Monday, September 19th 2011

ColorFire Shows Off Xstorm HD 6850 X2 4 GB Graphics Card

Asian graphics card manufacturer known for its intriguing designs, Colorful, after a brief gap of four months, unveiled its latest graphics card in the works, under its Radeon-centric ColorFire brand. Called the ColorFire Xstorm HD 6850 X2 4GB, its name pretty much spells out what it's about: a dual-GPU (CrossFire on-a-stick) graphics card with two Radeon HD 6850 GPUs, and 4 GB of total memory (2 GB per GPU system). It's not just the specifications that earned Colorful/ColorFire its popularity, it's their nerdtastic choice of components. This card is no exception.
With this card, the designers are trying out what they call "Silver-Plated Technology". All of the PCB's contacts (the metal-exposed parts onto which components are soldered), apart from the PCIe and CFBE interfaces, are plated with silver. Silver is one of the best conductors. ColorFire argues that the use of silver contacts reduces resistance, and also helps with cooling.

The next interesting feature is the use of DIP-switched based voltage control, which is an old-school yet direct and effective way of tuning voltages. Voltage measurement points are consolidated to a convenient location (next to the power connectors), and are angled for easy access. Lastly, a pair of jumpers near the display output connectors, allows you to switch between two sets of EEPROMs, each having a different clock and voltage profile.

Moving on to the GPU system itself, there are two 40 nm AMD Barts GPUs in the HD 6850 configuration (960 stream processors per GPU). One of the two sets of EEPROMs packs AMD reference speeds, but ColorFire didn't mention details of the overclocked profile. The card draws power from two 8-pin connectors, a 12-phase VRM handles voltage regulation. To cool it all, ColorFire used a custom design dual-fan cooler, which uses a large heatsink to which heat is conveyed by five heat-pipes.

ColorFire did not give out pricing information.
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34 Comments on ColorFire Shows Off Xstorm HD 6850 X2 4 GB Graphics Card

#26
jpierce55
Silver solder does not tarnish, I doubt the contacts will either.
Posted on Reply
#27
D4S4
this seems to be a pretty awesome card. *many words of approval*


an idea just struck me while reading trough the thread - it would be pretty epic if somebody made a card with see-trough pcb. the see-through part should be easily done, but i'm not sure could the layout be made without big current lead surfaces, especially around the vrm... :(
Posted on Reply
#28
Unregistered
jpierce55Silver solder does not tarnish, I doubt the contacts will either.
This is silver plated though, which maybe different to silver solder, idk.
Posted on Edit | Reply
#29
TheMailMan78
Big Member
tiggerT'other thing is, will all the silver tarnish and go black at some point?
Ugly for sure. HOWEVER silver will hide dust LIKE A BOSS.
Posted on Reply
#30
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
tiggerT'other thing is, will all the silver tarnish and go black at some point?
Contacts are meant to be covered with solder.
Posted on Reply
#33
araditus
it wont tarnish, it isnt pure silver its at least 1% chromium in there, bc tarish will insulate the product and overheat it. in fact im certain its a cocktail of metals, (as most things usually are i.e. you think stainless steel is only iron?)
Posted on Reply
#34
RadeonProVega
Would be nice if the card came to the US/newegg for 179. I would buy it.
Posted on Reply
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