The card
Going through the review machine today is a mid-range graphics that's been given the DD XXX treatment by XFX (how many capital letters?)
What you're looking at is a Radeon HD 6870 1GB DD card that currently retails for £150. Almost identical in appearance to the reviewed HD 6950 2GB and sporting dual-fan cooling, this XXX clocks in at 925MHz core and 4,200MHz memory. The numbers sound impressive until you realise that it's only the core that's been overclocked, and by just 25MHz above reference.
It's clear that XFX is putting a different spin on marketing these days, getting away from super-high clocks and looking to differentiate based on company-specific features.
The cover goes all the way along the 9.5in-long card, but the actual cooler is a little smaller. Very much like the HD 6950 model, this one also uses three core-touching heatpipes that spread the GPU-transferred heat.
A standard HD 6870 1GB, packed with 1,120 shaders, has a maximum board TDP of 151W. XFX's might be a touch higher, given the slightly faster clock, and the two 6-pin connectors provide ample juice to increase speed and voltages farther. However, after testing with two of our most-used overclocking programs - Sapphire TriXX and MSI Afterburner - there seems to be no method by which to adjust voltage, which is a shame.
Radeon 6800-class GPUs feature a single CrossFireX finger on the board. This means multi-GPU usage is limited to two cards, though this is no bad thing as users experience diminishing performance returns by adding further cards, for example on the HD 6900-series. Two of these cards will set you back about £300, or Radeon HD 6970 2GB money.
It's no surprise to see the backplate is identical to the HD 6950 DD XXX's. There's single- and dual-link DVI, HDMI v1.4a and two mini-DisplayPort v1.2 connectors.
Nearing the end of the lull between graphics-card architectures - the HD 7000 is due soon - is a good time to shift surplus GPUs. XFX's is neither the cheapest nor fastest HD 6870 1GB card available, so its mix of cooling prowess, quietness and overclocking will determine if it's a good buy. Read on to find out.
