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Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked

Lantic show us a HD 6870. We pair it with another and then overclock them both. Hold on to your hats!

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TweakTown
Published
Updated
Manufactured by Lantic
15 minutes read time

Introduction and Package


Introduction

Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 02


Lantic might not be a company you've heard of before. Currently being sold in Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Middle-East and expanding into the European market towards the end of the year, there's a chance you'll be hearing more and more of the company in the coming months.

Today we're looking at the Lantic HD 6870 and since all cards follow the reference design at the moment, we thought why not pair it together with another HD 6870 and run it in Crossfire. Of course, we've already looked at the HD 6870 in Crossfire so we thought it was time to overclock the model and see what happens with performance then.

Since the Lantic isn't a HD 6870 we've looked at before, we'll have a quick look at the package Lantic has put together before looking at the actual card, specifications and of course, the overclock we managed to achieve. Once that's all done we'll get into the fun stuff, the performance!


The Package

Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 03


Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 04


Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 05


Checking out the package, there's nothing here that we haven't seen out of the model yet. We've got a warranty card, driver CD, DVI to VGA, dual Molex to 6-Pin PCI-E and Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort connectors. We've also got a CrossFire cable included in the package.

Card and Specifications


The Card

Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 07


Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 08


Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 09


Looking at the card, it follows the reference design which comes as no surprise since currently they're all made by AMD. We've got two 6-Pin PCI-E power connectors at the top of the card along with a single CrossFire connector.

Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 06


When you take the card out of the package you see Lantic has included a number of little protectors on all the connectors. We've seen companies do this in the past, but we've even got little ones on the Mini DP ports here.

Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 10


Connectivity also holds no surprises with a Single-Link and Dual-Link DVI connector along with a HDMI port and two mini 1.2 DP ports.


Specifications

Being a reference designed card, we also see reference clock speeds which put the core at 900MHz and the 1GB of GDDR5 memory at 4200MHz QDR. Of course, we mentioned that we are overclocking the card today and while we hoped to have used Sapphires new TRIXX overclocking software which allowed us to use Voltage, when we fired up the program and changed anything we would get a hard lock on the system. Currently the program is still in Beta mode, so we're sure it's something they'll fix before it goes to the public.

What this meant, though, was that we had to go back to old faithful; MSI Afterburner which didn't allow us to adjust the voltage of the card, so for that reason we didn't think our overclock would be as strong; and it wasn't.

Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 01


Still, we ended up with some nice clocks. The core got up to 970MHz on both cards and we rounded the memory off to a nicer sounding 4400MHz QDR.

Test System Setup and 3DMark Vantage


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We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASRock, Kingston, Mittoni, Noctua and Corsair.

We'll be checking the Lantic HD 6870 Overclocked Crossfire setup against a number of other ones, but the main one we're looking at is the stock clocked setup. We haven't got the biggest overclock, but 70MHz on each core should yield a nice performance boost.

We've also included the single HD 6870, the HD 6850 by itself and in Crossfire mode, the HD 5970 which is of course AMDs Dual GPU card along with the NVIDIA GTX 460 by itself an in SLI mode.

Let's get started!


3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/
Buy It Here




3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

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Even though we're not dealing with the largest overclock, we can see since nice gains here with our P score breaking 30k and our X breaking 15k. Hopefully we see the gains translate into some good performance when we get into some real world games.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark




Version and / or Patch Used: 2
Developer Homepage: http://www.unigine.com
Product Homepage: http://unigine.com/press-releases/091022-heaven_benchmark//



New benchmark grants the power to unleash the DirectX 11 potential in the gift wrapping of impressively towering graphics capabilities. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

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We again see a nice performance boost with the Lantic OC CF setup jumping past that 2000 point score at the lower resolution.

Benchmarks - Resident Evil 5


Resident Evil 5

Version and / or Patch Used: Demo Benchmark
Developer Homepage: www.residentevil.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.residentevil.com/




Resident Evil 5 is a survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on September 18. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

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Getting into some real world games, we can see across the board performance is strong and of all the setups here this one comes out on top.

Benchmarks - Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.


Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/UK/default.aspx
Product Homepage: http://www.hawxgame.com/





Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X is an arcade-style flight simulator video game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and iPhone OS.

The fundamental gameplay mechanics are similar to those of other console-based flight series. Players take on enemies with over 50 aircraft available. Each mission is at real world locations in environments created with commercial satellite data. A cockpit, first person, and third person view are selectable. The third person view gives the player an external view of both their plane and the target.

Set above the skies of a near-future world, increasingly dependent on private military companies with elite mercenaries who have a relaxed view on the law. As these non-governmental organizations gain power, global conflict erupts with one powerful PMC attacking the United States.

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A nice increase again across the board. We've already got such good numbers, but no one's going to complain about even better ones.

Benchmarks - Mafia II


Mafia II

Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www.2kczech.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.mafia2game.com/
Buy It Here




Mafia II is a third-person action-adventure video game, the sequel to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. It is developed by 2K Czech, previously known as Illusion Softworks, and is published by 2K Games. The game is set from 1943 to 1951 in Empire Bay (the name is a reference to New York's state nickname "The Empire State"), a fictional city based on San Francisco and New York City, with influences from Chicago and Detroit. The game features a completely open-ended game map of 10 square miles. No restrictions are included from the start of the game. There are around 50 vehicles in the game, as well as licensed music from the era.

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We see some good performance again at all resolutions. At the highest you can see we're jumping past the 70 FPS average, making Mafia II very playable at this resolution and these in game settings.

Benchmarks - Lost Planet 2


Lost Planet 2

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark - Test A Scene 1
Developer Homepage: http://www.capcom.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.lostplanet2game.com/




Lost Planet 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition which is also made by Capcom, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. The story takes place back on E.D.N. III 10 years after the events of the first game. The snow has melted to reveal jungles and more tropical areas that have taken the place of more frozen regions. The plot begins with Mercenaries fighting against Jungle Pirates. After destroying a mine, the Mercenaries continue on to evacuate the area, in which a Category-G Akrid appears and attacks them. After being rescued, they find out their evacuation point (Where the Category-G appeared) was a set-up and no pick up team awaited them. The last words imply possible DLC additions to the game, "There's nothing to be gained by wiping out snow pirates... unless you had some kind of grudge."

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We're again seeing a nice performance jump. More importantly, though, overclocked the Lantic Crossfire setup is able to break that 60 FPS average we want to see and in this case it's at the highest resolution. Nothing else yet has broken that 60 FPS barrier at 2560 x 1600 under Lost Planet 2.

Benchmarks - Aliens vs. Predator


Aliens vs. Predator

Version and / or Patch Used: Standalone Benchmark
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www.rebellion.co.uk/
Product Homepage: http://www.sega.com/games/aliens-vs-predator/




Aliens vs. Predator is a science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion Developments, the team behind the 1999 original PC game, and published by Sega for Microsoft Windows, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. The game is based on the Alien vs. Predator franchise, a combination of the characters and creatures of the Alien franchise and the Predator franchise. There are three campaigns in the game, one for each race/faction (the Predators, the Aliens and the Colonial Marines), that, while separate in terms of individual plot and gameplay, form one overarching storyline.

Following the storyline of the campaign modes comes the multiplayer aspect of the game. In this Multiplayer section of the game, players face off in various different gametypes in various different ways.

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This is an identical picture to the Lost Planet graph. While we see some good gains, it's not the most important piece of information to take out of here. What's important is the fact we're able to break that 60 FPS mark at 2560 x 1600; again something that hasn't been done on any other setup in our labs.

Benchmarks - Final Fantasy XIV


Final Fantasy XIV

Version and / or Patch Used: Standalone Benchmark
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark - Elezen (Male)
Developer Homepage: http://www.square-enix.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/




Final Fantasy XIV, also known as Final Fantasy XIV Online, is the fourteenth installment in the Final Fantasy series. The game is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game and is developed and published by Square Enix. The game takes place in a land called Hydaelyn, mainly in a region named Eorzea, which will have a contemporaneously aesthetic blend of science fiction and classic fantasy elements.

The battle and job systems will be different from the one previously used in Final Fantasy XI, which utilized experience points and level-based progression. Final Fantasy XIV is being designed to utilize a skill-based progression[15] system similar to that of Final Fantasy II. Character races will resemble and allow players to create avatars similar to ones in Final Fantasy XI. Group play has been de-emphasized, and now solo and group play have been balanced. Weapon use will alter "character development".

Note: Final Fantasy XIV gives us a score and not a normal FPS rating, our understanding is that anything around 2000 points or above is considered playable.

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Final Fantasy XIV doesn't make use of Crossfire because the benchmark runs in Windowed mode. With that said, we do see a performance bump over the stock CF setup as one card is still taken advantage of.

Benchmarks - Street Fighter IV


Street Fighter IV

Version and / or Patch Used: Standalone Benchmark
Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark
Developer Homepage: http://www.capcom.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.streetfighter.com/




While Street Fighter IV features models and backgrounds rendered in 3D, the gameplay remains on a traditional 2D plane, with the camera having freedom to move in 3D at certain times during fights, for dramatic effect. Producer Yoshinori Ono has stated that he wanted to keep the game closer to Street Fighter II. A new system called "Focus Attacks" ("Saving Attack" for the Japanese version) has been introduced, as well as Ultra moves. The traditional six-button control scheme returns, with new features and special moves integrated into the input system, mixing classic gameplay with additional innovations.

All the characters and environments in Street Fighter IV are rendered as 3D models with polygons, similar to the Street Fighter EX sub-series Capcom produced with Arika. However, there are a couple of key differences. Art director and character designer Daigo Ikeno, who previously worked on Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, opted for non-photorealistic rendering to give them a hand-drawn look, with visual effects accented in calligraphic strokes, ink smudges and ink sprays during the fights.

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We see a bit of a bump in our numbers at all resolutions, but we're seeing some ridiculous FPS here, even at the highest resolution.

Benchmarks - Far Cry 2


Far Cry 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01
Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/
Buy It Here




The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. and so much more.

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With a single HD 6870 breaking the numbers we want to see under Far Cry 2, it comes as no surprise we're seeing great numbers from this overclocked Crossfire setup.

Benchmarks - Batman Arkham Asylum


Batman Arkham Asylum

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.batmanarkhamasylum.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.batmanarkhamasylum.com/





Batman: Arkham Asylum exposes players to a unique, dark and atmospheric adventure that takes them to the depths of Arkham Asylum - Gotham's psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. Gamers will move in the shadows, instigate fear amongst their enemies and confront The Joker and Gotham City's most notorious villains who have taken over the asylum.

Using a wide range of Batman's gadgets and abilities, players will become the invisible predator and attempt to foil The Joker's demented scheme.
Batman: Arkham Asylum features an original story penned exclusively for the game by famous Batman author and five-time Emmy award winner Paul Dini, whose credits include Lost season one and Batman: The Animated Series.

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You can see we hit a bit of a minimum wall under Batman AA; the averages continue to move at the highest resolution, though.

Benchmarks - High Quality AA and AF


High Quality AA and AF

Our high quality tests let us separate the men from the boys and the ladies from the girls. If the cards weren't struggling before they will start to now.

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Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 32


Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 33


Lantic Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card in CrossFire Overclocked 34


Here we see that with AA on all our games are giving us playable numbers; most importantly that means a 60 FPS average under AVP with 4x AA on.

Temperature Test


Temperature Tests



The temperature of the core is pulled from MSI Afterburner with the max reading used after a completed run off 3DMark Vantage and the Performance preset.

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With no extra voltage the cards didn't carry with them any more heat than the reference clocked ones.

Sound Test


Sound Tests



Pulling out the TES 1350A Sound Level Meter we find ourselves quickly yelling into the top of it to see how loud we can be.

After five minutes of that we get a bit more serious and place the device two CM away from the fan on the card to find the maximum noise level of the card when idle (2D mode) and in load (3D mode).

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Noise levels were fairly on par with most of the other setups we've looked at. Because of the lack of voltage being added, the cards didn't become louder like the Sapphire HD 6870 which achieved over 1GHz with a voltage bump.

Power Consumption Tests






Using our new PROVA Power Analyzer WM-01 or "Power Thingy" as it has become quickly known as to our readers, we are now able to find out what kind of power is being used by our test system and the associated graphics cards installed. Keep in mind; it tests the complete system (minus LCD monitor, which is plugged directly into AC wall socket).

There are a few important notes to remember though; while our maximum power is taken in 3DMark06 at the same exact point, we have seen in particular tests the power being drawn as much as 10% more. We test at the exact same stage every time; therefore tests should be very consistent and accurate.

The other thing to remember is that our test system is bare minimum - only a SSD hard drive is used with a single CD ROM and minimal cooling fans.

So while the system might draw 400 watts in our test system, placing it into your own PC with a number of other items, the draw is going to be higher.

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Power draw is a little up, but we continue to see some very good numbers from the new 6000 series.

Total Performance Rating (TPR)


Total Performance Rating

The TPR graph is a combination of all our benchmarks in which NVIDIA and ATI are on an even playing field.

The TPR number is a combination of:

3DMark Vantage, Heaven Benchmark V2, Resident Evil 5, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., Mafia 2 (PhysX Off), Lost Planet 2, Aliens vs. Predator, Final Fantasy XIV (No CF Support), Street Fighter IV, Far Cry 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum (PhysX Off) and our four High Quality tests which include Mafia 2, Aliens vs. Predator, Street Fighter IV and Far Cry 2.

All of the benchmark results achieved are then combined into a single number. As this graph will grow over time and cards won't be re-tested, next to each model you'll find the driver version that was used when the card was benchmarked.

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The HD 6870 OC CF setup managed to shoot to the top of our TPR graph. To be honest I was a little surprised due to the issue the CF setups have under Final Fantasy XIV, but its performance was strong enough to knock the GTX 460 SLI setup off with no dramas at all.

Over the coming weeks we'll be working FF XIV out of our TPR graphs just to keep the field as even as possible.

Total Value Rating (TVR)


Total Value Rating

The TVR graph is the TPR score divided by the price of the video card. The price of the video card is based on the list price of the model on Newegg.com. In the event the card isn't listed, it will be based on the U.S. $ MSRP given to us by the manufacturer.

In the event we can't source a price from either, the product will not receive a TVR rating. As with our TPR graph, the amount of video cards on the list will grow over time and the price of the model won't change from what it was when first reviewed. For this reason the U.S. $ price that the card is based off will be included next to the name of the model.

In the event you want to find the TVR rating yourself based on the current price, all you have to do is simply divide the TPR number by the list price.

TVR numbers are rounded to the nearest whole number; 100.3 will be 100; 100.8 will be 101 and 100.5 will be rounded down to 100.

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Value on a whole isn't the strongest, but it has improved over the stock clocked CF setup. Overall, though, the value of the HD 6870 in Crossfire is still quite attractive when looking at cards like the GTX 480 and HD 5970.

Final Thoughts




Lantic bring us another HD 6870 that's worth owning. At the moment there's very little between all brands and that really means outside of the bundle coming with nothing, it's easy to recommend most versions of the card we're looking at.

Paired with another HD 6870 the Lantic goes strong in Crossfire; that for us isn't much of a surprise since we've looked at stock Crossfire results for the HD 6870 already. More importantly, though, it goes really well when overclocked.

We aim to break two numbers when we benchmark. If we're able to extract a minimum, we want 30 FPS. If we're not able to get a minimum, the number we're looking for is 60 FPS. With VSYNC on you'll have a good gaming experience with a 60 FPS average on most LCD screens from a pure frame rate point of view. We won't get into input lag, ghosting or anything like that.

It's important to know that every test we ran today we would consider playable and that includes those tests that have been causing havoc on our test bed and the cards that have sat in it. Since we introduced the new benchmark line up, Aliens vs Predator and Lost Planet 2 at 2560 x 1600 and Aliens vs Predator at 1920 x 1200 with 4x AA hadn't been able to break the 60 FPS mark. Today we saw all three of those tests hit 60 FPS and yes, while we might be just on the mark, it's still very impressive.

Seeing this today has to make you excited about what the HD 6900 series is going to bring to the table. It's looking like AMD has a very strong line up here and it's going to be interesting to see how NVIDIA respond, but more importantly, what NVIDIA respond to.

Lantic has got a nice HD 6870 here and show us when combined with another and overclocked just what kind of performance you can get out of this model.

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