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Powercolor HD6850 Single Slot CrossfireX Review

Today we are using our high end Core i7 970 system which is overclocked to 4.33ghz.

Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.33ghz
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65 (MS-7522)
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10
Power Supply: Corsair Ax1200
Memory: 6GB GSkill Performance Gaming ram @ 902.9 MHz (2:10) @ 7-8-7-24
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Monitors: Dell 3011, Dell U2410 UltraSharp, Sanyo 50 inch LCD Television.

Other graphics cards:
Nvidia GTX590
Zotac GTX580 AMP! Edition
Nvidia GTX580
Nvidia GTX570
XFX HD5970 Black Edition 4GB (QuadFireX)
AMD HD6990
AMD HD6970
AMD HD6950
AMD HD6870
AMD HD6850
AMD HD5870
Sapphire HD5850 Xtreme
Sapphire HD5830 Xtreme
Sapphire HD5770 Vapor X Edition (860mhz core)
Sapphire HD6790 CrossfireX
MSI N560GTX Ti Twin Frozr II
nVidia GTX570
nVidia GTX 550 ti (900/1026)
nVidia GTX460 OC (715/900)

Software:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Catalyst 11.5
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
HQV 2.0 Software

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
Far Cry 2
Alien V Predator
Lost Planet 2
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
Home Front
Total War: Shogun 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.

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11 comments

  1. I admire powercolor for all the cool designs recently. I think they are on the rise as more people are buying their hardware (but maybe im wrong?)

  2. I bought one of these last month and have been very happy with it. I did notice that the thermal paste application was poor , and that by applying my own temperatures dropped a good 5 c

  3. I like their hardware, ive owned a few cards and they have been fine. I know sapphier get all the applause, but nothing wrong with PC.

  4. Id prefer two of these to a GTX580, Direct X performance is clearly much better

  5. You guys forget about the driver reliance. AMD are still slow updating drivers to support games. id have most of the games beaten by the time id have the profile for it.

    ill pass

  6. Nice cards, but no need for single slot for my system, ive been looking to upgrade, but I might wait on 7 series, cant be that far ahead now. maybe end of year.

  7. Whats their warranty in the UK?

  8. THe power consumption is excellent. AMD really have that sorted with the latest cards.

    I dont think a single card card lasts as long as a dual slot, they tend to run hotter all over and things ‘burn out’ over time. its a risk with this design, especially in a media center.

  9. I admire powercolor for making so many cool designs, outside the reference AMD plans.

    These particular cards arent for me, but I dig their overall progress in this market recently.

  10. Yeah thats good value for money, but with the yoyotech GTX580 being sold for £330 (asus direct CU II!) it knocks this off the ‘great deal’ imo.