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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.
Test System: Validation here.
XFX HD6850
Other cards:
eVGA GTX460 FTW (850/1000)
nVidia GTX460 Talon Attack (1000/1000 & 810/975)
AMD Reference HD6870 (900/1050)
AMD Reference HD5870 (850/1200)
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)
XFX HD5830 XXX (840/1125)
nVidia Reference GTS 450 (850/1000)
XFX HD5750 XXX (740/1200)
AMD reference HD5750 (700/1150)
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
Monitor: Dell Ultrasharp U2410 (A00)
Software:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
HQV Benchmark
Catalyst 10.9 & 10.10 Driver (12th October WHQL) /ati_catalyst_10.9a_appprofile
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
Forceware 260.89 beta
Tessmark
Shader Toy
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.
Metro 2033
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.
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