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XFX HD6850 CrossFireX review

The makers of Metro 2033 – 4A Games was founded by people who split off from GSC Game World a year before the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, in particular Oles’ Shiskovtsov and Aleksandr Maksimchuk, the programmers who worked on the development of X-Ray engine used in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. The game utilizes multi-platform 4A Engine, running on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows. There is some contention regarding whether the engine is based on the pre-release X-Ray engine (as claimed by Sergiy Grygorovych, the founder of GSC Game World, as well as users who have seen the 4A Engine SDK screenshots, citing visual similarities, shared resources, and technical evaluation of the pre-release 4A Engine demo conducted at the request of GSC Game World), or whether the engine is an original development (as claimed by 4A Games and Oles’ Shiskovtsov in particular, who claims it would have been impractical to retrofit the X-ray engine with console support). 4A Engine features Nvidia PhysX support, enhanced AI, and a console SDK for Xbox 360. The PC version includes exclusive features such as DirectX 11 support and has been described as “a love letter to PC gamers” because of the developers’ choice to “make the PC version [especially] phenomenal”.

We tested at 1920×1080 with settings on default ‘normal’

Metro 2033 is a taxing engine which demands high performance levels to run effectively at our choosen settings. The XFX HD6850 in Crossfire delivers around 63 fps, 2 fps less than the eVGA GTX460 FTW, which works out at £25 per lost frame if we factor in market prices today. The reference clocked GTX460 SLi falls 4 frames behind the XFX HD5850 cards.

The single XFX HD5850 card delivers similar performance to the MSI GTX460 Talon edition at 810 core, which is remarkable.

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21 comments

  1. These look the nicest boards, love that cooler design. performance is great from the 6850. seems to be the better overclocker of the two series.

  2. Wow nvidia just got owned again. although the gtx460 is still competitive, I like these better, power consumption rocks.

  3. Excellent value for money, see it on Scan for 133.

  4. HD6850 seems the massively scalable of the two, those overclocks are fantastic.

  5. I ilke the way they have copied the look of the black edition 4GB 5970.

  6. These look beautiful. what a classy looking design.

  7. What a great price, less than two 5770s for 30% moer performance.

  8. Great cards, shame about the lack of OC tool, I wonder will sapphire make this available on their site for everyone to use?

  9. Great article, very informative

  10. this new range is impressive. good power consumption

  11. Looking forward to the high end cards if this is a sign !

  12. cant wait to see the 6970 next year

  13. the price is brilliant, crossfirex here I come. any ideas who has them to buy ?

  14. A nice card indeed. At the moment I have a HD4870, but I’m thinking of upgrading. The price of the GTX460 also lowered quit significantly to like 140 EUR, so I’m still in doubt. HD6850 is slightly above that price, but I have a Crosshair 4 Formula. It would be nice to run Crossfire like in the review.

    @ Zardon
    btw Zardon, is your first name ‘Allan’? Since I think I’ve seen you before on another website 😛

  15. XFX cards have been fixed with 1120 cores instead of 960 which is stated which means that these results are unacceptable and you wont get this perforamce out of the 6850s. WTF

  16. These are 960. GPUz screenshot in the review.

  17. oh yeah rofl sorry. that means the 6850 cf and 460 sli are in dead heat wow!

  18. Great review guys. The scalling is awesome.

  19. I did the calcutlations and the stock 460 sli beats the 6850 cf by 4.8% and metro and mafia which the 6850s beat the 460s support physx which makes it more complicated favorign teh 460s. The 460s are better performers but the 6850s are still very competetive and eats less power and new drivers would increase performance so…. its still a war. Great review

  20. not including 3dmark vantage bcse its not a game and it fluctautes

  21. sry 4.8 frames not 4.8 % lol