HIS AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB – Our First Review

Conclusions

AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series

AMD relies on brand new products and strategy to compete in today’s DirectX 11-dominated market. Slightly different from the introduction of the HD 5000 series a while back –when the first line of the series to be released was a high-end product- this time they get the HD 6000 series started off with a mainstream card. This kind of strategy isn’t exactly new, as it was also used for the HD 4000 series. The HD 6800 series is positioned at the same spot currently occupied by the GeForce GTX 460 series of GPU from NVIDIA, which also happens to be one of the most important categories of the market for both brands since this particular segment usually contains well-balanced cards in terms of price-performance ratio, sought after by numerous consumers.
As the latest offerings from AMD, the Radeon HD 6000 series are equipped with a number of new features, including the AMD HD3D, UVD 3, and HDMI 1.4a. You can use some of these features immediately, but some others would each require a specific third-party application and/ or device before they can be deployed. Take, for example, the AMD HD3D that supports the Blu-ray 3D content. Before you can enjoy 3D effects on your screen, you will need a Blue-ray 3D player software, and a 3D monitor complimented with a 3D glasses.

(HIS) AMD Radeon HD 6870

The AMD Radeon HD 6870, codenamed “Barts XT”, is one of the two new graphics chips belonging to the HD 6800 series. It currently retails at around US$ 239 and goes nearly head-to-head with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which now sells for around US$ 199 (after previously being offered for around US$ 229).

According to our test results, the AMD Radeon HD 6870 offers good performance for its price. In all our DirectX 11 benchmark softwares –with one exception for Metro 2033- the frame rate stayed well above 30 FPS. From the performance stand point, it’s toe-to-toe with the GeForce GTX 460 1 GB. In Dirt 2, the GeForce GTX 460 1 GB gets ahead by a meager 2 FPS difference, while in Alien VS Predator, Lost Planet 2, and Metro 2033, the AMD Radeon HD 6870 takes over the lead. As for DirectX 9 and DirectX 10-based games, the AMD Radeon HD 6870 has more than enough muscle to run them without any noticeable slowdown.

Unfortunately, Radeon HD 6870’s stock cooler generates a lot of noise when operating in high speed mode. Changing the fan setting to “Auto” reduces the sound significantly, but consequently, the temperature could rise to well over 80 degree Celsius under full load conditions. Let’s just hope that there would be some third-party coolers that are both quieter and better at suppressing the heat from this product.

HIS AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB

• Manufacturer : HIS
• Info : www.hisdigital.com
• Price :
• Indonesian Distributor :
• Phone :

TECHNICAL DATA

• Graphics Chip : AMD HD Radeon HD 6870
• Interface : PCI Express 2.1 x16
• Memory Size : 1024 MB
• Core Clock : 900 MHz
• Memory Clock : 4200 MHz
• Stream Processor : 1120
• D-Sub Output : N/A
• DVI Output : Yes (x2)
• HDMI Output : Yes
• Display Port Output : Yes
• Memory Type : GDDR5
• Memory Interface : 256-bit
• Package Contents: Driver Disc, Multi-lingual Quick Installation Guide, HIS Stickers, Molex to 6-pin Power Converters (x2), DVI to D-sub converter, and Crossfire Bridge.