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Sapphire HD6790 CrossfireX Review

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 25c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.

Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.

The Sapphire cooler generally runs about 7-8c cooler than the reference design and it is also much quieter. The fan idles at 28% and when at full load peaks around 50%.

Return to ambient is a feature we have recently added to our reviews … we measure the time it takes for a solution to return to idle temperatures, immediately after full load. The faster the time, the better the cooler – for example a Noctua NH D14 cooler will return an Intel processor to idle temperatures much faster than a reference cooler. This is a good indication of how quickly a heatsink can dissipate heat.

Sapphire have opted for a non aggressive fan profile, always catering to lower noise levels, especially when under 60c. The fan spins down quickly to under 35%, meaning that the temperatures take a little longer to settle to idle again. This is a very good cooler however and was clearly designed for a higher specified card. The enhanced HD5870 cooler from Sapphire looks identical to this.

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12 comments

  1. Really good price for what you get, nice cooler too.

  2. Well let’s be honest, it wouldn’t take much to outperform the 550 ti

  3. Very nice card. Some very good work on AMD’s driver side.
    Image quality looks amazing for a card at this price and performance is on par with the price sector.
    It’s a shame that even with the much improved F@H Core 16 this card wont fold nearly as many PPD as a GTX550Ti. That kind of sours the whole deal to me.

    Stellar Review Zardon. Nice addition of the overall scoring on the conclusions page.

    Proud KitGuru Folder (Team 196420) and Gamer.
    Fisshy

  4. I really hate the way they change the naming conventions on these. why not call it the 6770 and be done with it?

    Otherwise its impressive for the price and fascinating to see the CFX results showing it often close between GTX570 and GTX580, for a fraction of the price.

  5. These are extremely impressive little boards, for the price I cant see it getting much better than this.

  6. I am very impressed with the performance results, I hear some of them will be 110 quid too, bargain really.

  7. That cooler is identical to the 5870 version, thats a nice way to do it. saves them development money on a new cooler too.

  8. The biggest problem is that 5830 has dropped in price, XFX are selling their 5830 XXX for 85 inc vat.

  9. How GTX550 Ti loss on Resident Evil 5?

    HD 6790 – Max FPS 72
    – Min FPS 57
    Average – 64,5

    GTX550 Ti – Max FPS 72
    – Min FPS 60
    Average – 66

    To me this is a victory by a green team… Well, the result yet remains in favor to red team, with 7 victory vs 5 victory.

    On games the battle is very difficult, 4 wins for each team. I was thinking, if is possible make this test in 1650×1050.

    After all, 1650×1050 is the better choice for both cards. 2560×1600 and 1920×1200/1080 is more High-end resolution.

    Maybe put more games DX11 e more titles. Just a idea. Anyway, good reviews! Thx for that.

  10. We don’t post maximum frame rate figures Guiherme. The 72 fps is the average figure, not the maximum.

    Thanks for the comments, glad you like the reviews.

  11. Hey guys, why would anyone buy a GTX 580 (AU~$500) when you can get two 6790’s and crossfire them for less than AU$300? Is there something I’m missing?

  12. ^^^
    because most users doesn’t have an XFire capable board to do this and some doesn’t want to Xfire at all.