AMD Radeon HD 6850 Overclocking Roundup: Asus, XFX, & MSI
by Ryan Smith on November 8, 2010 12:40 AM ESTMeet The Asus EAH6850
Our second card today is Asus’s first Radeon HD 6850, the EAH6850.The EAH6850 is the latest member in Asus’s Voltage Tweak subseries of cards, offering official voltage modification capabilities for overclocking through Asus’s SmartDoctor utility. It’s also the first overclocked card in today’s roundup, featuring a stock speed of 790MHz core and 1000MHz memory, a mere 15MHz over the 6850’s standard clocks. As a result the overclock is a token overclock at best - it’ll edge out stock-clocked cards in testing, but the difference is nothing to write home about.
In terms of design Asus has more or less completely thrown out the 6850 reference design for their own design. Starting with the PCB, Asus has gone with a custom PCB that runs a half-inch longer than the reference PCB, giving the EAH6850 a final length of 9.5”. With this extension Asus has moved the 6pin PCIe power socket to the top of the card, removing the need for additional clearance behind the card and in the process making the power socket much more accessible. Notably there’s a spot for a second power socket, and given the longer length of the card we wouldn’t be surprised if Asus ultimately released a 6870 using this PCB.
Meanwhile the component selection on the card is the usual mix of solid state capacitors and chokes. We haven’t been able to identify the VRM components in use, but we believe Asus is using a different VRM arrangement than on the reference 6850. The card also features a metal spine running down most the length of the card, providing the extra rigidity that a longer card requires and preventing it from significantly flexing.
Attached to the top of the card is the now customary Asus DirectCU cooler, Asus’s highly effective cooler which we have seen on a number of Asus cards in the past. This open-ended cooler uses a pair of aluminum heatpipes attached to a copper baseplate to transfer heat to the card’s aluminum heatsink, which runs roughly 2/3rds the length of the card. Embedded in the middle of the heatsink is the 70mm “dustproof” fan, and a partial shroud keeps airflow directed out the front and the rear of the card. Meanwhile the MOSFETs serving as part of the VRM circuitry have their own heatsink attached through springloaded clips, with airflow coming off of the fan keeping this second heatsink cool.
As is the case with the other partner cards in today’s roundup, Asus has ditched AMD’s 6800 series Eyefinity port configuration in favor of the 5800 series Eyefinity port configuration. This means the card has two DVI ports and the HDMI port along with one full-size DisplayPort, allowing the card to drive up to 5 monitors through a DP hub.
Because this is a Voltage Tweak card, Asus’s software plays an important role here by providing control for the card’s voltage modification capabilities. SmartDoctor has not changed since the last time we’ve seen it, providing a functionally competent but ultimately second-rate overclocking experience, as SmartDoctor lacks meaningful monitoring capabilities. Truth be told, the latest betas of MSI’s Afterburner software are able to program the EAH6850’s VRM controller, meaning there’s no practical reason to use SmartDoctor as the superior Afterburner is available.
As for pack-in items, Asus includes their usual collection for an AMD card: a quick-start manual, driver/utility CD, molex-to-PCIe power adaptor, short CrossFire bridge, a pleather CD binder, and a DVI-to-VGA dongle. Which on that note we had a chance to talk to Asus’s video card product manager last week and asked about the VGA dongle – it turns out that while VGA is largely dead & buried in North America, it’s alive and well in the Asia-Pacific region. Asus is simply packing their cards the same way in all regions, which means they all come with the VGA dongle.
Finally, the EAH6850 comes with Asus’s standard 3 year video card warranty. EAH6850 can be found for around $185, putting it at a $5 premium over AMD’s MSRP.
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Will Robinson - Monday, November 8, 2010 - link
Yep, the stuff said so far about AT being smart to discuss this is right.I don't think anyone seriously believes the site would be biased.
I trust AT.
Having said that it's a shame those people who dismiss the complaints of many over the inclusion of overclocked cards don't wise up a bit.
They don't agree with you but it doesn't mean they are wrong.
expose - Monday, November 8, 2010 - link
What the title says, might as well admit within the article that you are catering to a audience and no longer practicing journalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournalismDoing a o/c feature on a card and then print a conclusion based on no results from the competitors stock o/c or any o/c results this time is amateur.
No longer professional or unbiased, and almost useless content because of random unpredictable motives.
jabber - Monday, November 8, 2010 - link
I was rather dissapointed two weeks ago when we had all the 6850/6870 reviews that put stock AMD units up against purely OCd Nvidia units and no one seemed to dare to just OC a 6850/70 to a similar degree for the sake of apples to apples. I guess Nvidia's review instructions to the tame (paid) press worked a charm.Ok so putting OCd AMD units against non OCd Nvidia units may redress the balance but its still not what any of us wanted to see in the first place.
Am I the only one not taking crazy pills around here?
We's like to see a list of stock AMD and Nvidia unit benchmarks and then a list of OCd AMD/Nvidia units.
Just like in the old days. Is that too hard?
FeynmanDIagrams - Monday, November 8, 2010 - link
Unfortunately reviewers can't always include 100 different comparisons due to time constraints. It takes a long time to benchmark a single card. This reviewer might not of had access to a 460FTW either.I use a standard MSI Cylone 460 1GB that I manually OC'd to 950/1050 on air. You don't have to buy the "super super overclocked" editions to get these speeds, just have adequate cooling. You're typically only going to find extreme overclock comparisons on overclocking forums rather than review sites.
While they don't include PhysX or CUDA, they are affordable mid-range cards that help keep competitor's prices in check. While AMD has had Crossfire driver issues in the past, Nvidia still seems to have major stuttering issues and low GPU usage for the past 9 months. They also seem to require you to run on a Bloomfield chip to have decent GPU usage(even that doesn't always fix it), where as even the 5870/5970 can make full use of the card on a modest Phenom or C2Q chip.
The 6850/6870 seem like excellent choices compared to their 460/470 competitors.
softdrinkviking - Monday, November 8, 2010 - link
you wrote... All of the cards could hit 850MHz core at stock clocksAll of the cards could hit 940MHz core at 1.172v, the 6870 load voltage
We had to give the cards significantly more voltage to get above 940MHz. This culminated at 1.22v on the Asus and MSI cards for 960MHz
I think "All of the cards could hit 850MHz core at stock clocks," should be "All of the cards could hit 850MHz at stock VOLTAGES," but maybe I am completely misunderstanding the info reported here?
jcn4boxes - Monday, November 8, 2010 - link
mm2587, while obviously upset, has a valid point.amd vs nvidia "fan boyz" should have no place in hardware reviews, imo.
rather the data should be presented and let that speak for itself.
i hope the "kicking to the curb" notion is just that and not a peace offering to a advertiser/contact.
Galcobar - Monday, November 8, 2010 - link
Never understood the flaming which results when a review includes factory overclocked video cards.For one point, it's not a YMMV situation -- a card purchased with a factory overclock will conform to those specifications. Think of it this way: if all the stock clocked cards were pulled from the market, would that mean the cards are no longer reviewable? Of course not, given the stock clocks are as much an arbitrary factory choice (to achieve a certain yield) as the overclocks.
Where it gets particularly odd is how processors whose only difference is the multiplier can be reviewed with no howls of indignation. When Intel turns up the multiplier and sticks a higher model number on it, they're issuing a factory overclocked chip and charging more for it. Yet no one complains a 950 should not be reviewed next to a 930...
The whole point of reviews is to look at price, performance, and the balance between.
khimera2000 - Monday, November 8, 2010 - link
ill give you a clue. one is overclocked, and represents the top of the OC scale for factory cards, also represents what a hand picked model can do.the other is a stock card.
at the time it was the only card i found that clocked at that speed, and the others trailed by at least 100mhz. the FTW card is just nvidia showing off and did not represent what was available on average at the time.
Just like now where its noted that its vary difficult to find non OC 6850, but these where not included in the review even though they where available the day i read the review.
it would mean that AT would have hand pick a card for every new releas. I can see that being a pain.
totenkopf - Monday, November 8, 2010 - link
Galcobar, your comparison to processors is a little misleading. when Intel augments the speed of their silicon, the respective parts are sold with distinct model numbers (950 vs. 930 as you pointed out) which is far different, and more dependable, than the 'OC' nomenclature. OCed graphics cards, on the other-hand, share the same technical designation with their non OCed counterparts. If little Billy asks his mom for a GTX460 FTW for Christmas, what do you suppose the odds are that he ends up with a stock GTX460 or some other 'OC' labeled variant?I will say that this whole argument is the stuff of fanboys. Purists and enthusiasts that frequent this site shouldn't be concerned with factory OC junk anyway, it all boils down to arguing over how one's favorite company is being represented. The whole OC edition thing is just money grab, product differentiation crap designed by OEMs to make people think they are getting a better product and part with more money. Usually the performance gain is negligible. Regardless, what good is an OCed card when they cost more money? The only consumer interest in OCing ought to be paying less to get more; which means you're better off getting the reference board for less money and making it faster. I don't think OCed cards have a place in reviews except in cases like this article. OCing was never supposed to be this mainstream, it defeats the whole purpose when it's up-cost marketing.
Besides, semantically speaking, if you buy it in that configuration, it's kinda still stock. The Shelby isn't an OCed Mustang... it's a Shelby. Tuning it yourself could be considered OCing.
Galcobar - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - link
If you want to argue that the crucial difference lies in model numbers -- which is to say, labelling -- then you'd want to remember that cards with higher overclocks do use different model numbers.768-P3-1360-TR
768-P3-1362-TR
versus
i7-930
i7-950
That Intel sells the processors based directly on model number and uses the names in-house, while video cards are sold using the names and keeps the model numbers written small on the box doesn't really change the relationship.
Higher cost for what amounts to a software change.
Whether those software changes are worth paying for is another arguement entirely, but you are paying for an assured level of performance in either type of processor.