Radeon HD6850 & HD6870 launched today!

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
Today we have listed two news cards from AMD - the Radeon HD6850 and HD6870. To confuse all customers AMD have launched these cards as cheaper and lower performing than their 5800 series counterparts, and therefore in terms of performance the cards perform as follows (lowest to highest):

HD 5770
HD 5830
HD 6850
HD 5850
HD 6870
HD 5870

Early implications state that the 5800 series will be going EOL (end-of-life) and supply drying up before the end of the year, so for those who want the best performance, fill your boots with the 5800 series while you can.
 

Sleinous

Author Level
Ah right, the usual ATI business of trying to confuse the hell out of everyone with their constant changes in number categorisation.
 

Gorman

Author Level
Now even i will admit that Nvidia is not immune to this, 8800 renamed and tweaked to the 9800 which was then rebranded as the 210 etc etc.
 

Phoenix

Prolific Poster
Awesome, I hope that they're going to hurry up and and release the bulldozer CPU's before christmas :D
 

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
Oh dear oh dear. I'm not defending the indefensible. That naming is atrocious.

At least NVIDIA are starting to break this habit with GTS<GTX + GTS 450<GTX 460<GTX 470<GTX 480 etc. That's fairly logical.

Even 8800GTX<9800GTX<GTS 250 makes more sense than this.

Why not just call them the 5850L and 5870L (Lite) and be done with it?

UPDATE - I think I was a bit harsh here. The concept of 'cheap and cheerful' as Gorman put it, is admirable. But then they go and spoil it all with the branding structure!

X2<X3<X4<X6 - makes sense!

"T" for turbo boost - makes sense!

5000 series branding - makes sense!

"L" for lite - makes sense!... 6850<5850<6870<5870 eh, wut?
 
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Shibin

Enthusiast
Damn it,only if i had the patience to order at christmass :D. So how are the 6000 series going to be better,isnt each series supposed to be up a level,i am confused.
 

Phoenix

Prolific Poster
The last I heard was second half of 2011 for launch...

Oh god I really hope not, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to stop myself from just ordering a phenom 4 core and upgrading later :( I’ve been looking for a good desktop for about a year now, really starting to get to me this whole waiting business.
 

Sleinous

Author Level
Oh god I really hope not, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to stop myself from just ordering a phenom 4 core and upgrading later :( I’ve been looking for a good desktop for about a year now, really starting to get to me this whole waiting business.

If you really want this bulldozer, you'll wait, if not you wont :) Now youve waited so long, i'd suggest you just wait :p
 

Evil Tactician

Gold Level Poster
I wish they would all be forced into numbering systems that made sense to consumers. Quite frankly, they are misleading the average buyer.
 

PringlesInside

Enthusiast
some questions. my order for my new pcsystem from pcspecialist..i ordered ati radeon hd 5750 ........... which is better??? also phoniex, i ordered as you probally know , amd phenom II x6 1055t (2.8ghz/9mb cache/am3). bulldozer is better? explain me bullzdozer cpu.. :s thinkin i shud have waited for somethin better.. also whats the advantage of having 6cores? is it bascially 6 processors
 

Phoenix

Prolific Poster
some questions. my order for my new pcsystem from pcspecialist..i ordered ati radeon hd 5750 ........... which is better??? also phoniex, i ordered as you probally know , amd phenom II x6 1055t (2.8ghz/9mb cache/am3). bulldozer is better? explain me bullzdozer cpu.. :s thinkin i shud have waited for somethin better.. also whats the advantage of having 6cores? is it bascially 6 processors

Bulldozer is a brand new architecture from AMD which is going to be released during quarter 1 of next year (by the looks of it) and should be better than any of the CPU's currently out. The 6850 and 6870 are better than the 5750 but they both cost more so it's to be expected. The advantage of having 6 cores is for heavily multithreaded applications (not games) where they'll provide much better performance.
 

Phoenix

Prolific Poster
oh... should i have waited for bulldozer? :s

Well it's very subjective, you don't need a bulldozer CPU for anything and the current Phenom range will do everything that someone could need it to do but it's always nice to have the best hardware.
 

Sleinous

Author Level
If you wait for the latest tech you end up never buying anything :p and dont forget about that vat increase in Jan
 

Gorman

Author Level
should be better than any of the CPU's currently out.

Reheheaaaly?

Its nice to see AMD finally do an architecture refresh but there is no evidence that it will come anyewhere close to taking Intels performance crown which it has held since, well, forever. Hopefully it will be a nice and strong mid to high end contender, like the first Athlon x2's at a reasonable price.

Lets hope they can get all the cores working this time and not release the new Amd 5 core cpu!
 

Phoenix

Prolific Poster
Reheheaaaly?

Its nice to see AMD finally do an architecture refresh but there is no evidence that it will come anyewhere close to taking Intels performance crown which it has held since, well, forever. Hopefully it will be a nice and strong mid to high end contender, like the first Athlon x2's at a reasonable price.

Lets hope they can get all the cores working this time and not release the new Amd 5 core cpu!
Yeah it should be judging by how well the athlon 64 did in 2003 along with the new 32nm lithography.
 
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