Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3 Graphics Card Review
Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3 – This Sapphire rendition of AMD’s Radeon HD 6870 offers a tad more oomph for an extra £10-£15. It has an advanced cooling system, factory-overclocked core clock speeds, and comes bundled with the game Dirt 3. The main attraction is the Sapphire’s dual-fan cooler, however, which considerably improves the user experience.
The cooling system is extremely effective. The standard 6870 has a thermal design power (TDP) figure of 151W, We don’t have a figure for the Sapphire, but our tests showed that this HD 6870 typically saved around 32-36W. Noise levels were minimal, with even heavy loads inducing little more than a hum from the card.
The Sapphire features the same connections as the standard HD 6870, with an HDMI and a pair of DVl ports joined by a brace of Mini DisplayPorts. Two six-pin power connectors are required.
The core clock has been upgraded ever so slightly from 900MHz to 920MHz. but the 1,050MHz memory clock and 1G8 of GDDR5 RAM haven’t changed from the original specification.
The card is ripe for overclocking. but the onus is on you rather than Sapphire to eke out the extra speed. Fortunately, the 6870 \s already a decent card, featuring a 256bit memory interface.
The drivers have also been improved, and yourn see a few extra frames in Dirt 3 at most resolutions. At 1680×1050 and 1920×1200, we recorded 3T.2fps and 25.3fps in Crysis. The standard card scored 28.9fps and 23.8fps respectively.
In BattleForge, the figures increased from 33.8fps and 26,5fps for the standard version, to 36.4fps and 28.7fps for this Sapphire. In Hawxr we recorded 154fps and 114fps, up from 146fps and tlffps.
The Sapphire is not attractive, with two fans covering most of the surface and leaving little room for the pictures and logos Sapphire tends to emblazon across its cards. Of course, you’re unlikely to be opening up your PC case to admire its graphics card too often.
Verdict
The Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3 doesn’t offer a fantastic leap forwards in performance over the original 6870, but it has untapped potential for those who want to overclock further. The cooling system does a great job of keeping down noise levels.
Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3 – This Sapphire rendition of AMD’s Radeon HD 6870 offers a tad more oomph for an extra £10-£15. It has an advanced cooling system, factory-overclocked core clock speeds, and comes bundled with the game Dirt 3. The main attraction is the Sapphire’s dual-fan cooler, however, which considerably improves the user experience.
The cooling system is extremely effective. The standard 6870 has a thermal design power (TDP) figure of 151W, We don’t have a figure for the Sapphire, but our tests showed that this HD 6870 typically saved around 32-36W. Noise levels were minimal, with even heavy loads inducing little more than a hum from the card.
The Sapphire features the same connections as the standard HD 6870, with an HDMI and a pair of DVl ports joined by a brace of Mini DisplayPorts. Two six-pin power connectors are required.
The core clock has been upgraded ever so slightly from 900MHz to 920MHz. but the 1,050MHz memory clock and 1G8 of GDDR5 RAM haven’t changed from the original specification.
The card is ripe for overclocking. but the onus is on you rather than Sapphire to eke out the extra speed. Fortunately, the 6870 \s already a decent card, featuring a 256bit memory interface.
The drivers have also been improved, and yourn see a few extra frames in Dirt 3 at most resolutions. At 1680×1050 and 1920×1200, we recorded 3T.2fps and 25.3fps in Crysis. The standard card scored 28.9fps and 23.8fps respectively.
In BattleForge, the figures increased from 33.8fps and 26,5fps for the standard version, to 36.4fps and 28.7fps for this Sapphire. In Hawxr we recorded 154fps and 114fps, up from 146fps and tlffps.
The Sapphire is not attractive, with two fans covering most of the surface and leaving little room for the pictures and logos Sapphire tends to emblazon across its cards. Of course, you’re unlikely to be opening up your PC case to admire its graphics card too often.
Verdict
The Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3 doesn’t offer a fantastic leap forwards in performance over the original 6870, but it has untapped potential for those who want to overclock further. The cooling system does a great job of keeping down noise levels.
