XFX Custom-Design Radeon HD 6850 Reaches Stores

[btarunr]

XFX' in-house design AMD Radeon HD 6850 accelerator, was released to the markets, carrying a price tag of US $195. The card uses a custom high-performance dual-fan GPU cooler that makes use of a large aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed by 8 mm thick copper heatpipes. The card also makes use of AMD reference speeds: 775 MHz core, and 1000 MHz (4000 MHz GDDR5 effective) memory. It draws power from one 6-pin PCI-E power connector, can pair with another HD 6800 series graphics card over CrossFireX, and includes display outputs of two DVI, an HDMI, and a DisplayPort.



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[Nokiacrazi]

Hmm. Are these 6850's under-clocked like the 5850's are?

(If I am wrong about anything I have said, please correct me...)

 

[chaotic_uk]

Hmm. Are these 6850's under-clocked like the 5850's are?

(If I am wrong about anything I have said, please correct me...)

6850 has a smaller pcb does it not ?

 

[DanishDevil]

A 6850 is not simply an underclocked 6870. The 6870 has two power connectors, and more GPU cores. They are really two cards with almost more differences than similarities.

 

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

is this comparable to 5770 in terms of performance?

 

[dir_d]

good looking card...How does it perform though

 

[djisas]

is this comparable to 5770 in terms of performance?

Yeah, twice as much, actually its performance is on par or over the 5850...

 

[ebolamonkey3]

Yeah, twice as much, actually its performance is on par or over the 5850...

It's a little less than the 5850. 2x 5770s are on par with a 5870.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

is this comparable to 5770 in terms of performance?

Yeah, twice as much, actually its performance is on par or over the 5850...

It's a little less than the 5850. 2x 5770s are on par with a 5870.

From what ive read while secretly moonlighting lurking on other forums, most people would put the 6870 roughly 10% faster then a 5850 - so for a 5850 user to upgrade to a 6870 is a little pointless as adding a 2nd 5850 will give so much more performance and for less if you can find a good second hand one.

 

[HossHuge]

sexy looking card.

 

[zithe]

5850 had 1440 shaders vs. the 5870s 1600.

 

[Patches O'Houlihan]

I particularly like how XFX designed the plastic housing to make removing the 6-pin extremely difficult.

"Reeeeaaaal men of genius."

 

[mdsx1950]

Sexy looking card indeed. The temps must be really good in this card.

 

[jasper1605]

I'm not a fan of the exposed heatpipes. But that's just a personal taste, the rest of the card looks good.

 

[RejZoR]

Yet another dump the heat inside case cooler. How boring...

 

[Swamp Monster]

Nice cooler it has. I have HD 4870 with similar design, but only one cooler, and it keeps temps reasonably low. This should be cool and silent card with enough headroom for OCing. Yes, it pushes hot air in case, but almost every good cooler does.

 

[micropage7]

it looks nice, looks like powerful high end card

 

[Animalpak]

Yet another dump the heat inside case cooler. How boring...

No worry if you have a case with fans on the side panel.


200mm or two 120mm fan in exhaust mode are fine with this type of graphics card.

Anyway this graphic card looks fantastic to me.

 

[djisas]

It's a little less than the 5850. 2x 5770s are on par with a 5870.

You right, but tessellation on hd6850 is far better than in hd5850, in games that use that, the new card will be better...

From what ive read while secretly moonlighting lurking on other forums, most people would put the 6870 roughly 10% faster then a 5850 - so for a 5850 user to upgrade to a 6870 is a little pointless as adding a 2nd 5850 will give so much more performance and for less if you can find a good second hand one.

But upgrading from a good old hd4850 gives you a least a 100% boost...

it looks nice, looks like powerful high end card

I like the msi windforce (or whatever) better...
Im looking for reviews on these custom cards either 6850 or 70, i will probably buy the less noisy of the bunch...

 

[pantherx12]

Doesn't look like high end cooling to me, if that's just 2 8 mm heatpipes I think they can only handle 50w of heat a piece before the phase doesn't work properly.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

Neat and all but meh.

No need for all that extra heatsink.

 

[RejZoR]

No worry if you have a case with fans on the side panel.


200mm or two 120mm fan in exhaust mode are fine with this type of graphics card.

Anyway this graphic card looks fantastic to me.

I have a reference HD5850 cooled graphic card (reference exhaust cooler) and is far from loud.
And i have a VF6000BNS case where a gfx cooler is almost sticking out of a perforated case side. And i have it on my desk 50cm from my head. Any closed case would make it even less noisy. And since internals are cool because of the exhaust system, you don't need 300 fans to cool the internals, other components are cooler, and thus les overall noise and less unnecessary fans needed just because the gfx doesn't have a crappy cooler.
But it's so easy to slam massive heatsink on it, route few heatpipes and call it a day than design a good exhaust cooler. That's why everyone are doing the crappy ones and not exhaust. Because it's easier.

I've had an aftermarket cooler on my HD4870 which should be silent. First of all it dumped half the heat into the case seriously heating it up, it was noisy even though i edited the fan profile to be as silent as possible and in the end, as soon as i was playing any modern game with FSAA, the fan was roaring with insane RPM despite my profile. And heat levels were high. With HD5850 which essentially has similar TDP and an exhaust cooler, it's far more silent, less noisy dumps the heat outside and is just plain better.

I guess i'll just always have to buy a graphic card very soon after launch when you can still get reference exhaust coolers. I was having huge problems finding such HD5850 already and finally found it in 1 store out of 30. If it ever dies and i RMA it, they'll send me this crappy design "aftermarket" cooler crap. Then i have to sell that one and buy a brand new with reference cooler again. Annoying process just because no one cares to offer reference coolers after a while. Lame.

 

[qubit]

I like the look of this card. Looks like it means business.

 

[Cap'n Killmore]

looks can be deceiving

 

[RejZoR]

I also don't understand why is it so hard to place power connector to the side and not to the back of the card...