Gigabyte Radeon HD 6870 OC Graphics Card Review

Final ThoughtsWe’ve taken a look at a few different 6870’s and whilst they have been impressive, none have quite reached the potential of this card. Throughout most of our tests, we found that it kept very close to the figures presented by the 6950’s which shows the potential behind this card is amazing and could save you quite a bit of money if you were originally looking at buying a 6900 series card.

Overclocking was a real highlight of this review as we were able to get a huge gain on the memory speed, but we are still left with a few questions into this card’s market place and positioning as we feel a 15MHz increase on the core clock speed and no increase whatsoever on the memory speed doesn’t warrant this card to be part of the Overclock range of cards from Gigabyte, especially after the memory increase we ascertained. We feel that Gigabyte could have quite easily bumped the memory speed up by 100MHz to offer more bang for buck to the general public and make the overall package seem more appealing without hindering any noise or heat issues over its current stature.

Price wise sees this card falling in at a bit more expensive than other 6870 based cards, but we still believe the value can be justified based on how close the performance to the 6950 cards we tested were, but this will all come down to personal consumer choice leaving the decision ultimately in your hands.

The cooler was good, but the claims of 29.6% decrease in cooling doesn’t live up to its hype when compared to the likes of the 6870 IceQ X turbo but small gains can be seen over a reference design but the Twin Frozr II from MSI can be had for around the same price, but once again this is personal preference and we’ve always been keen on the engineering behind Gigabyte products, so we will always recommend a product based on those merits.

Overall, the card is hit and miss and I’d honestly recommend getting it if you were originally looking for a 6950 or if it suddenly pops up on special at a reliable retailer, but if that’s not the case, then personally I’d sit back and wait for the prices to fall a bit and hold out on that much needed upgrade.

Pros:

• Reliable manufacturer
• Quality components used
• Close to 6950 performance
• Quite cooler
• Great styling
• Pre-overclocked

Cons:

• Pre-overclock amount is minuscule
• Quite pricey
• Cooling doesn’t live up to the hype

We would like to thank Gigabyte for supplying this sample
You can purchase this item from Scan