The dust is beginning to settle a weekend on from the launch of AMD's Radeon HD 6850 and HD 6870 graphics cards. Having now sifted through the hyperbole and bombast from NVIDIA and AMD over the past week, with both companies eager to promote the virtues of their graphics cards and supporting ecosystems, it's time to take stock and dole out a little advice, I think.
Looking back at my own review and perusing editorial that I respect around the web, it's clear that AMD's new GPUs are held in high regard, gaining praise for bringing new features and solid performance to the £150-£200 mid-range space.
But it's not been easy for the Austin outfit. It has had a tough act to follow in the footsteps of the Radeon HD 5800-series 'Cypress' GPUs. Released last September and characterised by a near-seamless marriage of cutting-edge features with bountiful performance, I reckoned, at the time, that they were the only high-end graphics cards to consider. That thinking held true when NVIDIA retorted with its Fermi graphics processors in March this year. While undoubtedly fast with a forward-looking, compute-centric architecture, NVIDIA's high-end response, in the form of GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470, didn't quite hit the mark straight off the bat.
NVIDIA, though, has righted the listing Fermi ship of late, releasing the compelling mid-range GeForce GTX 460, and it's further broadened the appeal by letting partners have free rein in substantially overclocking the 768MB and 1,024MB models.
Naming furore
Speaking of mid-range cards, this brings me nicely back on to Radeon HD 6850 and HD 6870. First off, contrary to what the names intimate, they're not direct replacements for Radeon HD 5850 and HD 5870, as you might think. I can determine this by looking at the price at which they're introduced: sub-£150 for HD 6850 and £175 for HD 6870. Compare this with the £200 and £290 still charged for HD 5850 and HD 5870, respectively. Moreover, AMD's lopped-off 25 per cent of the silicon - now 255mm² vs. 334mm² - between the two sets of GPUs, and if nothing else, that tells me they're destined for different markets.
I believe that AMD is playing a clever game here. It's looking to ride the wave of criticism levelled at the nomenclature by quietly advancing the argument that, say, the Radeon HD 6870 is better than the HD 5870. How so? Well, in pure gaming terms it benchmarks fairly closely to the older GPU, but, being holistic, it's outfitted with an improved feature-set - better tessellation and video performance, enhanced output configuration and lower power-draw. Heck, it's around 40 per cent cheaper to boot.
The same tenuous rationale can be put forward for Radeon HD 6850, and although I still don't agree with the model-numbering system employed by AMD - I'd have gone for HD 6750 and HD 6770 - it is, in part, defensible.
Does this then mean that AMD has the crucial £150-£200 graphics-card market sewn-up, considering that the new 6-series GPUs are genuine bang-for-buck improvements over the impressive last generation? The answer to this question isn't obvious.
NVIDIA counters
The best GPU to come out of NVIDIA for a good while is the GeForce GTX 460. Conveniently ignoring the manufacturing and financial headaches emanating from yields and larger-than-AMD die sizes - these are issues for bean-counting people to contend with - the GTX 460 768MB card offers stonking value, priced from £115. Yes, it might not be quite as fast as AMD's Radeon HD 6850 and could struggle when image quality is dialled up to 11, but it's hard to beat as an everyday graphics card rendering games at a 1,680x1,050 resolution.
Throw a few more notes in the direction of NVIDIA's partners and the GTX 460 1,024MB can be yours. Again, it's a very solid proposition at, now, £140, and I believe it offers excellent value, even in the face of the new AMD GPUs.
The winner is you, dear reader
Would I go out and spend £140-plus on a Radeon HD 6850 graphics card? The answer is a tentative yes; it has performance in spades and an alluring feature-set. Would I go out and spend £140-plus on a GeForce GTX 460 1,024MB? The answer is a tentative yes; it has performance in spades and an alluring feature-set. Here's the thing, folks, there's no mutual exclusivity here; the two mid-range cards are excellent in their own right, backed up by solid software support and a slew of admittedly-different features.
You cannot purchase a bad graphics card for £150, such is the competition between the brightest minds in the GPU industry. My opinion is that AMD has the very slightest of edges in forward-looking features and overall design, while I think NVIDIA has the slimmest of leads for readers looking to get the most out of their mid-range graphics cards today, for its 3D support is further along the line and CUDA, whether you love or loathe it, is bringing more GPU-accelerated apps to the fore.
NVIDIA wants to trample AMD's GPUs; AMD want to consign the GeForce to the dustbin of history. This fervent and maniacal competition is bringing the best out of both companies. AMD gives you a new-ish architecture that's driven by impressive performance-per-watt figures; NVIDIA counters with reduced prices on decent hardware. From a geek's point of view, I can't wait to see what happens when the high-end 'Cayman' GPU is unleashed by AMD.
The ever-present gaming issue
I've established that there's excellent mid-range hardware being pushed out by AMD and NVIDIA. What I really need is a reason to spend that £150 on a card, other than for some semblance of future-proofing. I really want a few triple-A gaming titles, bringing the best out of the PC, to make me want to take advantage of the competition between the two companies.
It will only be after the next round of consoles have landed that developers - who understandably author for the most pervasive platforms out there, that is, consoles - will truly invest significant resources into DX11-coded games. Up until then, while Radeon HD 6850 and GeForce GTX 460 are rather good, I feel the desire but not the absolute need to upgrade from a two-year-old card.
