AMD Radeon HD 6850 & HD 6870 Launch Review

The AMD Radeon HD 6800 series graphics cards sport a newly designed heatsink cover that eliminates much of the rounded look of the HD 5000 series. This gives the 6850 and 6870 a very modern and sleek appearance. Adding to the new heatsink cover design is a circular visual effect that surrounds the fan opening and extends to the back of the card. Just above the rear-most part of the heatsink AMD includes the model number of the product in large lettering. Overall, the look is very pleasing, distinct and even though the ATI name is gone, the ATI "look" is still intact thanks to the use of a red and black color scheme. The HD 6850 and 6870 are similar in appearance, but the HD former is considerably smaller and has lower profile fan.

The HD 6870 uses the same visual look as the HD 6850, and from the top view the only noticeable differences are the size of the PCB, model number logo and height of the blower style fan.

The first non-reference card we are going to be looking at is the Diamond HD 6870 XOC graphics card. This card uses the same heatsink cover as the reference AMD card, but in place of the red and black styling is a logo sticker that includes the Diamond brand, model number and an image of the iconic "Ruby". The included product sticker gives the card a very nice look and this will be one of just many designs we will surely see on the market. What really distinguishes the Diamond XOC product from the other 6870's that we are going to be looking at in the review is that it comes with a factory applied overclock. The reference HD 6870 comes with core/memory clock speeds of 900/1050MHz, whereas the Diamond XOC comes with out-of-the-box settings of 940/1100MHz.

Both the HD 6870 and HD 6850 are smaller than any AMD model using the Cypress core. The HD 6870 is the larger of the two cards, but still is only 9.65" long. The HD 6850 has a smaller footprint and measures roughly 8.9".

The HD 6870 and HD 6850 do not include the back plate that is found on the high-end HD 5800 series, but this is understandable due to their status as mainstream cards. Other than the lack of the back plate, there is little on the back to distinguish the 6000 series from the 5000 series.

Both the HD 6870 and HD 6850 include a single CrossFire connector, so these cards are not capable of 3 or 4-way CrossFire. This could be a potential downside to the Barts, but 3 and 4-way CrossFire is usually only utilized in the high-end market

Other than the size of the PCB's, there is one major aesthetic difference between the two models: the HD 6870 has red and black accents found on the side of the card that surround the entirety of the heatsink cover, while the HD 6850 only has one red layer.

The HD 6870 has two 6-pin power connectors which will allow the card to be supplied with up to 225W of power. The HD 6870 actually has a much lower TDP of only 151W though. It seems a bit odd to add an additional power connector that will only be supplying 1W, but this does give a good buffer for overclocking. The HD 6850 on the other hand uses only a singe 6-pin power connector and has a max TDP of 127W.

The rear I/O options on the HD 6800 series see a major overhaul and now include a HDMI 1.4a port, dual Mini DisplayPorts, one SingleLink-DVI port, and a DL-DVI port. The most exciting change is that the dual Mini-DP ports are now using the newer 1.2 version spec. This gives the DP ports higher bandwidth and refresh rate, which allows each port to support Stereoscopic 3D, A/V and even multiple displays through a single port. The HDMI port is also updated to support the latest technologies and the 1.4a connection now adds support for stereo 3D with AMD's HD3D Technology.

Each included Mini-DP 1.2 port can support up to three monitors, so with two included ports the 6800 cards can technically let you run up to six monitors via the DP ports alone. This will make setting up Eyefinity much easier and eliminates the need for Eyefinity 6 edition graphics cards.