[Tested and Burned] SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 2048MB Review

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 Review Index

• 1 – Meet with SAPPHIRE’s Radeon HD 6970
• 2 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 Features
• 3 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 OpenGL performances
• 4 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 Direct3D performances
• 5 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 Gaming performances
• 6 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 DirectCompute performances
• 7 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 Power consumption and overclocking
• 8 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970: Conclusion and Misc Links

4 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 Direct3D performances

4.1 Unigine Heaven (DirectX 11)

OpenGL tests have been finished on Unigine Heaven, what a better transition than starting Direct3D tests with Unigine Heaven 2.1, this time using the Direct3D 11 render path.

Settings: 1920×1080 fullscreen, tessellation: normal, shaders: high, 4X MSAA, 16X anisotropic filtering.

47.9 FPS, Scores: 1208 – EVGA GTX 580 SC

47.6 FPS, Scores: 1200 – ASUS ENGTX580

42.9 FPS, Scores: 1081 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970

39.4 FPS, Scores: 991 – EVGA GeForce GTX 480

26.8 FPS, Scores: 674 – ATI Radeon HD 5870

25.9 FPS, Scores: 653 – ASUS EAH6870

25.3 FPS, Scores: 637 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6870

25.6 FPS, Scores: 646 – MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5

16.6 FPS, Scores: 419 – MSI R5770 Hawk

4.2 3DMark11 (Direct3D 11)

3DMark11, Furturemark’s new Direct3D benchmark (see here for more details: 3DMARK11: New Gamer’s Benchmark for DirectX 11 is There (+ Big Pictures)),
has been added in Geeks3D’s benchmarks suite for graphics cards reviews.

3DMARK11 Entry mode (1024×600)

E8463 – EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SC

E7598 – EVGA GeForce GTX 480

E7481 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970

E7137 – MSI R5770 Hawk 2-way CrossFire

E6285 – ATI Radeon HD 5870

E6206 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6870

E5270 – MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5 OC

E4166 – ATI Radeon HD 5770

3DMARK11 Performance mode (1280×720)

P5947 – EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SC

P5174 – EVGA GeForce GTX 480

E5119 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970

P4887 – MSI R5770 Hawk 2-way CrossFire

P4284 – ATI Radeon HD 5870

P4188 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6870

P3251 – MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5 OC

P2648 – ATI Radeon HD 5770

3DMARK11 Extreme mode (1920×1080)

X2020 – EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SC

X1812 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970

X1672 – EVGA GeForce GTX 480

X1565 – MSI R5770 Hawk 2-way CrossFire

X1565 – ATI Radeon HD 5870

X1399 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6870

X947 – MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5 OC

X875 – ATI Radeon HD 5770

4.3 MSI Kombustor (Direct3D 9)

MSI Kombustor 1.1.3 has been used for the test. MSI Kombsutor is a Direct3D 9, 10, 11 and OpenGL 2 and 3 stress test and benchmark. I only tested the Direct3D 9 rendering.

Settings: 1920×1080 fullscreen, no AA, no postFX, 60sec, Unlock power draw CHECKED (the real benchmark mode!).

2450 (41FPS) – Sapphire Radeon HD 6970

2425 (40 FPS) – EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SC, ***OCP disabled***

2378 (40FPS) – ASUS ENGTX580 ***OCP disabled***

1991 – EVGA GeForce GTX 480

1962 – ATI Radeon HD 5870

1833 – ASUS EAH6870

1816 – Sapphire Radeon HD 6870

1738 – ASUS ENGTX580

1595 – MSI GeForce GTX 470

1490 (25 FPS) – EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SC, OCP enabled

1201 – MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5 OC

943 – MSI R5770 Hawk (Cat 10.7)

4.4 NVIDIA Island Demo: Tessellation (Direct3D 11)

NVIDIA Island demo is a D3D11 demo focused on, what a surprise, tessellation!

Settings: windowed (default size) and default params (tess factor: 12).

FPS: 58 – EVGA GTX 580 SC

FPS: 57 – ASUS ENGTX580

FPS: 46 – EVGA GTX 480

FPS: 25 – MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5 OC

FPS: 15 – Sapphire Radeon HD 6970

FPS: 13 – ASUS EAH6870

FPS: 13 – Sapphire Radeon HD 6870

FPS: 11 – ATI Radeon HD 5870

FPS: 10 – MSI R5770 Hawk

4.5 DirectX SDK SubD11: Tessellation (Direct3D 11)

SubD11 is a Direct3D tessellation demo from the DirectX 11 SDK June 2010.

Settings: 1920×1080 windowed, tessellation: 8X

FPS: 256 – EVGA GTX 580 SC

FPS: 250 – ASUS ENGTX580

FPS: 220 – EVGA GTX 480

FPS: 135 – MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5 OC

FPS: 106 – Sapphire Radeon HD 6970

FPS: 74 – ASUS EAH6870

FPS: 73 – Sapphire Radeon HD 6870

FPS: 60 – ATI Radeon HD 5870

FPS: 53 – MSI R5770 Hawk

Remark: compared to TessMark, this test shows the increase of Cayman tessellation performance compared to Cypress and Barts GPU. The Direct3D driver has been updated to take advantage
of the new architecture while it’s not the case for the OpenGL driver 🙁 !

Settings: 1920×1080 windowed, tessellation: 16X

FPS: 120 – EVGA GTX 580 SC

FPS: 118 – ASUS ENGTX580

FPS: 102 – EVGA GTX 480

FPS: 59 – MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5 OC

FPS: 29 – Sapphire Radeon HD 6970

FPS: 19 – ASUS EAH6870

FPS: 18 – Sapphire Radeon HD 6870

FPS: 16 – ATI Radeon HD 5870

FPS: 15 – MSI R5770 Hawk

Settings: 1920×1080 windowed, tessellation: 24X

FPS: 52 – EVGA GTX 580 SC

FPS: 51 – ASUS ENGTX580

FPS: 44 – EVGA GTX 480

FPS: 27 – MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5 OC

FPS: 11 – Sapphire Radeon HD 6970

FPS: 8 – ASUS EAH6870

FPS: 8 – Sapphire Radeon HD 6870

FPS: 8 – ATI Radeon HD 5870

FPS: 7 – MSI R5770 Hawk

Settings: 1920×1080 windowed, tessellation: 31X

FPS: 30 – EVGA GTX 580 SC

FPS: 30 – ASUS ENGTX580

FPS: 26 – EVGA GTX 480

FPS: 16 – MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5 OC

FPS: 7 – Sapphire Radeon HD 6970

FPS: 5 – ASUS EAH6870

FPS: 5 – Sapphire Radeon HD 6870

FPS: 4 – ATI Radeon HD 5870

FPS: 4 – MSI R5770 Hawk

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 Review Index

• 1 – Meet with SAPPHIRE’s Radeon HD 6970
• 2 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 Features
• 3 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 OpenGL performances
• 4 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 Direct3D performances
• 5 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 Gaming performances
• 6 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 DirectCompute performances
• 7 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 Power consumption and overclocking
• 8 – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970: Conclusion and Misc Links