OC3D Review HIS 6950 and 6970 Review

[Rastalovich]

Yeah I know what you're saying mate.

But just as an example, let's say HIS release a 'custom' bios in mid-jan that works mostly for their cards ?

Shader changes, voltage/clock change, and suddenly it's a 570 beater, not just a competitor.

Purely speculation of course.

 

[alienware]

Well that would be completely awesome. TBH after looking at AMD's sales figures for the last couple of months I can see why they rushed them out. Losing all those sales at Christmas would have been pretty bad.

Business is business I guess, and as long as the punters are happy then hey, who am I to argue?

 

[Rastalovich]

I don't know how the sales figures are really going to carry through pre christmas tbh. Long gone are the days where companies based sales figures on actual purchases - these days sales figures mean HIS sent 1000 units to Scan - it no longer takes into account if any of them are purchased by the end user. It's clever, and the likes of Microsoft exploit it heavily.

I think I saw 1 single review from someone like TomsHardware about the bios revision that nVidia sent out, just after the review samples of the 480 went out (which was the same reference card everyone had), which changed a fair few things in terms of temps/performance and overclock-ability. One of those cases where you could then overclock to 800-850 with just the stock cooler and the temps stayed around 80 something. Quiet a big difference to what the blanket reviews said a week or so earlier. Still left you with a hurricane in your system, but nevertheless it made a difference. Anyone with a old 8800GT wouldn't have cared

This is more or less why the likes of Zotac/MSI/ASUS then came out with custom cooled versions that were frankly really good, they changed the cooler pretty much.

The old enthusiast would've changed the cooler themselves in anycase.

This card went on to then smash records all over the place, and the consumer is being repeatedly reminded that this card is a failure ? Yet it was the fastest single gpu card out there, just as the 580 is today (cept it's got a better cooler). And for the multicard fans, the records were being broken there too. Sure you can remind them of the noise of the stock cooler and the price you pay for wanting the top-most card, but to hammer home that the card had the failings of the original review samples was pretty unfair.

Either way, I just hope this 6970/6950 get a fair crack of the whip, unlike the 480 got. Certainly they pushed it through for prechristmas release, but I'm looking at the new year for some extra performance by whatever means.

 

[alienware]

Well I will admit that when the 470/80 launched I was a hater. I guess I was expecting something better to come along right away and drive down the prices of Radeons.

As time went by and things improved? well, it seems that Nvidia were the ones to drive down prices. The 470 on launch wasn't worth £300+ IMO. It was worth the £173 I paid for it and the £35 for the Zalman cooler (Amp cooler basically). That comes to £208 and the Amp still costs £250+. I'm hoping I can get some OC out of it too but I've never OCed a GPU before in my life.

Gotta say it sucks that multi monitors seem to stop adaptive performance working. I don't like idle temps of 63-66c tbh. Cooler should fix that though.

 

[Rastalovich]

Well I will admit that when the 470/80 launched I was a hater. I guess I was expecting something better to come along right away and drive down the prices of Radeons.

This is really my point. The 480 came out, got bad press straight off the bat, understandable with the samples that went out initially, then the dust settled and it was the fastest single gpu card for the length of it's generation.

The enthusiasts that used it so many weeks/months after the initial reviews turned them into record breakers, even with stock cooling. And yet the biggest labels it had was - too hot, too loud (which it still is as stock), too expensive. An epic fail - which in all honesty it wasn't, outside of the majority of review sites.

Well just as a heads up, the 570 is more-or-less a 480 with a 'decent' cooler, and the 580 is the fastest single gpu out there - but expensive. The fastest card is always relatively expensive.

The reference 480 stock card is still installable, clockable to 825+ and have temps from 45 idle to 85 full load. Replace the cooler and things get even better (especially for your ears).