PowerColor Readies Single-Slot, 4-way CrossFireX Ready HD 6850 Graphics Card

[btarunr]

PowerColor is readying a new single-slot AMD Radeon HD 6850 graphics card. The advantages of single-slot aside, the new card will also support 4-way CrossFireX. So now you can pack four of these cards into pooly-designed motherboards with adjacent PCI-E x16 slots, or you can sneak one into the slot that happens to be the bottom-most one. PowerColor's HD 6850 Single-Slot Edition uses a custom PCB design which is not much longer than the reference design, it uses a typical single-slot cooler design with tightly-packed aluminum fin air channels to which heat is fed by a copper plate. Air is flown through these channels by a blower.

Apart from 4-way CrossFireX capability, the PowerColor HD 6850 Single-Slot Edition uses nearly complete display connectivity, with one DVI, a full-size HDMI 1.4a, and two DisplayPort 1.2. Power is drawn in from a single 6-pin power connector. The card uses AMD reference clock speeds of 775 MHz core and 1000 MHz (4.00 GHz effective) memory. There's 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface onboard. Based on the 40 nm Barts GPU, HD 6850 features 960 stream processors, and full DirectX 11 compliance. More details and pictures are awaited of this intriguing new card.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[pantherx12]

Nice!

Can't wait to see scaling.

 

[Disparia]

Sweet.

Now PowerColor, give us hacked drivers to allow Crossfire with > 4 cards!

 

[cheesy999]

Sweet.

Now PowerColor, give us hacked drivers to allow Crossfire with > 4 cards!

i think i'd wait for them to do a single slot 6970 first

 

[Over_Lord]

So is this a green edition HD6850 with 75W TDP?

 

[Ghost]

So is this a green edition HD6850 with 75W TDP?

If it had 75W TDP, it wouldn't need a 6-pin PEG connector. All power would be drawn from PCI-E.

 

[20mmrain]

good idea all around!!! I never understood AMD's move to not allow this on lower end cards anyway. Especially since those cards are the big seller this gen!

i think i'd wait for them to do a single slot 6970 first

never happen the hd6970 runs way too warm!

 

[HalfAHertz]

good idea all around!!! I never understood AMD's move to not allow this on lower end cards anyway. Especially since those cards are the big seller this gen!



never happen the hd6970 runs way too warm!

Never say never! It's probably doable, but the card will end up being 33+ cm long (13 inch ). Didn't Galaxy do a single slot 470 a while back? And the TDP of the 470 is pretty close to the 6970...

Edit: Single slot 470:http://www.techpowerup.com/122494/Galaxy_Readies_Single-Slot_GeForce_GTX_470_Graphics_Card.html

 

[newtekie1]

never happen the hd6970 runs way too warm!

It is doable, but the heatsink would have to be made entirely of copper, and the fan would be really loud, but it is doable.

However, the HD6950 would be way more suited for a single slot design. With a heat output of only 130w, it is down in the area of the GTS250, which I know for a fact can run on a single slot cooler.

 

[btarunr]

Sweet.

Now PowerColor, give us hacked drivers to allow Crossfire with > 4 cards!

I don't think you need hacked drivers. CrossFireX restriction on Barts is not due to driver. It's due to PCB (design restriction).

 

[RejZoR]

Do the ear plugs come with the cards?

 

[devguy]

Fake motherboard is fake.

Do the ear plugs come with the cards?

If they aren't included with the HD 6990, what makes you think they'll come with an HD 6850?

 

[newtekie1]

Fake motherboard is fake.

The cards are fake in that image as well, it is called a graphical rendering.

 

[Frizz]

I hope these cards come with the right price.

 

[devguy]

The cards are fake in that image as well, it is called a graphical rendering.

Hehe, I was just kidding. Just looking at the the display connectors on the GPUs themselves in that pic told me so.

 

[RejZoR]

Fake motherboard is fake.



If they aren't included with the HD 6990, what makes you think they'll come with an HD 6850?

Single slot. Used t have 7600GT single slot and it was looooooud. HD5850 reference cooler is very silent but it's a dual slot solution...

 

[Disparia]

I don't think you need hacked drivers. CrossFireX restriction on Barts is not due to driver. It's due to PCB (design restriction).

So are we saying that it's different for non-Bart parts? HD6450 x 7 here I come!

 

[btarunr]

So are we saying that it's different for non-Bart parts? HD6450 x 7 here I come!

No. The driver supports up to 4 GPUs in CrossFire. Barts is percieved to be incapable of 3-way and 4-way CrossFire, because most of the boards lack two CrossFire bridge connectors. If Barts is put on a PCB with two CFBE connectors, you get 3-way / 4-way CrossFire. You can also do 4-way CrossFire with just two cards having two CFBE connectors each. Place those two cards in the middle, place ordinary cards with one CFBE connector each on top and bottom.

 

[Disparia]

Soooooooo..... it's just drivers stopping these cards from supporting > 4-way then?