XFX HD6850 CrossFireX review

When nVidia released the GTX460, everyone was literally blown away – this was a mid range card that utterly dominated the market and delivered staggering levels of performance, particularly when overclocked. AMD had left a big hole in its range, from the 5770 to the 5850 – with only the lightweight 5830 offering any resistance in the £130 to £200 market. The headroom on nVidia's GTX460 card was incredible, with voltage tweakable solutions today hitting 1GHz on the core. AMD haven't been asleep on the job though and the new 6800 series is a direct reply to the serious questions the GTX460 has been asking.

XFX are one of AMD's key partners now, having parted company with nVidia to concentrate solely on AMD graphics cards. For this launch article today we have decided to concentrate on the XFX HD6850, a card which features a custom cooling solution. XFX have told us that this card will be sold for around £155 inc vat – meaning it directly targets reference clocked GTX 460's and overclocked 768mb models.

Firstly, we need to address the naming conventions, the HD6850 isn't a direct replacement for the HD5850, after all the HD5850 was initially released around £250, not £150.

AMD are focusing on tight price points and ensuring they try and deliver the best value for money products to market.

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