We will be taking a look at one of the newest graphic cards from AMD and Sapphire, the HD 6850. This card has the second generation of GPU in it, code name Bart, which will be driving the next series of video games to the limit. With a lower price than the current 5850 cards will this card be worth the upgrade? Read farther as we drag the Sapphire HD 6850 through the benchmarking trenches. Sponsor: Sapphire [hr] First Look and Information The SAPPHIRE HD 6800 series of video cards feature the second generation of graphics technology from AMD which is designed to support all the features of Microsoft DirectX 11 and DirectCompute 11. The new GPU’s are built in AMD’s 40nm process to deliver high performance with a low power consumption. Advanced hardware features include a enhanced Tessellation unit, dedicated HDR Texture compression, multi-threaded communication with system CPU cores, embedded support for many of the DirectCompute 11 instructions, 3D stereoscopic support and HDMI 1.4a. This new GPU pretty much has everything you could ask for. The media sample that we were given has a slightly different box from a second sample we received, which is probably a retail box. Our box came with a sticker that displayed that the new overclocking tool is available, but our second box did not display that. I do believe that it will be available for the retail version but the version we got was a beta tool. The new box is a nice color change from the last few that we reviewed and like always Sapphire has ALL the information you need to learn about this new card. Did I see something on the box? Well this is a first for me! I have not seen on previous boxes anything about 3D and the 6850 proudly displays it. Enjoy the most immerse experience possible with full support for High Definition Stereoscopic 3D, a technique that presents 2D images (movies, games, photos) in a format that creates the illusion of three-dimensional depth when using compatible 3D displays / glasses / software. Included in the box is the Driver CD, CrossFire Bridge, VGA-DVI adapter, a molex to six pin power adapter, and a 1.4 HDMI cable. Like always Sapphire makes sure you get everything you need and more to connect your card to your display. Specification Output 1 x Dual-Link DVI1 x HDMI 1.4a1 x DisplayPort1 x Single-Link DVI-D GPU 775 MHz Core Clock40 nm Chip960 x Stream Processors Memory 1024 MB Size256 -bit GDDR54000 MHz Effective Software Driver CDSAPPHIRE TriXX Utility Accessory 1 CrossFire™ Bridge Interconnect CableD-Sub Adapter6 PIN to 4 PIN Power CableHDMI 1.4a high speed 1.8 meter cable(Full Retail SKU only) System Requirements PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard. 500 Watt Power Supply is required. 1 X 75Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connector is required. 2 X 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connector is required for CrossFireX™ system. Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to for a list of Certified products. 1024 MB Minimum of system memory. Installation software requires CD-ROM drive. DVD playback requires DVD drive. Blu-ray™ / HD DVD playback requires Blu-ray / HD DVD drive. For an ATI CrossFireX™ system, a second same ATI Radeon™ graphics card, an ATI CrossFireX™ Ready motherboard and one ATI CrossFireX Bridge Interconnect cable per graphics card (optional) are required. To support 3 displays, one of the monitors has to support DisplayPort. A Closer Look Every manufactures gets the chance to design there own card off the reference cards made by AMD and this is the one created by Sapphire for their 6850 series card. SAPPHIRE has introduced the SAPPHIRE HD 6850, with the a configuration of 960 stream processors and 48 texture processing units. With clock speeds of 775MHz for the GPU core and 1000Mhz (4 Gb/sec effective) for the memory it gives the users access to exceptional performance at a lower price point with full DirectX 11 support and all the features of this innovative generation of graphic card technology. Along with the new GPU comes a new, yet old name. What we see with the introduction of the 6800 series is the lack ATI being mentioned. Everything is now referring to Radeon, which was once used as the branding for ATI cards many years ago. The multiple stream processors of the HD 6800 series video cards can be used to accelerate many other applications such as video trans-coding. The latest generation of web browsers which are being GPU accelerated for a more rich interaction, this is also supported for enhanced productivity in Microsoft Office 2010. So even when not playing games or movies you can enjoy the added speed of the 6800 series of AMD graphic processor. A quick look at the backside of the Sapphire HD 6850 The card has a total length of 8.5 inches and is 1.5 inched thick. The ever so familiar blue PCB is used once again by Sapphire for the 6850 card. From this angle we can see that at the top of the rear of the card is where the CrossFire Bridge connection is located. We will be showing you some CrossFire results in a review very soon! Like previous production of cards from Sapphire, the SAPPHIRE HD 6800 series has an on board hardware UVD (Unified Video decoder) – this technology is now in its third generation, significantly reducing CPU load and delivering smooth decoding of Blu-ray™ and HD DVD content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, as well as Mpeg files, and now AMD is introducing support for Multiple Video Coding for Blu-Ray 3D. We all know that 3D is quickly becoming more mainstream and AMD wants to makes sure that you are well ahead of the pack. The output side of the dual slot card has just about very connection you need to connect to your display of choice. You get two DVI ouputs, one HDMI 1.4, and a display port. ATI Eyefinity technology maximizes your field of view across up to three displays, fully engaging your peripheral vision. For gamers this puts you right IN the game and for other applications it helps you increase productivity by maximizing your visual workspace so that you can see more windows simultaneously. Do yourself a favor and check out this great demo about Eyefinity A very stylish gloss black plastic cooler covers the entire 6850 to guarantee that all the vital components get the cooling they need. Air is drawn in from the inside of the case and forced out the back just like any other two slot cooler setup does. If you look down into the cooler you can see that the heat sink is make of aluminum and is a heat pipe configuration is used for the cooing solution. The power connection for the cooling fans connects to the rear of the card. I had to tuck the cable back under the cooler as it came out during shipping. This not a issue, just not pleasant looking, for the card but I just wanted you to make sure that you check that before you install the card. We can see that the heat sink has plenty of cooling fins to keep the card cool. A single six pin power connection is all the extra power that this 6850 needs to give you the performance you need. Sapphire even includes a power adapter in case you need it but almost all new power supplies built today have this already, but it just goes to show you that Sapphire is willing to take the extra steps. Software Testing Test Setup Processor Intel Core i5 750 Memory Patriot Viper II 2- 2xGB (SPD settings) Motherboard Jetway HI06 OS Windows 7 Pro 32 bit Graphic Card Sapphire HD 6850 Power Supply Cooler Master 850w Case CaseAppeal AV8 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. 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. 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 TessellationThe 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. Game Testing Resident Evil 5 DX9 -10 FarCry 2 DX10 Crisis Warhead DX10 Game Testing Continued Dirt 2 DX11 STALKER Call of Pripyat DX11 Alien vs Predator DX11 Overclocking Ah, the fun and joys of pushing your card farther that it was meant to do. Sometimes this can be a real pain in the...rear, but with more and more manufactures jumping in with their own overclocking tools you just can not skip this fun. AMD has been including the ATI Overdrive overclocking tool within the Catalyst Control Center for a long time now and it really easy to use. With just a few click and letting the software do it things you can be using an overclock card safely and within the limits that AMD thinks the card can handle. The results are sometimes very surprising to see how much overhead the card actually has. If you grab another overclocking tool you can sometimes even go just farther with your overclocking, but I have found in the past that the ATI Overdrive is a safe move when testing for overclockability. Our default speeds for the Sapphire HD 6850 are 700MHz for the GPU and 1150MHz for the Memory. With a click and some time we get an overclocked card. Our new speeds for the Sapphire HD 6850 are 840MHz for the GPU and 1175MHz for the Memory. Here are some of the results of the overclock compared to the default speed of the other cards we tested in our regular benchmark testing. With just a little bit of time and a free included overclocking tool we can see that the Sapphire HD 6850 comes really close and beats the more expensive (as much as $60) Nvidia cards. Not bad for free! Conclusion We have taken a look at one of the new video cards offered by Sapphire and AMD and have some things to talk about. We can see that they are making many changes from the previous generation in performance and with Tessellation. Tessellation, I think, is an under used quality feature that a lot of people are missing out on. If you have not personally seen it in action then you need to track down someone that has the ability to run it on a good machine and you will be amazed. Objects become just more that items placed in a world they bring life to the scene. The HD 6850 is suppose to be the replacement for the current 5850 series of cards and well I wish I had one to test again the 6850, but with the results of the cards that I have you can see that it can hold up to the more powerful 460-465 cards from NVIDIA and it beat down the 5700 series of card that we test. For the price point that we found one Newegg ($179.99) is in a pretty descent position for the new card. It is well under the average NV 460 card and even the 5850. With just under or at times even better than the 5850 in benchmarks found on the web the 6850 is a much better choice for the performance to dollar ratio. We will be bringing you a small CrossFire review of this card to give an idea on how the cards does and the better increase/ performance the newer GPU's work in CrossFire mode. As of right now I can say that if you are in the market to increase your fun and performance and to stay under the $180.00 price range you should look no farther than the Sapphire HD 6850. Pros Cons + Low noise+ Performance to Dollar ratio is great+ Low power draw than the 5850+ Mutli outputs for displays - Non
Resident Evil 5 DX9 -10
FarCry 2 DX10
Crisis Warhead DX10
