Introduction

HD 6850 Market Segment Analysis Radeon

HD 6790 GeForce

GTX 460 GeForce

GTX 460 Radeon

HD 6850 PowerColor

HD 6850 SCS3 Radeon

HD 6870 GeForce

GTX 560 GeForce

GTX 560 Ti Shader Units 800 336 336 960 960 1120 336 384 ROPs 16 24 32 32 32 32 32 32 Graphics Processor Barts GF104 GF104 Barts Barts Barts GF114 GF114 Transistors 1700M 1950M 1950M 1700M 1700M 1700M 1950M 1950M Memory Size 1024 MB 768 MB 1024 MB 1024 MB 1024 MB 1024 MB 1024 MB 1024 MB Memory Bus Width 256 bit 192 bit 256 bit 256 bit 256 bit 256 bit 256 bit 256 bit Core Clock 840 MHz 675 MHz 675 MHz 775 MHz 775 MHz 900 MHz 810 MHz 823 MHz Memory Clock 1050 MHz 900 MHz 900 MHz 1000 MHz 1000 MHz 1050 MHz 1002 MHz 1002 MHz Price $150 $150 $170 $170 $180 $200 $200 $230

AMD's Radeon HD 6850 has been on the market for quite a while and we have seen many non-reference designs in the last months. However, all those used active cooling to keep the card cool. PowerColor's new HD 6850 SCS3 is the first HD 6850 that does away with the fan and uses an all passive cooling solution.PowerColor has chosen to use a big triple slot heatsink on their card to manage the heat output of the card. In terms of performance characteristics nothing has changed, the card comes at AMD reference clock speeds. Price-wise, PowerColor is asking a $10 premium which seems quite reasonable considering the unique no-noise aspect of this product.