AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series: Testing and Characterization

AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series - a series of video cards of the middle class from the famous company AMD. These video cards replaced the series with index 5. All technical characteristics, test results in special programs and games are described below.

The history of creating a video card

It is worth to clarify that the 6800 series was the first, which was manufactured under the AMD logo, and not ATI after the merger of the two computer component manufacturers.

In 2010, it became necessary to update the company's line of video cards again. During the presentation, AMD revealed all the details about the technical data and the capabilities of the new series. AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series includes two models of video cards: HD 6850 and HD 6870. The last two figures conditionally determine the class of the video card. Accordingly, 6850 was the younger, and 6870 - the older and more powerful.

These video cards were created to replace the flagship HD 5870, but, strangely enough, they were no longer leaders, but held a middle-class position. The flagship of the company was the series with the index 9 - HD 6900.

AMD Radeon HD 6800: Features

When developing all previous video cards, ATI specialists followed the same principle as their colleagues from Nvidia. This means that in all new developments and graphics card lines, efforts were made to achieve the maximum performance and power of the iron. After merging with AMD, the company's policy and approach to creating video cards took a slightly different vector.

AMD set out to create video cards with a balanced capacity, performance and price. This series should compete with 460 GTX and 470 GTX. To do this, the creators decided to develop a new graphics processor. There is still debate about whether Barts is a breakthrough or a step back. On the one hand, the creators simplified the architecture and reduced the size. On the other hand, power consumption and performance have become much higher compared to the previous generation of video cards from AMD.

According to the company itself, they did not make any coup or breakthrough. The Barts graphical chip is a repetition of the previous generation, only with a new approach to the old technologies. One of the reasons for this decision was production and factory problems at the time of AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series, so the creators decided to upgrade the old generation.

But the goals to fill the segment of hi-end video cards on the basis of upgrading the architecture of the previous generation have not been achieved. The new series reaches the performance of HD 5870, but does not overtake it in any way.

The whole series is based on the Barts processor, has support for the 5th version shaders, the amount of video memory is fixed - 1024 MB. Each video card has two DVI connectors, two miniDP outputs and one for HDMI. Both devices have support for CrossFire technology and output images to 8 monitors at the same time. The younger video card 6850 operates at a frequency of 775 MHz, the oldest, 6870, - 900 MHz. The cost of video cards - 180 and 240 dollars, respectively. It also supports DirectX11, which at the time of the release of the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series was important.

Testing video cards

Both 6800 series video cards were tested under the same conditions and on the same stand configuration. All tests are conducted in 3D Mark and computer games released at the time of the release of a series of video cards.

AMD Radeon HD6850

This model line is the weakest in the series AMD Radeon Hd 6800. The characteristics are greatly reduced compared to the older graphics card. And everything is cut down, including the possibilities of the cooling system. But the creators did not take into account one thing: despite the weaker power, the video card is heated the same way. This is an undoubted disadvantage.

By results in 3D Mark, this video card is inferior to the older one in the series by only 2-3 thousand points. Let's take the most productive and demanding games of those years - Crysis and Far Cry 2. The difference in FPS is from 10 to 15 frames per second. If you compare this difference with the difference in price, then the acquisition of HD 6850 looks quite an attractive solution.

AMD Radeon HD6870

The older model of the series delivers performance to the flagship of HD5870. Particularly noteworthy is that the AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series video card, whose price is much lower than the cost of competitors from Nvidia, allows using the entire DirectX11 capability. In particular, HD 6870 copes with this task well.

The modernization of the Barts graphics processor made it possible to compete with the flagship of the company AMD and GTX 460 from the company Nvidia memory capacity of 1 GB.

Summing up

The new generation AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series, the reviews of which turned out to be ambiguous, definitely worth attention and their money. Both video cards occupied a niche between budget models and flagship HD 5870, but at the same time the line can compete with competitors in its segment from Nvidia. Samples from AMD look much better. The increase in video card performance from Nvidia is minimal, but the cost is higher by 30-40 dollars.

To obvious disadvantages can be attributed a noisy cooling system with a cooler. Seeking to save and simplify the architecture, the creators forgot to take care of proper cooling. Noisy cooler, which barely copes with the load, discourages all desire to use the capabilities of the video card to its fullest. But this is not necessary, because there are video cards from Nvidia for experiments and overclocking.