XFX HD6850 Black Edition Review @ 1ghz : World First Exclusive!

The XFX HD6850 Black Edition is a phenomenal mid range board and our particular sample could be pushed past 1ghz to 1025mhz … a staggering 205mhz core increase, translating into a 25 percent core clock increase.

With our Core i7 950 system, a reference HD6850 scores around 12,500 points in 3DMark- the XFX Black Edition scores around 13,500. With our final overclock however this increased to 16,000 points, putting it ahead of the fantastic MSI Talon Attack GTX460 which earned our top award on the 18th of October.

We would generally say that buying a preoverclocked card is a waste of money, after all there are a plethora of free tools to enhance clock speeds out of the box. With every Black Edition card we have tested however it is clear that XFX really are hand picking the cream from the production line, only after they pass the most arduous of tests.

We have five HD6850's samples here from various manufacturers, and none of them have managed to get past 950mhz core. While it would be flippant of us to say that all XFX HD6850 Black Edition cards will peak at 1025mhz, we would be almost certain that the majority of them would hit 1ghz. With several layers of quality selection and stress testing you will be certain to end up with the best HD6850 on the market.

Pricing has not yet been confirmed but we have been told that there will be an approximate £20 overhead over the reference design. With the XFX HD6850 selling for £157 inc vat on Scan, we would therefore assume that for under £180 you could be the proud owner of a pimped out HD6850 video card (we may be slightly out on price, but its guesswork until XFX confirm officially).

KitGuru says: It really doesn't get much better than this in the sub £180 zone.

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