AMD’s 68xx series GPUs have been out for a little while now. This means that the boring time of stock and reference designs is well past and now we get to see what happens when a manufacturer puts their best effort into designing a graphics card. In the past we have seen Asus stand out with some impressive designs. Their DirectCU and Voltage Tweak offerings have been excellent. Today we have one of these on the test bench in the form of the Asus EAH6870 DC/2DI2S/1GD5. This factory overclocked card features their DirectCU (hence the name) cooling which has the heat pipes sitting right on top of the GPU for better thermal performance. This new card also features Asus’ Voltage Tweak to help you get even more performance out of it. So let’s take a look and see if this $200.00 card is worth your time and money.
Real-World Gaming -As we mentioned above we use both synthetic and real-world testing to give you the full picture of any product. For GPUs the best real world test is in-game testing. Time Demos and benchmarking tools with render engines cannot come close to showing what a graphics card can really do once it is in you system. As such we have chosen five games two DX9, two DX10 and two DX11. These games are Metro 2033, Just Cause 2, Bioshock 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2, FarCry2, and Modern Warfare 2. We played a specific level of each of these and used FRAPS 3.0.3 to measure the ability of our test subjects to render each game. All of the charts below are sorted based on the minimum frames per second each card was able to achieve. Modern Warfare 2 (DX9)The final sequel is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. This game brings the stress and chaos of modern combat to life. It is a very short but very intense game, in it you take on multiple roles as you move through different locations around the globe and engage in all forms of combat. For testing I ran from after you are selected until the liberation of the school. Settings are shown below.
As we sort on minimum frames per second our chart here shows the EAH6870 from Asus at the bottom of the list. However, if you look at the average Frames Per Second we find that it actually does outperform the 5850 (as it should). Still we have to wonder what it dragging it down for that low spot in our testing. We did notice that there were times when dust or a large number of enemies seemed to slow the game down. It was not overly obvious but it seems to feel sluggish after all with a minimum of over 32FPS it is hard to note something like that.Battlefield Bad Company 2 (DX11) Another game in the BF franchise this one takes a stab at a more modern form of warfare. You do start off toward the end of WWII but soon are in the future (present?) for the single player campaign. The game features some decent AI (more mob style than anything) and has some great weapons. Our test run is the entire first mission. Settings are shown below.Once again we have a misleading chart. When looked at from a stand point of minimums we find the EAH6870 performing a hair faster than a 5870 V2 from Asus. However looking at the average we find the 5870 much faster. The only reason the performance of the 5870 and 6870 are of concern is that both fall under the 32FPS mark for minimum FPS. This means that there will be times when the game will be visible slow. We noted this as a stutter and at one point turning very sluggish. Still with the exception of those two times (both with fairly heavy lighting changes) Bad Company 2 was more than playable.FarCry2 (DX10)Farcry 2 is the third of the sequels we used for testing. It is a large sandbox game that does not truly have levels like most first person shooters. For testing I played from after you wake up until you free the hostage. Settings are shown below.The EAH6870 did VERY well in FarCry2 the card seemed to love the game. We had no issues with stuttering, sluggish movement or even lag when there were multiple enemies on the screen. Performance was just great especially considering where this card is supposed to fall in AMD’s GPU lineup.Bioshock 2 (DX10)Another sequel shows up in our testing, this one pits you in an undersea utopia gone horribly wrong. The engine is based off of the Unreal engine and offers us some DX10 surfaces to help increase the rendering load. For testing I ran the level from the beginning of the game until you find Dr Tenenbaum. Settings are shown below.The EAH6870 from Asus again has done very well here. The minimum frame rate is more than twice our minimum cap for fluid motion (32FPS). This means that even at its slowest you will not notice any issues with rendering the scenes in this game. This is nice to see as Bioshock 2 can actually get a little rough on a GPU at times, this is especially true when the underwater lighting starts coming into play.Metro 2033 (DX11)Metro 2033 is another in the post-apocalyptic genre. This one takes place in the year 2033 20 years after a terrible event took place that almost wiped out mankind. The survivors took refuge in metro stations in Moscow. Now you must venture out to prevent the death of the few remaining people left. T The game itself plays a lot like Stalker; it is slow and filled with mutated horrors (*note 4A games, was founded by developers that worked on the X-Ray Engine used in STALKER.). For our testing we played for 30 minutes starting with your exit from the station. Settings are shown below.Ok, ok… so almost none of the GPUs we have tested with this game have been very good. Most of them have minimum frame rates in the teens and averages not much higher than that! This makes the game feel very sluggish and slow. Of course we have the visual settings maxed out to give a baseline of performance here. You could probably use the Asus EAH6870 with this game if you dropped the resolution back or took out some of the DX11 eye candy. So all is not lost for Metro 2033 fans if you are interested in this GPU from Auss.Just Cause 2 (DX11)This one is plain cheesy, but is a decent one for third person action. It is also a DX9 console port. The game put you as a CIA operative looking to regain some lost data cards and destroying everything in your path. The graphics are ok, but the AI and general story are terrible.
The Asus EAH6870 did well here with a minimum frame rate just over our 32FPS cap. In game the card felt responsive and quick we had no noticeable issues with artifacts, or colors. All in all (despite our dislike of the game) Asus’ EAH6870 made Just Cause2 a pretty good experience. Gaming Conclusions -Again we find that the positioning of the 6870 is fairly accurate. It falls roughly between what we would expect from an average 5850 and the 5870. What troubles me is that the EAH6870 is factory overclocked. I would have expected this to put us much closer to the 5870. However even though it was not where we wanted it to be it was still a solid performer and was more than a match for all of our games (with the exception of Metro 2033, but then again almost none of the current GPUs are).
