AMD HD 6850 & HD 6870 Upgraded gaming power from AMD!

Author: Jouni 'Jipa' Vasama Published: 29.11.2010 Updated: 07.12.2010 Manufacturer: AMD Product Group: Graphics cards In English Suomeksi

Power consumption

The power consumption numbers also show a nice improvement over the last generation. On idle the cards use a couple of watts less power, and fully loaded the HD6870 barely differs from the HD5850, thus offering better efficiency. When overclocked the idle consumption shoots up, as the memories run at the higher clock speed all the time.

Update 07.12.2010 - 3DMark11

Today Futuremark has finally launched their new 3dmark software - the 3Dmark 11. Just like all the earlier programs in the 3Dmark family, it's designed to test the graphic cards using the latest DirectX-version and the new lighting and texture tricks. So far we only have the results ran with the HD5850, HD5870, HD6850 and HD6870, but in future graphics reviews we'll be using the program and ofcourse also have more cards for better performance comparison.

Just like the Vantage, we'll be running the 3Dmark 11 using the Performance and Extreme-presets. The results are arranged according to the more demanding Extreme-preset, and after the HD6870 and HD6850 crossfires (more of these later) it's the HD5870 and HD5850 that get the highest points. The HD6870 follows the HD5850 close behind, winning it in the Performance-run, and the HD6850 is left last.

Conclusion PROS  Power consumption Performance Multiple outputs CONS  Overclocking headroom in CCC Gold Award! After all the testing it's safe to say that the HD6-series are a very nice update to the already decent HD5-series of cards. The new series brings updates such as the six screen support and also HDMI 1.4a, which will come handy for anyone looking for some 3D action. In performance tests the HD6850 scored very close to the HD5850, with the HD6870 being clearly faster in most tests. Keeping in mind such performance is achieved using less power is rather impressive. That being said, these two cards really left us eagerly waiting for the future high-end cards from the HD6-series!

Additional Information

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