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For the review today we have built a strong system which we feel would fit in well with the audience purchasing these cards. We are using a Core i7 950 Quad Core CPU with 6GB of DDR3 memory. We have applied a moderate overclock to the processor because we know you guys never run anything at reference speeds!
We are also going to limit testing to 1920×1080 (1080) and 1920×1200 as less than 1% of the enthusiast user base reading this will have a 30 inch screen – this will address the widest possible audience. We will however dedicate a page to 3x monitor testing, for those of you lucky enough to have three 23/24 inch screens.
Other cards:
nVidia GTX460 Talon Attack (1000/1000 & 810/975)
AMD Reference HD6850 (775/1000)
AMD Reference HD5850 (725/1000)
AMD Reference HD5770 (850/1200)
nVidia Reference GTX460 (675/900)
eVGA GTX460 768MB SC (763/950)
nVidia Reference GTX 460 768MB (675/900)
Other Hardware:
Processor: Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.6ghz
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 13
Motherboard: ASRock X58 Extreme 6
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Tracer 1600mhz 6GB (3x2GB)
Power Supply: Thermaltake 750W Toughpower Grand
Chassis: Cooler Master CM 690 II
Camera: Nikon D300S
Monitors: Dell Ultrasharp U2410 (A00)
Iiyama ProLite E2472HDD x2
Software:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
HQV Benchmark
Catalyst 10.10 Driver
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
Forceware 260.99
Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Keithley Integra unit
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Games:
Resident Evil 5
Lost Planet 2
Far Cry 2
Tom Clancy H.A.W.X.
Tom Clancy H.A.W.X. 2
Alien V Predator
Mafia 2
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests all games across five closely matched runs and average out the results to get an accurate median figure.
I have owned several asus cards and they always have served me well. this looks a solid purchase with a fine price. cant beat £159.99 ! (well you could, £99.99 – talk to them zardon :p).
Very nice indeed. good performance all round. Quick question however, why 3 screen testing, who the hell can afford 3 monitors?
Rather boring looking board, but it performs well. temps are excellent. 65c under load is more like what I want to see.
Been waiting for a good review of this for a while, saw it on OCUk last week, didnt know if it was any good. I agree about the low overclocks. surely its not hard to crank the bios clocks a bit, its basically running at stock and can hit 1000mhz on the core !
Excellent, been waiting for this for a while. I never buy Sapphire or XFX, only Asus. I wait 🙂
Excellent all round card, doesn’t seem that quiet though which is a bit disappointing
Leather case is a weird addition for a gfx?
Poor clock choice for such a card, far too low
price of the 6850 is good, crossfire they are killer, but bot sure it’s worth it as a really fast single card doesn’t need a profile