SAPPHIRE HD 6850 1GB Video Card

Software Testing

Frames Per Second or “FPS” and Testing

We have all heard this term before and how it is used in benchmarking to compare one card against another. This can be a very useful measurement tool on seeing the results of any tweaks or overclocking that you may have done to the card. Remember that all the testing that we do is just for comparing the performance of the video cards and that your results could be different from ours.

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During the release of the 6850 series of video cards some media sample graphic cards were shipped with the wrong amount of Shaders enabled for the card. They were actually release with 160 more shaders and it was reported that they were intend for a Pro Series of cards. We were lucky enough to have gotten both cards and that our tests were ran with the correct amount of Shaders on the second card we were given.

Wrong shader count and you can see that we tested the wrong shader count card to see if It would overclock as this level. You can see the increase in Fillrate and Bandwidth when you compare it to the correct one below. We did NOT use the this card for the final benchmarks

This is the correct amount of Shaders for the HD 6850 and the one we used for our testing.

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3DMark06:  A 3DMark score is an overall measure of your system’s 3D gaming capabilities, based on comprehensive real-time 3D graphics and processor tests. By comparing your score with those submitted by millions of other gamers you can see how your gaming rig performs, making it easier to choose the most effective upgrades or finding other ways to optimize your system. 3DMark06 is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX9 performance of your graphics card. 

3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. 3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

 

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on the advance Unigine™ engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies.

Hardware Tessellation
The distinguishing feature of the benchmark is hardware tessellation, a scalable technology aimed for automatic subdivision of polygons into smaller and finer pieces, so that games gain drastically detailed and more elaborated look almost free of charge in terms of performance. Normal Mode:Default mode available in the benchmark shows optimal quality-to-performance ratio. That’s the way to achieve prominent visual difference with hardware tessellation technology.