XFX HD6850 Dual Fan CFx review – ultimate gaming for £300 ?

We already knew that the AMD HD6850 was a great value for money card, but in CrossfireX they really come to life, delivering first rate gaming performance in modern titles, even across three screens at 5760×1080 resolution.

The XFX HD6850 Dual Fan is an exciting reboot on the reference design, delivering lower noise and improved thermals to the enthusiast masses. Not only that, but power consumption has also been tuned and these cards make the foundation for a very impressive CrossfireX system build.

In the early part of the review, we built several configurations, all costing under £300 and the XFX Crossfire system came out on top, beating the HD6970, GTX460 SLI and GTX570 solutions.

The XFX bundle is very spartan, but when you factor in a £144 inc vat asking price with a custom modified cooler there really is no better value mid range card right now on the market. The only thing missing is a Crossfire connector, which seems like a rather unusual omission to us.

Is there anything else we would recommend under £300? Well it is worth bearing in mind that the ultimate performance of the HD6850 in Crossfire will be related to driver profiles, so either HD 6970 or GTX 570 bears serious consideration if this is an issue for you. The HD6970 is a little bit slower overall, but it offers 3 panel gaming out of the box, so its our top choice right now.

XFX have really delivered a kick ass product with this low cost, modified HD6850 design. One card is enough for 1080p, but two in Crossfire means you can add another two monitors and totally transform your gaming experience.

KitGuru says: Another great product from the XFX team. A ‘Must Have' purchase, especially at this price point.

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