Review Gigabyte GV-R685D5-1GD: A Cooler Alternative to the Standard HD 6850

Conclusions

Despite its standard clocks, Gigabyte’s GV-R685D5-1GD remains interesting nonetheless. Its Windforce 2x HSF provides better cooling compared to Radeon HD 6850’s reference heatsink fan (this could turn up to be helpful, in case you want to apply some overclocking on your own). This cooler is also relatively silent, due to the slightly tilted fan units.

Like every other HD 6850-based graphics card, the GV-R685D5-1GD put up some good show across all our tests. Frame rate stayed well above 30 FPS in most DirectX 11 benchmarks, except in Metro 2033 under certain settings. As in DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 software, the frame rate remained high at all times. Suffice to say, with the GV-R685D5-1GD, Gigabyte provides a good alternative to standard HD 6850 cards, thanks to its cooler and quieter Windforce 2X HSF.

Pros

• Windforce 2X HSF effectively dissipates heat
• Lower operating temps and shorter PCB board compared to reference-based HD 6850s
• Good performance for a graphics card of its class

Cons

• Standard frequencies, no factory overclock

Gigabyte GV-R685D5-1GD

• Manufacturer : Gigabyte
• Info : www.gigabyte.com
• Indonesian Distributor : PT. Nusantara Jaya Teknologi
• Phone : (021) 6018218

TECHNICAL DATA

• Chip : AMD Radeon HD 6850
• Interface : PCI Express 2.1 x16
• Memory Size : 1024 MB
• Core Clock : 775 MHz
• Memory Clock : 4000 MHz
• Stream Processor : 960
• D-Sub Output : N/A
• DVI Output : Yes (x2 )
• HDMI Output : Yes
• Display Port Output : Yes
• Memory Type : GDDR5
• Memory Interface : 256-bit
• Included Accessories : Driver Disc, Manual Book, Crossfire Bridge, Molex to 6-pin and DVI-to D-Sub converters.