In the contest for best notebook performance, there's been a lively ongoing fight for years now between the two GPU giants Nvidia and AMD (formerly ATI). While Nvidia has gotten in a few good hits in recent months with its powerful GeForce 400 series (Fermi architecture) and even outdid itself with the (see review), AMD is now putting its new top model, the Radeon, in the ring. So, how does this high-end graphics card fare against other AMD GPUs as well as the competition from Nvidia? Read the following comprehensive review to find out—the central focus of which is, of course, the graphics card's performance potential. To test the Radeon HD 6970M, we've placed it inside the well-known W860CU Barebone from Clevo (also see or ), kindly provided to us by the canadian company. The 15.6' and only 3.5 kg heavy desktop replacement is known as the W860CU Cougar and is currently available starting at 1034 Euro. Eurocom has fitted the notebook with 4 GB DDR3 RAM (2x 2048 MB), a quick 7200 RPM HDD from Seagate and a powerful quad-core processor from Intel.
The W860CU Cougar sadly didn't have the good fortune to be equipped with a new. Our test notebook, unfortunately, has a tough problem to struggle with on its hands: right after starting many of the tests, the screen simply turned black, requiring a reboot each time. The reason for this is that Eurocom fitted the notebook with the wrong cooling system and the Bios was actually a beta version, due to which the laptop quickly heated up to a critical temperature.
With the correct cooling components in place, the situation improved substantially. Nevertheless, with high resolutions and intense graphics-rendering, the screen still went went black quite often. According to Eurocom, the current Bios version clears up this problem. After numerous attempts, we did finally succeed in running all the planned benchmarks on the test notebook. Accommodating the AMD graphics card will largely depend on Eurocom's initiative since this is not supported in Clevo Barebone notebooks.
See our Top 10 Notebooks: », », » », », » », », » », » » » » Top 10 Tablets / Smartphones: », » » Laptop Specs:. Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit). Intel PM55 Chipset. Intel Core i7 740QM Quad-Core CPU. AMD Radeon HD 6970M High-End GPU. 15.6“ Full-HD LED Display (Non-Glare).
4 GB DDR3 RAM (1333 MHz). Seagate Momentus ST95005620AS HDD (500 GB, 7200 RPM).
Starting Price: 1034 Euro (Price Depends on Particular Configuration) Links:. News: AMD Radeon HD 6000M Series. Video: Eurocom W860CU Cougar. Video: AMD Radeon HD 6970M Montage. The Radeon HD 6000M series represents the continuation of AMDs extremely popular Radeon HD 5000 series. The new 40nm top-level Radeon HD 6970M goes by the alias 'Blackcomb XT' and is superior to the in almost every way. Instead of 800 Unified Shaders and 1024 MB of GDDR5 VRAM, the Radeon HD 6970M has 960 Unified Shaders (+20%) and offers a generous 2048 MB of video memory.
The memory connection has likewise doubled, from 128bit to 256bit. The result: The memory read and write rate has nearly doubled from 64 to 115.2 MB/s. The clock rates compared to the Radeon HD 5870 have meanwhile dropped: instead of 700 MHz (core) and 1000 MHz (memory), the new Radeon HD 6970M runs at 680 MHz (core) and 900 MHz (memory). A good sign, but whether it brings with it actual improvements in practice remains to be seen only after running numerous benchmarks.
A substantial downside of the Radeon HD 6970M is its high energy consumption: Eurocom claims 75-100 watts, just about the same as the. Eurocom installed the driver version 8.800.0.0 for the GPU in the test notebook.
As you can see in the following screen shots, the Catalyst Control Center (CCC) has a new design, in which differences to the old version can already be seen in the layout itself. If you're feeling bold and curious, you can tinker with the overclocking function ' Overdrive', available in CCC.
Using the tool GPU-Z, we were able to gain a closer look at the clock rates. While the Radeon HD 6970M performs at 680 and 900 MHz respectively under heavy use (as previously mentioned), the graphic card is downsampled to 100 and 150 MHz respectively in idle mode. Features Although AMD doesn't quite offer as many features as Nvidia in its graphics cards, the Radeon HD 6970M does have several interesting tricks up its sleeve.
AMD HD3D Technology: Those interested in the 3D rendering of pictures, films or games had no way to go but Nvidia until now. AMD doesn't want to pass up one of the hottest trends in entertainment any longer and has therefore fitted the Radeon HD 6000M series with HD3D technology. HD3D is on an open standard and relies on the hardware of other companies. According to reviews, HD3D currently performs quite poorly, likely because the list of 3D displays that support this technology (Passiv-Pol) is very short.
However, there should be 120-Hz monitors with AMD compatibility popping up in the future, which—like with Nvidia's 3D Vision—allow for 3D rendering based on the shutter-glasses technology. AMD EyeSpeed Technology: The formidable EyeSpeed supposedly contributes to higher performance and better picture quality in customized applications by having the processor and GPU work together, thus profiting from the advantages of each. AMD claims smoother multitasking and fluid HD playback.
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AMD Eyefinity Technology:The Radeon HD 6000M series contains the second generation of relatively well-developed multi-monitor technology. Eyefinity theoretically allows for the use of up to 6 monitors with one GPU, which not only increases the amount of screen space but also supposedly pushes the gaming experience to a new level. In our experience, though, notebooks are typically incapable of working with more than two monitors at once. CrossFireX: Using CrossFire technology allows for two graphics cards—like already seen in the past—to run in tandem, optimally leading to a doubling of performance. In addition to the high energy consumption and high capacity for cooling required, another disadvantage would be the propensity to a slightly choppy performance particularly noticeable at a screen refresh rate of under 30 fps. DirectX 11: The Radeon HD 6000M series is AMD's second graphics card generation with support for DirectX 11. While multi-threading improves performance by making better use of the CPU cores, tessellation contributes to a detailed and smooth picture.
Benchmarks Before we delve into the synthetic graphics benchmarks and real game tests, something important to keep in mind: Since its greatest competitor from Nvidia, the GeForce GTX 585M was equipped with a powerful Intel Sandy Bridge CPU, the differences in performance measured between the GeForce and our Radeon HD 6970M should not be considered the final argument in the matter. The comparison to the, and did not present the same hardware disparity because previously reviewed notebooks—just like the Eurocom W860CU Cougar—were fitted with i7 processors of the 'old' line. 3DMark 06 The 3DMark 06 benchmark has been on the market for quite a while and therefore presented no challenge to the Radeon HD 6970M. In the standard resolution of 1280 x 1024, the Eurocom W860CU Cougar (Core i7-740QM) managed to rack up an astounding 14047 points. That's a whole 6% more than the of the (, 13273 points) was able to muster and even 12% more than the of the (, 12553 points).
Because 3DMark 06 does not give separate scores for GPU and CPU, where the CPU plays a relatively large role, making the coupling of and far superior to our hardware combo—the earns 17817 points (+27%). 3DMark Vantage Even though Futuremark has come out with the new DirectX 11-based 3DMark 11, the older DirectX 10-based 3DMark Vantage still keeps many current graphics cards in their place. This is not the case for the Radeon HD 6970M, however, which in a resolution of 1280 x 1024 scored 11645 points for the Eurocom W860CU Cougar. With scores of 7879 and 7616 points, the and the trail a good deal behind. This means the Radeon HD 6970M processes data about 50% more quickly. As opposed to the results of 3DMark 06, the Geforce GTX 485M (mySN XMG P501) only manages to retain a slight lead here, earning 12191 points (+5%). Unigine Heaven 2.1 We tested the DirectX 11 performance of the Radeon HD 6970M with the highly resource-demanding benchmark Unigine Heaven 2.1.
The high level of tessellation requires even high-end graphics cards to give it all they've got, although Nvidia's GeForce 400-series GPUs have done comparatively better in the past. The Radeon HD 6970M manages to do fairly well with high details settings and normal tessellation at a resolution of 1280 x 1024, reaching a smooth refresh rate of 33.0 fps. The GeForce GTX 480M performs at a comparable level, earning the Clevo D901F Barebone with a desktop CPU (Core i7-940) a respectable 33.7 fps. GeForce GTX 460M and Radeon HD 5870 trail by an expectedly large amount, leading the (Core i7-740QM) and the (Core i-740QM) both to achieve a mere 24 fps. Gaming Tests In the gaming benchmarks, we once again pitted the Radeon HD 6970M against the top model from AMD as well as the current high-end contender from Nvidia. Whereas the measurements for the came from the and those for the from the , we've chosen the data for the —depending on the particular game—either from the values earned by the or the. In order to minimized the influence of the CPU on the results, we chose (very) high graphics settings as well as a full-HD resolution 1920 x 1080 for the gaming tests.
Call of Duty: Black Ops First-person shooters continue to enjoy an incredible level of popularity and the newest Call of Duty offshooth, Black Ops, is the epitome of this phenomenon. In the first 24 hours alone after its release several million copies were purchased online. In terms of pirated downloads as well, it ranks in number one in 2010. In light of a certain problem, however, the release of Black Ops seems a bit premature. On a variety of systems—independent of the graphics settings—the game lags quite badly for a bit, causing the picture to become very choppy fairly often.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 The current Battlefield offshoot does an excellent job of mixing tactical elements and action-filled gameplay in the multiplayer mode. The single-player mode isn't quite as appealing considering Call of Duty does a better job of delighting players with spectacular cut-scenes and smooth-functioning scripts. For the sake of consistent stress on the hardware, we chose the cinematographic boat ride at the beginning of the single-player campaign for our benchmark. High details, 4x AA, 8x AF and a resolution of 1920 x 1080 produced a smooth refresh rate with very few graphics cards so far. Risen After the copious amount of bugs found in Gothic 3 sparked a legal battle between developer Piranha Bytes and publisher JoWood, JoWood ended up holding onto the license and Piranha Bytes abandoned ship. The creators of Gothic 3 were then left to find shelter with publisher Deep Silver and released the successful sequel (for the most part), Risen, in 2009. Risen doesn't quite offer cutting-edge graphics, but with high details on, 4x AF and a resolution of 1920 x 1080, it still requires some powerful hardware.
High ultra Half Life 2 - Lost Coast Benchmark (2005) 204.8 fps Call of Juarez Benchmark (2006) 83.3 fps Crysis - GPU Benchmark (2007) 107.6 67.6 57.9 24.6 fps Crysis - CPU Benchmark (2007) 137.5 65.5 55.8 22.8 fps Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare (2007) 188.5 117 103.4 fps Far Cry 2 (2008) 120.9 91.4 61.6 fps Left 4 Dead (2008) 157.3 120.5 fps F.E.A.R. 2 (2009) 156.5 106.3 101.1 85 fps Anno 1404 (2009) 133.4 82.2 fps Colin McRae: DIRT 2 (2009) 95.2 93.9 73.2 47.7 fps Need for Speed Shift (2009) 53.5 56.6 52.2 fps Resident Evil 5 (2009) 102.6 80.1 75.7 fps Risen (2009) 97.6 78.3 60.4 45.2 fps (2009) 172.9 105.2 94.9 67.1 fps (2010) 132.5 111.4 82.9 47.6 fps (2010) 94.3 77.2 47.9 18 fps (2010) 178.7 66.1 65.5 58 fps (2010) 71.6 69.8 67.4 52.3 fps (2010) 301.2 229.7 200.6 168.3 fps (2010) 76.7 67.3 65.3 61.9 fps. To partially relieve the processor in its task of decoding HD material, the Radeon HD 6970M features a video decoder. The Universal Video Decoder 3 (UVD3)—in addition to formats already suppored by UVD2: MPEG-4, MPEG-2, H.264, AVC, VC-1—now also supports DivX/Xvid (MPEG-4 Part 2) and 3D Blu-Rays (MVC). Our test showed the UVD3 to perform very well in playing back H.264 and VC-1 videos (1920 x 1080), and the CPU load remained at 0% most of the time.
A flash video online (1920 x 1080) results in a CPU load of 4%, leaving no room for complaints. Also, the file format has no effect on the clock rates of the Radeon HD 6970M, which ran at a constant 300 MHz (core) and 900 MHz (memory). It's already obvious that high energy consumption will accompany high performance. Under heavy use, the Radeon HD 6970M really shows its greedy nature. The Eurocom W860CU Cougar (Core i7 740QM) ate up between 131.5 and 182.6 watts during the testing. The Radeon HD 5870 drains substantially less power, e.g. In the (Core i7 720QM) 117.2 – 150.6 watts as well as the (Core i7 820QM) 124.5 – 165.4 watts.
Even the GeForce GTX 480M doesn't consume as much as Radeon HD 6970M, the (Core i7-720QM) came out having spent 123.0 – 172.0 watts. In idle mode, however, AMD shows an improvement in energy efficiency, 34.5 – 46.6 watts (notebook as whole) is fairly reasonable. Even the Radeon HD 5870 (48.0 – 52.1 watts in MSI GX660R & 53.9 – 61.9 watts in DevilTech Devil 9700 DTX) or the GeForce GTX 480M (44.9 – 50.1 watts in DevilTech Fragbook DTX) can't keep their consumption this low.
Regardless of this, the battery life for the Eurocom W860CU Cougar was quite disappointing. The weak, 3-cell battery (3800 mAh, 42.18 Wh) stayed on for only 25 minutes in the Classic Test from Battery Eater (max. Screen brightness & energy saving settings off). Even in the Reader's Test from Battery Eater, the Eurocom W860CU Cougar couldn't make it past the one-hour mark (min.
Screen brightness & max energy saving settings). Without a powerful battery no graphics-card-switching technology in place, a notebook with the Radeon HD 6970M will suffer from very limited mobility.