• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

SAPPHIRE Announces HD 6870 Dirt 3 Edition Graphics Card

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
46,283 (7.69/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced a new model in its successful HD 6800 series of graphics cards - the HD 6870 1GB Dirt3 Edition with Dual fan cooler and a voucher code for the full game in the package.

The SAPPHIRE HD 6870 Dirt3 Edition has the same internal architecture as the standard model, with 1120 stream processors and 56 texture processing units, but clock speeds are increased to 920MHz for the core and 1050Mhz (4.2Gb/sec effective) for the 1GB of GDDR5 memory giving users a boost in performance. The new SAPPHIRE exclusive cooler design has Dual fans to keep this model cool and quiet even when under load conditions, keeping even extreme gamers happy! This new design has two 90mm fans with thin impellers that can move the same amount of air at 10% lower rotation speeds than conventional fans, keeping noise low, and their special dust repelling bearings contribute to high reliability.



Enthusiast users can tune up performance even more with SAPPHIRE's dedicated VGA overclocking tool TriXX, which is available free for anyone to download from the SAPPHIRE website, www.sapphiretech.com - just follow the TriXX buttons!

Eyefinity and APP acceleration
The SAPPHIRE HD 6870 Dirt3 Edition has the versatile output configuration of two DVI, one HDMI and two mini DisplayPort connectors, and can support a VGA monitor with the dongle supplied. Using two of the DVI/HDMI outputs together with the two DisplayPorts enables this card to support up to four monitors in Eyefinity (SLS) mode.

The third generation UVD (Unified Video Decoder) in the SAPPHIRE HD 6870 supports MVC (Multi-view Video Coding) for the smooth decoding of Blu-Ray 3D with reduced CPU load as well as other file formats. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio are supported, and HDMI capability has also been upgraded to HDMI 1.4a. This provides deep colour, enhanced high resolution output for Digital Theatre applications and 3D stereoscopic support as well as 7.1 high bit-rate audio.

The multiple stream processors of the HD 6800 series can be used to accelerate other applications such as video transcoding. The latest generation of web browsers can be GPU accelerated, and this is also supported for enhanced productivity in Microsoft Office 2010.

Second Generation DX11 support
The SAPPHIRE HD 6800 series features the second generation of graphics technology from AMD designed to support all the features of Microsoft DirectX 11 and DirectCompute 11. These GPUs are built in AMD's 40nm process to deliver high performance with low power consumption.

Advanced hardware features include an enhanced Tessellation unit, dedicated HDR Texture compression, multi-threaded communication with system CPU cores, embedded support for many of the DirectCompute 11 instructions, 3D stereoscopic support, HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2.

The SAPPHIRE HD 6800 series is supported by AMD's DirectX 11 WHQL certified graphics driver which delivers support for all of the key DirectX 11 features required for enhanced gaming experiences as well as GPU acceleration of supported applications.

For more information, visit the product page.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
Messages
3,924 (0.66/day)
System Name Main / Home Media Serever
Processor Intel i5 2500k @ 4.75ghz / AMD AM3 5200+ x2
Motherboard ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Performance / Biostar 790GX
Cooling Xigmatek Dark Knight / XIGMATEK Apache
Memory 12gb of G.Skill Value Series DDR3 / 4x 1gb DDR2
Video Card(s) XFX Radeon 6870 1gb / Asus Radeon 5450 512mb
Storage 2x Samsung 830 64gb SSD Raid 0 & 750gb WD Blue HDD / OCZ Vertex II 80GB & 10TB of HDD Space
Display(s) 2x Acer 24" LED / Samsung 50" LED
Case Xigmatek Asgard II / APEX PC-389-C
Power Supply Rosewill 750w / Antec EArthwatts 380w
Software Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1 / Ubuntu 14.04
Whats the point of this now? Trying to get rig of back stock of 68xx chips to make room for 7xxx?
 
Joined
Jul 19, 2006
Messages
43,585 (6.74/day)
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard ASUS TUF x670e
Cooling EK AIO 360. Phantek T30 fans.
Memory 32GB G.Skill 6000Mhz
Video Card(s) Asus RTX 4090
Storage WD m.2
Display(s) LG C2 Evo OLED 42"
Case Lian Li PC 011 Dynamic Evo
Audio Device(s) Topping E70 DAC, SMSL SP200 Headphone Amp.
Power Supply FSP Hydro Ti PRO 1000W
Mouse Razer Basilisk V3 Pro
Keyboard Tester84
Software Windows 11
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
Messages
3,924 (0.66/day)
System Name Main / Home Media Serever
Processor Intel i5 2500k @ 4.75ghz / AMD AM3 5200+ x2
Motherboard ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Performance / Biostar 790GX
Cooling Xigmatek Dark Knight / XIGMATEK Apache
Memory 12gb of G.Skill Value Series DDR3 / 4x 1gb DDR2
Video Card(s) XFX Radeon 6870 1gb / Asus Radeon 5450 512mb
Storage 2x Samsung 830 64gb SSD Raid 0 & 750gb WD Blue HDD / OCZ Vertex II 80GB & 10TB of HDD Space
Display(s) 2x Acer 24" LED / Samsung 50" LED
Case Xigmatek Asgard II / APEX PC-389-C
Power Supply Rosewill 750w / Antec EArthwatts 380w
Software Windows 7 Professional x64 SP1 / Ubuntu 14.04
As per the norm. :)

Nothing wrong with the 6870 though. Ill probably hold on to mine during the 7xxx seriess and hold out until the 8xxx series later next year.
 

Edgarstrong

New Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2011
Messages
66 (0.01/day)
Location
Marsala
This vs Vapor-X

Does anyone know how this Dirt 3 version fare versus Vapor-X edition?
 
Joined
Jul 19, 2006
Messages
43,585 (6.74/day)
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard ASUS TUF x670e
Cooling EK AIO 360. Phantek T30 fans.
Memory 32GB G.Skill 6000Mhz
Video Card(s) Asus RTX 4090
Storage WD m.2
Display(s) LG C2 Evo OLED 42"
Case Lian Li PC 011 Dynamic Evo
Audio Device(s) Topping E70 DAC, SMSL SP200 Headphone Amp.
Power Supply FSP Hydro Ti PRO 1000W
Mouse Razer Basilisk V3 Pro
Keyboard Tester84
Software Windows 11
Does anyone know how this Dirt 3 version fare versus Vapor-X edition?

This one uses two fans on the cooler and comes with DiRT 3. That's it.
 
Joined
Oct 2, 2004
Messages
13,791 (1.94/day)
Does anyone know how this Dirt 3 version fare versus Vapor-X edition?

I've had the Toxic and even though it was fast (nearly as fast as HD6950), it was horribly loud. By the looks of it, this Dirt 3 Ediition should be much more silent but probably not as fast.
 
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
2,198 (0.46/day)
Location
So. Cal.
Now they add more bells (fans) whistles (a game title) to keep momentum and pricing strong. Given here in the USA, Egg has had several 6870 for like $142 -AR it's interesting that such 6870's are IMO “marching down”. It a little earlier than I would've thought, if a 7XXX is more like 3 months away (minimum). Then such cards are the completive equal to the non-ti GTX560 (reference) and those are holding at like $23-35 more even after rebates. This with a $140 after rebate price and a nice over-clock would make a exceptional buy.

Hey W1zzard it’s been quiet from you… Might be neat to get this Sapphire and say a Gigabyte Windforce, then two moderately OC’d (820-830Mhz) and priced GTX560 non-ti. See if things (drivers and such) have these gravitating closures or further in price/performance, and just how spirited the fight is between such contenders’ actually is since you last visited that Asus GTX 560 TOP (925Mhz) Direct Cu II 1 GB, back 5 months ago in May.

Here’s a review though I’m not sure what they mean by “rather than the 2GB found on the stock reference design” reference was 1Gb. Here they pit it against a GTX 560ti
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1360&page=6
 
Last edited:
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
336 (0.07/day)
Location
London, England, UK
System Name Devil's Canyon PC build
Processor Intel i7-4790K
Motherboard Gigabyte Z97X-G1 Gaming WIFI-BK
Cooling Prolimatech Megahalems Black Edition Air Cooler, 2x Akasa 120mm PWN Piranha Fans (push-pull config)
Memory Patriot Viper 3 "Black Mamba" 32GB (4x8GB), 2133MHz, C11-11-11-30, 1.5v
Video Card(s) Gigabyte Windforce X3 GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB GDDR5 (Non-Pascal)
Storage Samsung 850 PRO 512GB SSD, 1TB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, Seagate 8TB Archive HDD, 2TB Samsung M9T HDD
Display(s) Asus ROG Swift 27" 144Hz G-Sync Gaming Monitor
Case Corsair Obsidian 650D Midi Tower - Black, 3x230mm Bitfenix SPECTRE PRO, 1x120mm Bitfenix PWN (SP)
Power Supply Seasonic 660W Platinum Certified Modular
Software Microsoft Windows 10 Pro x64
Now they add more bells (fans) whistles (a game title) to keep momentum and pricing strong. Given here in the USA, Egg has had several 6870 for like $142 -AR it's interesting that such 6870's are IMO “marching down”. It a little earlier than I would've thought, if a 7XXX is more like 3 months away (minimum). Then such cards are the completive equal to the non-ti GTX560 (reference) and those are holding at like $23-35 more even after rebates. This with a $140 after rebate price and a nice over-clock would make a exceptional buy.

Hey W1zzard it’s been quiet from you… Might be neat to get this Sapphire and say a Gigabyte Windforce, then two moderately OC’d (820-830Mhz) and priced GTX560 non-ti. See if things (drivers and such) have these gravitating closures or further in price/performance, and just how spirited the fight is between such contenders’ actually is since you last visited that Asus GTX 560 TOP (925Mhz) Direct Cu II 1 GB, back 5 months ago in May.

Here’s a review though I’m not sure what they mean by “rather than the 2GB found on the stock reference design” reference was 1Gb. Here they pit it against a GTX 560ti
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1360&page=6

Just a performance comment. I saw the gaming results for the tests with this graphics card against and the 560 Ti, and from the information I saw the 6870 (the exact model in this article) got owned by the 560 Ti in every game in the test including the Dirt 3 game. This card was shown to be only slightly (no realistic difference) better than the 560 Ti in the 3D Mark 11 tests, but that is as good as it got. As for power consumption the 6870 wasn't much greener enough a graphics card than the 560 Ti (560 Ti was generally 10w more than the 6870 under full load, but less in idle though) to buy that instead of the 560 Ti to save on electric bills or for a smaller PSU. All in all they are on the same level, but you would definetely get more out of a 560 Ti in gaming (and probably other things too) than the 6870.
 
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
2,198 (0.46/day)
Location
So. Cal.
Add power info

I said...
the completive equal to the non-ti GTX560 (reference)

Pricing of most GTX560ti are $200+ and those are intended to compete with the 6950's. But 6870 aren't that far behind for being $60-100 less.

As to power that while only running Dirt3 providing approx 6% more FpS while using approx 6% more power. That's not a true indicator of all tiles and/or max power consumption levels. Here W1zzard has the Asus Top (non-ti) @ 925Mhz (we don't get a reference non-ti version to compare) along with the reference 560Ti. A 6870 is 40W less (max) and if I had to guess a reference GTX 560 (non-ti) would be right in there between the 465/5870 which make it still 30W more. Even compared at peak if we said a GTX 560 (non-ti) might be at 145W, that makes it 25% more than a 6870. It would be nice to get a new review as we are left needing extrapolate the missing Power Data, but did present gaming B-M and summary FPS and even "performance per watt" for the reference non-ti (which 6870 betters it 28%)! :wtf:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_560_TOP_Direct_Cu_II/25.html

That's why I'd like to see a new round of competition! :D
 
Last edited:
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Messages
1,475 (0.29/day)
Location
Azalea City
System Name Main
Processor Ryzen 5950x
Motherboard B550 PG Velocita
Cooling Water
Memory Ballistix
Video Card(s) RX 6900XT
Storage T-FORCE CARDEA A440 PRO
Display(s) Samsung UE590
Case QUBE 500
Audio Device(s) Logitech Z623
Power Supply LEADEX V 1KW
Mouse Cooler Master MM710
Keyboard Huntsman Elite
Software 11 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://hwbot.org/user/damric/
Take a close look at the heatsink. It is the same garbage heatsink as my stock Sapphire HD 6850's. See the pseudo-fins? Yep, they don't cut all the way through. It's just a chunk of aluminum with some grooves cut into it.
 

MxPhenom 216

ASIC Engineer
Joined
Aug 31, 2010
Messages
12,944 (2.61/day)
Location
Loveland, CO
System Name Ryzen Reflection
Processor AMD Ryzen 9 5900x
Motherboard Gigabyte X570S Aorus Master
Cooling 2x EK PE360 | TechN AM4 AMD Block Black | EK Quantum Vector Trinity GPU Nickel + Plexi
Memory Teamgroup T-Force Xtreem 2x16GB B-Die 3600 @ 14-14-14-28-42-288-2T 1.45v
Video Card(s) Zotac AMP HoloBlack RTX 3080Ti 12G | 950mV 1950Mhz
Storage WD SN850 500GB (OS) | Samsung 980 Pro 1TB (Games_1) | Samsung 970 Evo 1TB (Games_2)
Display(s) Asus XG27AQM 240Hz G-Sync Fast-IPS | Gigabyte M27Q-P 165Hz 1440P IPS | Asus 24" IPS (portrait mode)
Case Lian Li PC-011D XL | Custom cables by Cablemodz
Audio Device(s) FiiO K7 | Sennheiser HD650 + Beyerdynamic FOX Mic
Power Supply Seasonic Prime Ultra Platinum 850
Mouse Razer Viper v2 Pro
Keyboard Razer Huntsman Tournament Edition
Software Windows 11 Pro 64-Bit
theres is seriously a Dirt 3 obsession when it comes to AMD cards
 

LordJummy

New Member
Joined
May 13, 2011
Messages
1,403 (0.30/day)
Location
US of A
System Name Workstation1 | Asus G55VW-DS71
Processor i7 970 3.8GHz | i7 3610QM
Motherboard RIII Formula
Cooling EK 360 Supreme HF | Asus G55VW
Memory 24GB Dominator | 12GB DDR3
Video Card(s) 2x Diamond HD 6970 | GTX 660M
Storage 2x Vertex4 256GB | 256GB Vertex4 & 750GB HDD
Display(s) 3x Crossover 27" LED S-IPS + 30" DELL IPS
Case Corsair Obsidian 800D
Audio Device(s) X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro + Gigaworks G550W
Power Supply HX1000 + NZXT Black Sleeved Extensions
Software Win7Ult64Bit
Benchmark Scores ballz
So many damn variations of cards this generation. It's getting a bit out of hand lol.
 
Joined
Mar 24, 2010
Messages
5,047 (0.99/day)
Location
Iberian Peninsula
why anybody is interested in Ati/Amd is a mistery to me.
 

LordJummy

New Member
Joined
May 13, 2011
Messages
1,403 (0.30/day)
Location
US of A
System Name Workstation1 | Asus G55VW-DS71
Processor i7 970 3.8GHz | i7 3610QM
Motherboard RIII Formula
Cooling EK 360 Supreme HF | Asus G55VW
Memory 24GB Dominator | 12GB DDR3
Video Card(s) 2x Diamond HD 6970 | GTX 660M
Storage 2x Vertex4 256GB | 256GB Vertex4 & 750GB HDD
Display(s) 3x Crossover 27" LED S-IPS + 30" DELL IPS
Case Corsair Obsidian 800D
Audio Device(s) X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro + Gigaworks G550W
Power Supply HX1000 + NZXT Black Sleeved Extensions
Software Win7Ult64Bit
Benchmark Scores ballz
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
2,198 (0.46/day)
Location
So. Cal.
Take a close look at the heatsink. It is the same garbage heatsink as my stock Sapphire HD 6850's. See the pseudo-fins? Yep, they don't cut all the way through. It's just a chunk of aluminum with some grooves cut into it.

I don't see a "chunk" of aluminum "extrusion style" cooler? It sure appears to be a heat-pipe(s) cooler and stamped fins like most offen in this price range. Sure the center area that clamps the pipes is extrudeded aluminum that's fairly typical. I'm not following you...

Some better close-up pics' of it here...
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1360&page=4
 
Joined
Mar 26, 2010
Messages
9,762 (1.91/day)
Location
Jakarta, Indonesia
System Name micropage7
Processor Intel Xeon X3470
Motherboard Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. P55A-UD3R (Socket 1156)
Cooling Enermax ETS-T40F
Memory Samsung 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3
Video Card(s) NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800
Storage V-GEN03AS18EU120GB, Seagate 2 x 1TB and Seagate 4TB
Display(s) Samsung 21 inch LCD Wide Screen
Case Icute Super 18
Audio Device(s) Auzentech X-Fi Forte
Power Supply Silverstone 600 Watt
Mouse Logitech G502
Keyboard Sades Excalibur + Taihao keycaps
Software Win 7 64-bit
Benchmark Scores Classified
for special edition it looks flat.
just black cover, black fans and thats it :sad:
 
Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
660 (0.14/day)
System Name Tiger1-Workstation
Processor Intel XEON E3-1275V2 / E3-1230V3
Motherboard ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 / AsRock H87 Performance
Cooling Corsair H80i Watercooling
Memory 32GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 2400
Video Card(s) Inno3D GTX 780 Ti
Storage 2TB SSD(4X OCZ vertex 4 256GB LSI RAID0 + Crucial M550 1TB)
Display(s) 2x Dell U3011 30" IPS
Case Silverstone Raven 03
Audio Device(s) Xonar Essence STX--> Xonar Essence One --> SPL Auditor -->Hivi X6
Power Supply Corsair AX860i Platinum
Software Windows 8.1 Enterprise
why anybody is interested in Ati/Amd is a mistery to me.

why anyone would misspell "mystery" as "mistery" is a mistery to me.
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2010
Messages
12,280 (2.37/day)
Location
Oregon
System Name Juliette // HTPC
Processor Intel i7 9700K // AMD Ryzen 5 5600G
Motherboard ASUS Prime Z390X-A // ASRock B550 ITX-AC
Cooling Noctua NH-U12 Black // Stock
Memory Corsair DDR4 3600 32gb //G.SKILL Trident Z Royal Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 3600
Video Card(s) ASUS RTX4070 OC// GTX 1650
Storage Samsung 970 EVO NVMe 1Tb, Intel 665p Series M.2 2280 1TB // Samsung 1Tb SSD
Display(s) ASUS VP348QGL 34" Quad HD 3440 x 1440 // 55" LG 4K SK8000 Series
Case Seasonic SYNCRO Q7// Silverstone Granada GD05
Audio Device(s) Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 // HDMI to Samsung HW-R650 sound bar
Power Supply Seasonic SYNCRO 750 W // CORSAIR Vengeance 650M
Mouse Cooler Master MM710 53G
Keyboard Logitech 920-009300 G512 SE
Software Windows 10 Pro // Windows 10 Pro
Love my SAPPHIRE 6870 and I must be the only one that didn't get Dirt 3 :cool:
 
Joined
Nov 13, 2009
Messages
5,614 (1.07/day)
Location
San Diego, CA
System Name White Boy
Processor Core i7 3770k @4.6 Ghz
Motherboard ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe
Cooling CORSAIR H100
Memory CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB @ 2177
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 680 CLASSIEFIED @ 1250 Core
Storage 2 Samsung 830 256 GB (Raid 0) 1 Hitachi 4 TB
Display(s) 1 Dell 30U11 30"
Case BIT FENIX Prodigy
Audio Device(s) none
Power Supply SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W Modular
Software Windows Pro 7 64 bit || Ubuntu 64 Bit
Benchmark Scores 2017 Unigine Heaven :: P37239 3D Mark Vantage
Clocks don't seem all that great.
 
Top