[COLOR=#000000][COLOR=#222222][FONT=Arial][COLOR=silver]ATI might have only just launched its [/COLOR][COLOR=silver]Radeon HD 6870 1GB[/COLOR][COLOR=silver] and [/COLOR][URL=“http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/10/22/ati-radeon-hd-6850-review/1”][COLOR=silver]Radeon HD 6850 1GB[/COLOR][COLOR=silver]cards, but enthusiasts are already looking to the next big thing: the company’s Cayman-based Radeon HD 6970.
Chinese-language site Zol.com claims to have got its hands on [/COLOR][COLOR=silver]benchmarks for the ATI Radeon HD 6970[/COLOR][COLOR=silver], although it’s not revealing where the figures have come from.
The site is reporting, however, that the Cayman XT-based AMD Radeon HD 6970, believed to be the 1GB GDDR5 model, has performed admirably in the 3DMark Vantage test suite, scoring 23,499 3DMarks in Performance mode. In the Unigine Heaven benchmark, the card managed 36.6fps at a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering.
Those scores, which represent a pre-release version of the card with unoptimised drivers, are certainly a boost over the company’s Radeon HD 5870 1GB card, which managed 19,337 3DMarks and 17.3 fps in Unigine Heaven at the same settings.
Impressively, the figures also beat Nvidia’s current high-end card, the GeForce GTX 480 1.5GB, quite considerably: at the same settings, the GTX 480 1.5GB scored 21,106 in 3DMark Vantage and 29.5fps in Unigine Heaven.
Further details of the as-yet unannounced card aren’t available, but it is rumoured to feature a TDP of 255W or higher, and require a six- and an eight-pin power supply connection.[/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR][/COLOR]