AMD Radeon HD 6950 & HD 6970 CrossFireX

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by Rob Williams on December 27, 2010 in Graphics & Displays

By most definitions, AMD’s Radeon HD 6900 graphics cards are powerful, but for those who are looking to push huge resolutions, a little more oomph might be desired. That’s where multi-GPU configurations come in, and to see what AMD’s latest are capable of, we’ve tested out both the HD 6950 and HD 6970 in CrossFireX.

Page 3 – Colin McRae: Dirt 2

It’s not that often that faithful PC gamers get a proper racing game for their platform of choice, but Dirt 2 is one of those. While it is a “console port”, there’s virtually nothing in the game that will make that point stand out. The game as a whole takes good advantage of our PC’s hardware, and it’s as challenging as it is good-looking.

Colin McRae: Dirt 2

Manual Run-through: The race we chose to use in Dirt 2 is the first one available in the game, as it’s easily accessible and features a lot of GPU-pounding effects that the game has become known for, such as realistic dust and water effects, a large on-looking crowd of people and fine details on and off the track. Each run-through lasts the entire two laps, which comes out to about 2.5 minutes.

Depending on the resolution, CrossFireX can go from being “nice” to “great” to “awesome!”. At 1680×1050, the average FPS on dual HD 6970s compared to the single was +56%, while at 2560×1600, that figure soared up to a much more impressive +77%. This is a trend that’s common with most high-end cards, as lower resolutions are not often able to push a GPU quite so hard. There’s of course a major difference between 1.7 million pixels (1680×1050) and 4.1 million (2560×1600), that’s for sure.

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Rob Williams

Rob founded Techgage in 2005 to be an 'Advocate of the consumer', focusing on fair reviews and keeping people apprised of news in the tech world. Catering to both enthusiasts and businesses alike; from desktop gaming to professional workstations, and all the supporting software.

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