 takes a performance hit when overclocked and stutters occasionally. As a result, it falls behind both the overclocked HD6950 and GTX480 performance wise.

Colin McRae DIRT 2

DIRT is back and it’s bigger than ever. With an onslaught of famous X-Games competitors such as Ken Block and Dave Mirra, extreme is being brought back to rally. The game not only delivers outstanding gameplay in lush environments but also stunning visuals in the form of Direct X 11 implementation. If you want some fast paced, arcade style racing, then look no further than Colin McRae DIRT 2.

The in-game benchmarking tool was used to test performance. All the display settings were set to the maximum available and DirectX 11 was applied. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

In DIRT 2, the HD6970 is ahead of the HD5870 by 10% when looking at stock results. Compared to the HD6950, the ASUS card is ahead by 7%. The GTX480 takes the crown once again with a performance difference ranging from 13-20%.

Again, when looking at overclocked results, the HD6970 is left trailing behind the GTX480 by up to 28% whereas its performance lead over the HD5870 is a mere 5%. Despite the advantages of higher clock speeds and more stream processors, the overclocked HD6970 loses out to an overclocked HD6950 suggesting that PowerTune may be limiting its performance.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Battlefield Bad Company 2 is the new rendition of the widely successful Battlefield series of game. Having more in common with the console release of Bad Company, the sequel hopes to inject the DNA of the timeless Battlefield 2 online experience with the witty action packed single player shooting adventure of the original. As Private Preston Marlowe, your goal as a member of Bad Company is to once again save the world by securing a scalar weapon device.

Fraps was used to test performance. Each test was conducted at the start of the ‘Upriver’ level ensuring that the same actions and paths were taken during the 2 minute sample. All settings were set to the highest available in game with AF set to 16x and HBAO turned on. The average FPS was recorded by FRAPS at the end of each walk through.

In the highly popular Battlefield Bad Company 2, the HD6970 leads both the HD6950 and HD5870 by 11% at stock speeds and 8% when looking at overclocked results. This time, the ASUS card also outperforms the Nvidia GTX480 by a marginal amount at stock speed which is then lost when both are overclocked.

Mafia II Demo

Following the success of Mafia back in 2002, the third person action adventure game is back with a new grittier and darker world. As Vito Scaletta, an aspiring made man, your job is to work through the twist and turns of Mafia lifestyle. The more blood spilt, the more you get in return but the lifestyle was never meant to be an ideal one. Set in the visually stunning Empire City, the wartime references provide the ever present back drop to a rife period in America’s history, in which potential for exploitation becomes Vito’s key focus.

The in-game benchmarking tool was used to test performance. All the display settings were set to the maximum available in-game. PhsyX was only enabled if specified in the charts. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

In Mafia II, the HD6970 performs very well, outdoing the HD5870 and HD6950 by varying amounts based on the settings. It also leads the GTX480 at stock clocks, pulling further ahead with AA applied.

When overclocked, the HD6970 has a 12.5% lead over the HD5870 and 8.5% lead over the HD6950. Once again, the GTX480 benefits much more from overclocking and beats the HD6970.

Alien VS Predator

Spawned from the popular Alien and Predator franchises, Rebellion have collaborated to bring the legendary war to us through the medium of a first-person shooter. The game forces you to hunt, prey and most importantly survive in the swamp colony of Freya’s prospect as a Predator, Alien or Marine. The stunning visuals add to the sense of dread and terror that we have become so accustomed to seeing with the series.

The stand-alone Alien VS Predator benchmark tool was used for testing here. All the settings were set to very high and Tessellation was applied. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

The HD6970 performs very well here. Thanks to its improved tessellation performance, it leads the HD5870 by up to 17% with no AA applied and up to 34% with 4xAA. Here, the performance gap between the HD6970 and the HD6950 is around 13%. It also manages to outperform the GTX480 by around 10%.

The overclocked results show reduced performance gaps but the HD6970 still manages to outperform the GTX480 by 5%. It also outperforms the HD6950 by a healthy 10% when both are overclocked

H.A.W.X 2

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2 is an arcade-style flight action game from Ubisoft. H.A.W.X.2 is DX11 ready and therefore like other simulators such as DIRT2 has stunning scenery and a truly breath-taking visual experience. Using hardware terrain tessellation, H.A.W.X.2 relies on raw GPU power because a series of detailed triangles are required to be rendered. This surely has to be one of the most taxing benchmarks all our featured games, H.A.W.X.2 presents some of the best tessellation execution in any title to date.

The in-game benchmark from the demo was used fort testing. All the maximum settings were used throughout testing. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

H.A.W.X 2 is dominated by the Nvidia graphics card, with the HD6970 falling behind the GTX480 by up to 38%. With tessellation off, the HD6970 leads the HD5870 by 8% but with it on, it leads by more than 40%. Compared to the HD6950, the performance gap is 10.5%.

Overclocked, the GTX480 still held a massive lead. The overclocked HD6970 performed 5-50% better than the overclocked HD5870 depending on whether tessellation was off or on. And compared to the overclocked HD6950, the overclocked HD6970 was ahead by 6%.

3DMark 11 & Vantage

3DMark Vantage

This Vantage benchmark suite from Futuremark introduces DX 10 & PhysX support. Despite being on the verge of DX 11 games arriving, Vantage still proves a popular testing ground for enthusiasts.

The HD6970 fares very well in Vantage. Using the performance preset, the HD6970 outperforms the HD5870 by 12%, the HD6950 by 11% and the GTX480 by 9%. Looking at the overclocked results, the HD6970 outperforms the HD5870 and the HD6950 by 8% and the GTX480 by less than 1%.

The Extreme preset saw the HD6970 take a bigger lead over the three other cards both at stock speeds and when overclocked.

3DMark 11

Finally here is the latest Futuremark benchmark suite, bringing DX11 and tessellation to benchmarkers. Will it bring your computers to their knees?

In 3DMark11, we see a similar trend as before. The main downside is the fact that the HD6970 does not benefit as much from overclocking as the GTX480 and thus loses out under the performance preset.

Unigine V2.1 Benchmark

Unigine’s benchmark is to showcase the benefits of DX 11 and the use of tessellation as opposed to normal rendering techniques. The demo has impressive visuals that give an insight into what we can expect from gaming in the future.

DX11 puts the performance crown back in Nvidia’s hand, which is down to their superior tessellation engine. Unfortunately, the HD6970 is unable to match the GTX480 and even when overclocked, it couldn’t match the latter at stock speeds.

Power Consumption

Power consumption is now the HD6970’s strong suit and early claims that it was a power hungry card comes to light here. At stock speed, it draws 70W more power than the HD6950 and when overclocked, it’s the second most power hungry card on the chart, behind the notorious GTX480. In fact, even the GTX580 is more efficient despite being more powerful. It is important to point out that the overclocked HD6970 was running at higher than reference voltages but so were the GTX480 and GTX580 in these cases. It’s disappointing to see such figures given how efficient the HD6950 is and the Barts core that came before it. The high power consumption is indicative that PowerTune might have limited overclocked performance.

Tessellation

DX 10

DX 11 Tessellation off

DX 11 Tessellation off – wireframe mode

DX 11 Tessellation on

DX 11 Tessellation on – wireframe mode

Let’s focus on a few characteristics of tessellation in the first image. Firstly, when we compare the wireframe mode, it is clear that tessellation, triangular in this case, is adding a lot more features and details, which may at first not be recognisable. The surfaces are divided in many more triangles, allowing the objects to replicate more complex structures. The ground for example is one of the features that benefits from it. To make it as efficient as possible, tessellation becomes a function of distance, generating more polygons closer to the viewer.

Now let’s look at the application of this. If we gaze at the rock pillar closest to us, we can immediately notice that with tessellation, they are not just mere square blocks but instead have irregular surfaces, more representative of a natural rock. Now, let’s move on to the stairs, which again is a notable improvement on past rendering methods. Rather than being flat, they have depth, giving the impression of real steps as opposed to a slide. The same applies to the cobbled road although the compressed/downsized pictures make it hard to judge. The last thing I’ll point out are the tiled roofs. With tessellation, the individual tiles form a more complex/realistic shape instead of appearing flat with repeated textures. You’ll have to take my word for it if you don’t notice them or try the demo for yourself!

Conclusion

When Cayman was first announced, it promised new heights and performance and enthusiast forums were amassed with hype. After all, the previous generation Cypress GPU had delivered high end performance at such a relatively low price point that Nvidia couldn’t respond in time. However, AMD were plagued by issues, namely that the 28nm process they expected to use were not ready. So they settled for the mature 40nm process and made some architectural sacrifices. Nonetheless, when the Barts based GPU were released in the form of the mid-range HD6870 and HD6850, their efficiency were unmatched when it came to performance, power and their price point. Hence, Cayman held great promise. At £223, the previously reviewed HD6950 turned out to be a good performer and was well priced but it lacked the performance enhancements normally attributed to a new generation of GPUs. The HD6970 on the other hand was expected to be much more, even believed to match Nvidia’s class leading GTX580. In the end, the high end Cayman offering was priced to match the GTX480 or newly released GTX570. So how does it compare?

With their new VLIW4 architecture, AMD have focussed on efficiency and compute power. Comparing the HD6970 to the HD5870, it is clear that AMD have achieved their goal. Despite fewer stream processes, Cayman has more texture units and an upgraded tessellation engine. Furthermore, the card now employs 2GB of VRAM that shows great benefits over other cards using higher in-game settings, especially higher resolutions and Anti-Aliasing settings. Overall, the HD6970 outperformed the HD5870 by an average of 18%. When both were overclocked, the gap diminished to around 12%, still impressive considering that the HD6970 has 64 less stream processors, but the margin isn’t significant enough to warrant an upgrade. Games using tessellation benefitted from the improved engine much more, and H.A.W.X 2, Metro 2033 and Unigine performance reflects that.

Compared to the HD6950, the HD6970 is of course the superior card with an average performance lead of 11% at stock speed and 6% when both are overclocked. The reduced performance gap after overclocking is because of the smaller relative overclock on the HD6970. Considering the price points however, the advantage of the HD6970 becomes less distinct. The two reference cards are priced at £223 and £289, with the ASUS variant of the HD6970 coming in at £300. For a 30% difference in price, the 11% performance difference is not enough to draw people into buying the more powerful of the two cards. Even the cheapest HD6970 offering from other manufacturers present less value for money than the HD6950. And more recently, it has been discovered that the latter can be flashed to full HD6970 specifications.

The Nvidia GTX480 and GTX570 are AMD’s target competition this round. At stock speeds, the GTX480 we had on test came out on top by an average of 3.7% across all games. Even if we disregard H.A.W.X 2, which favours Nvidia cards much more, the performance difference is around 1.5% in favour of the GTX480. In a few situations, the HD6970 makes better usage of its 2GB memory to close the gap on the Nvidia card but it lacks the raw power to take the crown. Unfortunately, it gets worse when both are overclocked seeing as how the headroom on the HD6970 was relatively less than on the GTX480 in this case. In the end, the GTX480 took an average lead of 9.5%. It appears that Nvidia still provides better tessellation performance in Unigine.

Another disappointing factor was power consumption. It was unlike any other AMD cards on test and proved to be significantly more power hungry than the comparatively anorexic HD6950. It isn’t all doom and gloom for the HD6970 though. AMD have ensured good overall performance, improved tessellation and AA performance, and enhanced Eyefinity support through DisplayPort 1.2.

ASUS also have to be commended for upholding their untarnished image of exclusivity. They are currently the only manufacturer to offer a pre-overclocked reference designed HD6970 and to support near limitless voltage tweaking out of the box. Unfortunately, those unique features come at a price, making it harder to opt for the ASUS card over reference designs.

Pros
+Good performance
+Pre-overclocked
+Improved tessellation and AA performance
+Cool and quiet operation
+Eyefinity support
+Well packaged
+Aesthetically pleasing
+Voltage Tweaking support

Cons
-Power consumption
-Weak bundle
-Overclocking headroom
-Not on par with equivalent Nvidia graphics card

The ASUS HD6970 deserves the Vortez Bronze Award.