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Review: AMD Radeon HD 6850 face-off - ASUS vs Sapphire vs PowerColor

by Tarinder Sandhu on 17 November 2010, 09:08 3.5

Tags: ASUSTeK (TPE:2357), PowerColor (6150.TWO), AMD (NYSE:AMD), Sapphire

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qa24r

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How we test


GPU comparisons
Graphics cards Current pricing GPU clock (MHz) Stream processors Shader clock (MHz) Memory clock (MHz) Memory bus (bits) Graphics driver
Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1,024MB £235 850 1,600 850 4,800 256  Catalyst 10.10P
HIS Radeon HD 5850 1,024MB £180 725 1,440  725 4,000 256  Catalyst 10.10P
HIS Radeon HD 6870 1,024MB £185 900 1,120 900 4,200 256 Catalyst 10.10P
Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 TOXIC 1,024MB £165 820 960 820 4,400 256 Catalyst 10.10
PowerColor Radeon HD 6850 PCS+ 1,024MB £160 820 960 820 4,400 256 Catalyst 10.10
ASUS Radeon HD 6850 DirectCu 1,024MB £147 790 960 790 4,000 256 Catalyst 10.10
AMD Radeon HD 6850 1,024MB £150 775 960 775 4,000 256 Catalyst 10.10P
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 1,536MB  £399 772 512 1,544 4,008 384 ForceWare 262.99
ASUS GeForce GTX 480 1,536MB £330 700 480 1,401 3,698 384 ForceWare 262.99
ASUS GeForce GTX 470 1,280MB £180 607 448 1,215 3,348 320 ForceWare 260.89
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 SOC 1,024MB 
 £175 810 336  1,620 4,000 256  ForceWare 262.99
KFA GeForce GTX 460 1,024MB
 £150 675 336  1,350 3,600 256  ForceWare 260.89
EVGA GeForce GTX 460 768MB £125 675 336  1,350 3,600 192  ForceWare 260.89

Test bench
CPU Intel Core i7 980X Extreme Edition (3.33GHz, 12MB L3 cache, hexa-core, LGA1366 - Turbo Boost enabled)
Motherboard ASUS P6X58D Premium
Motherboard BIOS 1002
Memory 6GB Corsair DDR3
Memory timings and speed 9-9-9-24-1T @ DDR3-1,600
PSU Corsair HX1000W
Monitor Dell 30in 3007WFP - 2,560x1,600px
Disk drive(s) Corsair Force F80 SSD
Operating system Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit

Benchmarks
Aliens vs. Predator DX11, 1,920x1,080 resolution, 2xAA, 16xAF, very high quality.
Just Cause 2 DX10,1,920x1,080 resolution, 4xAA, 16xAF, Dark Tower benchmark
Mafia II DX9, 1,920x1,080 resolution, AA on, 16x AF, built-in benchmark
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 DX11, 1,920x1,080 resolution, 4xAA, 16xAF, ultra quality, FRAPS-recorded benchmark.
Call of Duty: Black Ops DX9, 1,920x1,080 resolution, 4xAA, ultra quality, 16x AF, FRAPS-recorded benchmark.
Crysis Warhead DX10, 1,920x1,080 resolution, 4xAA, gamer quality, Frost map, FRAPS-recorded benchmark.
DiRT 2 DX11, 1,920x1,080 resolution, 4xAA, ultra quality, London map.
Civilization V DX11, 1,920x1,080 resolution, 4xAA, high quality, lategameview benchmark
Temperature To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record GPU core temperature both when idle and whilst playing Call of Duty: Black Ops. And, for a worst-case scenario, we throw in numbers from the FurMark stress test.
Power consumption To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record mains power draw both when idle and whilst playing Call of Duty: Black Ops. And, for a worst-case scenario, we throw in numbers from the FurMark stress test.
Noise A PCE-318 noise level meter is placed at the front of a Corsair 700D chassis, with side panel on.

Pricing is taken as the lowest in-stock listing of any card in that particular family. A stock-clocked Radeon HD 5870 performs the same if it's from one company or another.

We've tried to be as all-inclusive as possible with this review of three retail cards. Appreciating the £150-£165 street price of the trio the obvious comparison is the GeForce GTX 460 1,024MB in both standard and pre-overclocked flavours. A KFA2 card does the honours for the bone-stock model, while the excellent Gigabyte GTX 460 SOC provides numbers for the overclocked part.

We've kept things simple and benchmarked at the 1,920x1,080 resolution across no less than eight games, bringing our old and new graphics-card suites together. Further, we've now included the madly-popular Call of Duty: Black Ops into the suite.

All cards have also been subjected to accurate noise measurement by way of a PCE-318 meter: the results are interesting.

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