My new 6850: Benchmarks & experiences

Ok, so my new Asus-branded AMD Radeon 6850 arrived today, and i've installed it in my machine (after running a few quick benchmarks before first).

Initial impressions:
Beautiful packaging (not that it should matter, but it is nice).
A nice, solid looking card.

On plugging it in, (and bearing in mind it is replacing a Radeon 3870 which was being passively cooled with an Accelero heatsink), my rig is absolutely no louder. This thing is effectively silent :)

One stupid thing for me was that i didnt realise it needed 2 PCI-E power connectors, and I knew that the standard 6850's only needed one.... I only had one spare plug (the 3870 only needed one), and my box of modular cables is ... somewhere !! So i plugged the 1 PCI-E power lead in, prayed, and turned on... it works!

I have run a few benchmarks (more detailed results tomorrow), but my first impressions are mixed.
Probably by the fact that I was already running alot of games at high or even full resolution, but with reduced settings, and lower framerates.

My framerates have clearly improved, and in new games like Civ V it's now buttery smooth to move the map left, right etc.
Battlefield BC2 is probably the game that visually looks the most changed, it is now on much higher settings than before and is now very pretty.

I tried running a few synthetic Futuremark tests, but 3dmark vantage only tells you the results once (which I did a few weeks ago), and now wont play ball. I think it wants money, and it can kiss a part of me. 3dmark 11 is DX11 only, so wouldnt run before.

More details tomorrow. Night all.

Is it this one?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-a...i-i-dvi-d-hdmi

Mine only has a single PCI-Ex power connector. Apart from a few artifacts on the desktop after boot up (which soon disappear - putting this down to a driver issue) it's been working like a dream. Unfortunately it's in the son's PC, so I'm still working with an 8800GT (which the nvidia control panel keeps telling me that it has successfully recovered, well thanks alot but when it cr@ps out all the time it gets rather annoying!), and waiting on water cooling for the GTX560.

Yes .... are you saying yours only has 1 PCI-E power connection along the top row? That is very odd. I'll take a photo of mine perhaps later... will browse around the ASUS website now for clues

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Originally Posted by MSIC

Yes .... are you saying yours only has 1 PCI-E power connection along the top row? That is very odd. I'll take a photo of mine perhaps later... will browse around the ASUS website now for clues

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That's what I'm saying... Mine looks like the one from the Hexus review;
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=27537&page=4

Scroll down and you'll see a picture of the power connectors; there are two places on the PCB, but only one is populated with a PCI-Ex power socket.

Yep, that is very clear. Mine has two!
The ASUS website talks about a regular and a V2 card, although makes no mention of what the difference is. Clearly that is the difference.
I suppose i dont mind since mine appears to be working, at stock clocks, with just the one connector, and I have the option to plug a 2nd (if i find it) if i want to try overclocking - i just wish scan had been clear about this issue ;)

As I mentioned, the one I have suffers from artifacts. Usually on the desktop after boot up which until now I'd put down to dodgy drivers (everything is peachy in games etc. once the PC had "warmed up"). Maybe the card isn't getting enough go-go juice, so I'd be interested if you're getting similar with only a single PCI-Ex power cable plugged in.

I'm loath to return it, as I'm seemingly one of the few that doesn't like the power sockets mounted on the top of the card as my small case is somewhat vertically challenged in that department. I had to cut away at the 5 1/2 bay to fit in what I've got!

Unfortunately, I can't tell you which drivers are installed at the moment. I shoved in 10.12 but I couldn't tell you whether my son has upgraded them since.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ajones

Is it this one?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-a...i-i-dvi-d-hdmi

Mine only has a single PCI-Ex power connector. Apart from a few artifacts on the desktop after boot up (which soon disappear - putting this down to a driver issue) it's been working like a dream. Unfortunately it's in the son's PC, so I'm still working with an 8800GT (which the nvidia control panel keeps telling me that it has successfully recovered, well thanks alot but when it cr@ps out all the time it gets rather annoying!), and waiting on water cooling for the GTX560.

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possibly power issue, what psu are you using with it?
alternatively it may be the boot clocks of the card causing issues but when in windows the clocks alter and are fine.
you can use some of the tools around to interrogate the card profile. (GPUZ & RBE for example @ techpowerup.com to dump the bios to file and examine it)

can you post a photo please MSIC? I had not heard of any HD 6850s needing two power connectors even the "OC" ones.

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Originally Posted by c.ruel

can you post a photo please MSIC? I had not heard of any HD 6850s needing two power connectors even the "OC" ones.

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The HD6850 Toxic requires a pair of 6 pin power connectors.

OK chaps, will try to do over next 24 hours - sorry also for the lack of specific benchmarks, am getting v little time to myself at home right now, but have a day off tomorrow :)

It may have two but not need two, the 2nd is probably more for power stability than actual demand.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rabbid

possibly power issue, what psu are you using with it?
alternatively it may be the boot clocks of the card causing issues but when in windows the clocks alter and are fine.
you can use some of the tools around to interrogate the card profile. (GPUZ & RBE for example @ techpowerup.com to dump the bios to file and examine it)

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This is the spec, no manual OCing;

A+ BB Storm, Asus P5E-VM-HDMI, Win 7 Pro 64bit, Q6600, Coolermaster GeminiII, Corsair HX 620, Corsair P64 SSD, 2x HD501LJ Spinpoint T166, Asus 6850 DirectCu, 4x2GB Corsair TwinX XMS2

This feels like a thread hi-jack.... Sorry about that MSIC, if you want me to start a separate thread, let me know.

Don't worry ajones, i think i'm going to post a new one with my actual benchmarks when i post them later today :)

Here are 2 photos of my card sitting in my P180. (I know my cable layout is poor, but the original P180 wasnt so good for this).

http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC04870.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/...1/DSC04869.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MSIC

Don't worry ajones, i think i'm going to post a new one with my actual benchmarks when i post them later today :)

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Cheers blue! But, and this is my final word on the hi-jack other than the desire for a fuelled jet to be waiting for me at Heathrow filled to the gills with food, booze and scantilly dressed air hostesses (a pilot would probably be nice too, but he can be fully clothed)...

Installed drivers 11.2 and problems with artifacts seem to have gone. If I hear anything different, I will post in a thread all of my lonesome :)

I also love the asus 6850 I especially got it because i heard the Cu Core graphics Cards are quiet. Also I checked my one has only 1 6 pin connector.