Today embargos have lifted on AMD’s HD 6000 graphics card range. More specifically, AMD has revealed the HD 6800 series. The first thing worth mentioning is that these are not the high-end HD 6000 cards. The HD 6870 and HD 6850 are meant for the average gamer who doesn’t have R4,500 to spend on a graphics card, but still wants solid performance. The HD 6900 series will be AMD’s high performance range, and more is expected on them later in the year.
The idea behind the HD 6870 and HD 6850 is to give HD 5800 series performance for a lower price. This has been achieved by optimizing the HD 5800 series architecture, however, neither of the new cards will match AMD’s monster single GPU HD 5870.
HD 6870 Specifications
Compute Power: 2.0 TFLOPS
Core Clock Speed: 900MHz
Stream Processors: 1120
ROPs: 32
Frame Buffer: 1GB GDDR5
Memory wifth/bandwidth speed: 256 bit, 4.2Bbps
Max/idle board power: 151W/19W
Power Connectors: Dual 6-pin
HD 6850 Specifications
Compute Power: 1.5 TFLOPS
Core Clock Speed: 775MHz
Stream Processors: 960
ROPs: 32
Frame Buffer: 1GB GDDR 5
Memory Width/speed: 256 but, 4.0 Gbps
Max/idel board power: 127W/19W
Power Connectors: single 6-pin
Pricing and availability
The HD 6850 has an EU retail price of €149.99 (R1,453), and the HD 6870 costs €199.99 (R1,938).
AMD SA confirmed that pricing on the cards will vary between manufacturers, but we can expect to see the HD 6850 retailing for around R2,499, and the HD 6870 for R2,999.
Prophecy has the cards listed, although they are not in stock just yet. The HD 6870 is available from Asus (R2891) and MSI (R3897). The HD 6850 is also available from ASUS (R2306) and MSI (R3377).
The cards are expected to start landing locally next week, and should be readily available in the first week of November.
Update
A Prophecy representative informed MyGaming that they are anticipating pricing to fall significantly once more manufacturers start bringing in stock.
Discuss the HD 6000 series in the forums
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