Hi everyone, my XFX Radeon HD5870 started to sound like a lawn mower, so I returned it under warranty thinking it was only a fan bearing.
Anyway, 5 weeks later they have told me it can't be fixed and want to give me a HD6950 as a replacement.
My 5870 cost me $600 (Australian dollars) about 18 months ago and the 6950 is $249 AUD now.
I know prices have come down, but is the 6950 any better or worse than the 5870 - in other words - are they shafting me?, how does it go on MW?
Thanks

That's a perfectly fair trade:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/307650-33-5870-6950

See if you can squeeze a 6970 out of them, otherwise the 6950 isn't a bad replacement either. See if you can get one of the models with 2 fans. Most recently the 6950 has been selling for more than the 5870 (while it was still available). I picked a new XFX 5870 up at TD for <$190 USD not too long ago. Then bitcoining hit and all the bargain ATIs evaporated.

Ok, so my 5870 has 1600 stream processors, and the 6950 has 1408 stream processors, that would make it slower for MW? or am I wrong...

Plus the 5870 vents all the hot air externally, but I see the 6950 vents into the case and the rear, I dont want this so they are going to have to offer me something else....

The 69xx architecture was changed from the 58xx and uses fewer shaders. The 69xx is very fast at MilkyWay, not as fast at Collatz. The venting of (some of) the heat out the back is a valid concern.

From memory my 5870 did the old MW work units in 1:30 sec, can anyone tell me if the 6950 is faster or slower?

Venting is important, the 6970 vents to the rear only, the same as my 5870.
Based on this, im going to suggest they owe me a 6970.

My new 6950 time are between 1:00 sec and 2:00 sec. I think I even had a few below the 1 minute. But most are 1:04 sec.
Memory runs at 900 Mhz (downclocked for the temp). Gpu 850Mhz.
It is the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition/OC.

From memory my 5870 did the old MW work units in 1:30 sec, can anyone tell me if the 6950 is faster or slower? .....

A 6950 will consistently outperform - when measured across a broad range of tasks - a 5870 by around 10%. The margin for a 6970 is around 20%. So on that narrow basis, they are bombproof offering a 6950 (push comes to shove, if you end up with that, you can always unlock it and it will turn into a 6970 - all they did was lock off some 6970 card abilities and sold it as a 6950).

A benchmark is a benchmark of course, as they will know full well. But a nominal illustration is one of many Guru3d review sessions on the 6XXX series, DX11 benchmark comparison is below, and a second look at the chart will show a relative 5870 comparison. That positioning is pretty well consistent across most measures/benchmarks/reviews that are around.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6950-1gb-vs-geforce-gtx-560-ti-review/16

So if you end up with a 6950, be happy (enough) you got a good deal in reality, and they treated you fairly. If they give you a 6970, be very happy as they dont really have to. Worth pushing it a little to see if they like a quiet life .... but dont be surprised if they insist all you are getting is a 6950.

Regards
Zy

A 6950 will consistently outperform - when measured across a broad range of tasks - a 5870 by around 10%. The margin for a 6970 is around 20%. So on that narrow basis, they are bombproof offering a 6950 (push comes to shove, if you end up with that, you can always unlock it and it will turn into a 6970 - all they did was lock off some 6970 card abilities and sold it as a 6950).

A notable exception is Collatz. Here's an interesting explanation by Gipsel/Cluster Physik:

http://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/forum_thread.php?id=639&nowrap=true#10804

Ok, so my 5870 has 1600 stream processors, and the 6950 has 1408 stream processors, that would make it slower for MW? or am I wrong...

it is true that the 6950 has a lower clock speed and less SMs than the 5870. but the 6950 is built around the VLIW4 architecture (which limits double precision performance to 1/4 of its single precision performance), while the 5870 is built around the VLIW5 architecture (which limits double precision performance to 1/5 of its single precision performance). without working out the mathematics step by step, suffice it to say that 6950's double precision performance is 563.2 GFLOPs, and the 5870's double precision performance is 544 GFLOPs, 19.2 GFLOPs less than the 6950. its only a 3.5% performance difference on paper (when strictly talking about FP64 compute power), but i'm sure the real world difference can be more or less than 3.5% given the mix of OS and other hardware components in the machine.

Plus the 5870 vents all the hot air externally, but I see the 6950 vents into the case and the rear, I dont want this so they are going to have to offer me something else....

the reference (blower-style) cooler on my 5870 started to go a little over a month ago. rather than go through the hassle of RMA and going weeks without having a GPU, i decided to replace the failing blower with an Arctic Cooling Twin Turbo Pro. it looks like many of the non-reference coolers out there - two fans on top instead of one blower, some hot air exits at the back of the card, but most gets dumped into the case. i expected minimal improvements in cooling and noise, but to my surprise, this thing delivered far above and beyond my expectations. with the OE blower, my 5870 would reach temps in the mid-60's (Celsius) under full load at only 45% fan speed, despite exhausting ALL of the hot air out the back of the case. with the Arctic Cooling TTP, the highest temps i see are in the upper 50's (Celsius) under full load with the fans at only 30%, despite the fact that a fair amount of hot air actually gets exhausted inside the case. in addition, the TTP is FAR quieter at 100% fan speed than the OE blower was at even 30% fan speed. just some food for thought...

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I can second the aftermarket cooler thing - I have 2 Accelero coolers on 5870s and one Scythe Setsugen SCVSG-2000. The Accelero's are better (and are awesome), but they take up three slots. The Scythe is better than the stock cooler (HIS iCooler V) and much quieter, just not as good as the Accelero coolers.

-Dave

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I've gone to keeping a couple after market coolers on hand -- as OEM fans tend to be the short-lived component in the GPU's. I am mostly running 4850's though -- not as expensive (decent secondary market) and the first thing I check is the fans on those units -- I've replaced three so far in my collection.

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If you end up buying a full replacement card, you could do worse than this one below. MSI threw away the reference design, rebuilt the 6950 card from scratch around the AMD GPU, and included their own custom coolers, the updated Twin Frozr III which are a match for any third party cooler. Worth a read of the whole review, the conclusion page is:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-r6950-twin-frozr-iii-power-edition-oc-review/23

Regards
Zy

I lost the fan and video out on my Sapphire HD5830, it is currently somewhere in California, maybe already delivered. I had to stick my old HD4830 in for the time being.

But I do have a GTX560 coming tomorrow and it will replace the GTX460 and the 460 will replace the 4830 for the time being.

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Thanks for the replies, well I asked very nicely and they have agreed to give me a HD6970 to replace my dead 5870.

No surprise they have none in stock, I have to wait another 2 to 3 weeks.
So it will be over 8 weeks by the time I get the replacement card.
Not good enough if you ask me, when you pay $600 for a product, you shouldn't have to wait 2 months for it to get fixed.
Anyway, I don’t want the same thing happening so I think I will sell it and move to a different brand or Nvidia.

Anyone had problems with Gigabyte or Asus?

Anyway, I don’t want the same thing happening so I think I will sell it and move to a different brand or Nvidia.

if you're still set on getting a GPU with a blower style cooler (the only kind of cooler that exhausts all the hot air out the back of the case), it won't matter whether you buy nVidia or ATI. the reseller won't matter either (EVGA, XFX, ASUS, MSI, etc.) - if it has a blower style cooler, it'll be based on nVidia's or ATI's reference design. if it uses a reference designed blower type cooler, its going to be subject to the same above-average turbulence (and therefore above-average noise) and the same mechanical failures over time, regardless of manufacturer or reseller.

hopefully the blower on new card they're sending you will last a while. if it doesn't, your best bet is to remove the stock blower and replace it with an aftermarket 2-fan or 3-fan cooler, and just make sure you have adequate case cooling and airflow.

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I don't think you can blame XFX for AMD's inability to meet market demand.
I have a bunch of their cards and when I rma'd my second 5870 for fan failure they gave me 5 extra fan assy's so I won't have any waiting at all for a long time on fans for my 5870's!!!
PLUS, I had a fan failure on a 5970 and they sent me new card because they didn't have a replacement vapor chamber in stock.
AND NOW I just received a brand new 6990 because they didn't have any more 5970's !!!(yes, I had to wait a couple weeks for a free 6990, that's something to complain about???)
I didn't even have to "talk nice to them" LOL
My experience with XFX support totally lays waste to all the others) and yep I have dealt with just about all of them)
EVGA was excellant also.

This is just MY experience

AND if I sold you any of my cards YOU GET LIFETIME WARRANTY ALSO!!

( I did not receive anything for this posting either , LOL)

I have gotten my 5830 back from Sapphire, it was not the same one that I sent it of course. It is not back in production yet as I still have some SETI CUDA work on the machine.

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See if you can squeeze a 6970 out of them, otherwise the 6950 isn't a bad replacement either.

Thanks for the replies, well I asked very nicely and they have agreed to give me a HD6970 to replace my dead 5870.

You're welcome. If I were you I'd be happy with the situation. You got the top of the line next generation card as a replacement. Waiting a couple weeks is not so big a deal IMO. I doubt if you'd get that deal from many vendors.

For MW the Cayman chip is currentl as good as it gets - the most powerful and most power efficient cruncher.

BTW: really happy with my HD6950. Shaders unlocked, core 900 MHz @ 1.10 V and memory at 625 MHz. Tamed by a Thermalright Shaman, so it runs at ~50°C at 20°C ambient and is really quiet while doing so. Expensive and huge cooler, though. About 104s for the largest WUs (320 credits, if I remember corectly).

MrS

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