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XFX has another winner on its hands with this custom-cooled Radeon HD 6850. The product looks fantastic and the performance levels for such a modest asking price are astounding. Initially we had been informed of a price close to £155 inc vat, but – just before we went to publication – XFX informed us that Scan in the UK will be offering this card for £135 inc vat.
The attractive XFX cooler, with large offset fan, is a very capable design delivering responsive return to idle times while remaining quiet, even under extended load.
On a performance level the XFX HD6850 is closely matched to a reference clocked GTX460, losing in some games and winning in others … but always competitive.
When we got around to overclocking we were astounded to see that using Sapphire's beta TriXX overclocking software, we managed to push the core to 950MHz, the same speed as the Sapphire HD6850 we tested. While these overclocks could be lower when future yields hit retail, we would assume that 900MHz is a realistic figure when taking tolerances into consideration. Once this card is overclocked, the performance goes into a whole new playing field. Holding its own against a card costing about £40 more is some feat.
We can think of no reason not to buy the XFX HD6850 – the custom cooler is excellent, the performance is great ‘out of the box' and amazing if you spend time with voltage and clock increases, its just a shame XFX don't supply a tool similar to Sapphire's TriXX.
KitGuru says: If you've ever wanted to own a supercar for the price of a family saloon – then the Radeon HD 6850 is the answer. It's great straight out of the box. The turbo charger kicks in when you overclock it and it's nothing short of stunning in CrossFireX formation. No wonder nVidia has been dropping the price of the Fermi cards in response: Against the Radeon HD6850, discounting seems to be the only reaction possible.
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.
Wow nvidia just got owned again. although the gtx460 is still competitive, I like these better, power consumption rocks.
Excellent value for money, see it on Scan for 133.
HD6850 seems the massively scalable of the two, those overclocks are fantastic.
I ilke the way they have copied the look of the black edition 4GB 5970.
These look beautiful. what a classy looking design.
What a great price, less than two 5770s for 30% moer performance.
Great cards, shame about the lack of OC tool, I wonder will sapphire make this available on their site for everyone to use?
Great article, very informative
this new range is impressive. good power consumption
Looking forward to the high end cards if this is a sign !
cant wait to see the 6970 next year
the price is brilliant, crossfirex here I come. any ideas who has them to buy ?
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 😛
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
These are 960. GPUz screenshot in the review.
oh yeah rofl sorry. that means the 6850 cf and 460 sli are in dead heat wow!
Great review guys. The scalling is awesome.
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
not including 3dmark vantage bcse its not a game and it fluctautes
sry 4.8 frames not 4.8 % lol