XFX HD 6790 Review (dual fan)

AMD's HD5770 was a great card, and one I used myself extensively inside a media center for over a year. While it was not a powerhouse solution, it was more than useable for modest late night gaming sessions on a big television. The HD6790 is certainly a noticeable upgrade for HD5770 users, offering improved frame rates and enhanced support for multiple screens within a productivity or work based environment.

The XFX HD6790 is significantly better than the reference AMD design … the custom dual fan, tri heatpipe cooler is the best we have tested for this specific range of cards.

When we look at performance, the £120 Nvidia GTX550 ti simply struggles to compete against the closely priced HD6790. We tried to be as balanced as possible, using four high profile TWIMTBP titles, and to be fair the GTX550 ti won all of these, including HAWX 2 and Far Cry 2. Other games such as Home Front, Resident Evil 5 and Alien V Predator fared better on the AMD hardware.

There is no clear way to indicate ‘overall' performance, but by carefully weighing in a variety of results we can come to some educated conclusions. Many people rely on 3DMark Vantage or 3DMark 11 to get an ‘overview' of hardware performance. We feel there is value in both benchmarks, but neither should be used as a final buying decision. What we can say however is that the HD6790 won both benchmarks, showing that both DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 performance is class leading at this price point.

The key talking point for us today however is the CrossfireX performance, which as we noted before is exceptional. To get it all into context we need to look at some of the results against the high end graphics cards. Two XFX HD6790's cost £230 inc VAT which is £170 less than a GTX580. In many cases, a Crossfired HD6790 configuration manages to outperform the high end Nvidia board. This won't always be the case, but as an inexpensive performance gaming solution there is really some potential for an end user. Buy a card now, then when funds permit, upgrade later for some kick ass frame rate delivery.

The XFX cooler really is fantastic, and while we liked the Sapphire HD6790 cooler, this is even better. The dual fan and direct contact heatpipe design ensure the lowest temperatures we have recorded – around 60c when gaming is a class leading result.

In this lower end sector, the price is much more important than in the high end … margins are tighter, people are always on the lookout for bargains and the climate right now is tough. The XFX HD6790 graphics card is retailing for only £113 inc vat on Scan, which we think is one of the best deals in recent months. The only other card we would think might prove a problem, is the relaunched Sapphire HD5850 Xtreme Edition which is faster, but last generation.

Pros:

• cooler is the best in this class
• noise levels are very low
• power drain is optimised
• CrossfireX performance is fantastic, challenging high end boards
• Its only £113

Cons:

• bundle isn't great.

KitGuru says: The twin fan cooler sets this apart from the competition, it is brilliant.

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