The HD 6800 series reviews are in and they are in your e-stores. The most important thing about this launch is that AMD has screwed with the meaning of their 800 series. The 6800s have been designed to be mid range cards instead of top range cards. People who are not aware of this change will assume that the HD 6800 cards are much faster than the GTX 460 and GTX 470. According to what I've read both cards are indeed faster than both GTX 460 models but the HD 6870 only trades blows with the GTX 470. Depending on the game, sometimes the GTX 470 wins, and sometime the HD 6870 wins.
One more thing that I want to point out is some new connectors that the HD 6870 is sporting. The reference HD 6870 comes with two mini DisplayPort version 1.2 connectors, one HDMI 1.4a connector and two DVI connectors of which one is single link, the other dual-link. Check out the middle of this page at PC Perspective to see all the connection possibilities these connectors allow.
All the HD 6870s out there right now have stock cooling, but here are the sexiest HD 6850s that I've seen so far:
Senior Member
it is a fairly large boost in performance
considering how much was trimmed down, less transistors, etc.
and its weird considering how much less this is compared to a 5850/70 and some of the 6850's are almost as low as a 5770...
That's His Name so Don't Wear it Out!
Senior Member
they uh have a few generations before they have that problem again, lol
however AMD's renaming scheme isn't quite as bad just a small shift
Member
Senior Member
x9xx - high range
x8xx - mid range
x7xx - low range
with both Intel and AMD putting GPU's on their CPU's it'll change the entire low end of the market