![xfx radeon hd 6850 double d xfx radeon hd 6850 double d](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CIqkYHePo-Q/maxresdefault.jpg)
Although the cards based on Barts are dubbed 68 and promise performance fairly similar to the products they replace, they should be less expensive, draw less power, and produce less heat than their predecessors.Ī block diagram of the Barts GPU.
![xfx radeon hd 6850 double d xfx radeon hd 6850 double d](https://www.scan.co.uk/images/products/1388426-a.jpg)
Barts’ mission is to address the value and performance sweet spot in the middle of the market, obviously opposing the GeForce GTX 460. That trend should be reinforced by some choices AMD has made along the way, especially the fact the Barts is actually smaller-and thus cheaper to produce-than the Cypress chip it replaces. If so, the latest chips from both AMD and Nvidia should be cheaper, faster, and more plentiful. AMD Graphics CTO Eric Demers told us last week that TSMC had finally gotten a handle on the problems with its 40-nm process technology over the summer. Yet in the midst of some real frustrations, there’s good news on several fronts. Both of the major GPU makers had to adjust their plans rather abruptly at that point, focusing on improvements to their chip designs to deliver additional goodness in this next generation of products. The funny thing about Barts is that it’s made using the exact same 40-nm fabrication process that has caused both AMD and Nvidia no end of trouble, mostly because AMD had little choice in the matter when TSMC outright canceled its plans for a 32-nm fabrication process.
#XFX RADEON HD 6850 DOUBLE D SERIES#
They are both based on a leaner, meaner new graphics chip code-named Barts, a part of AMD’s “Northern Islands” series of GPUs. Those cards, we now know, are called the Radeon HD 68, a pair of new offerings that come as part of AMD’s annual fall refresh of its GPU lineup. But AMD had, well, another card or two up its sleeve that would allow it to challenge the GTX 460 much more directly.
![xfx radeon hd 6850 double d xfx radeon hd 6850 double d](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yYffbNvQgyQ/hqdefault.jpg)
Oddly enough, AMD didn’t budge for a while, likely because supply constraints meant the firm was selling all of the graphics chips it could secure from TSMC. Soon, we were declaring the GeForce GTX 400 series the new kings of value and hinting strongly that AMD needed to cut Radeon prices to win our recommendation. Onboard the GeForce GTX 460, it gave the incumbent Radeons much stiffer competition. This GPU, derived from the Fermi architecture, was smaller and more tightly focused on achieving strong performance in today’s games.
#XFX RADEON HD 6850 DOUBLE D DRIVERS#
The new GeForces’ performance quietly crept upward as Nvidia tuned its drivers for this novel, unfamiliar architecture, and then, in the middle of July, the GF104 debuted. The outlook for Nvidia looked rather dim at that point, but a funny thing happened on the way to AMD’s coronation as the kings of the DX11 generation. They ran hotter and louder but not much faster than the Radeon HD 5870, not exactly a winning combination. Consumers groaned as a nearly unprecedented thing happened: prices on Radeon HD 5800-series cards rose above their introductory levels-and held there.Īt the very end of the first quarter of the year, the first Fermi-based GeForces finally arrived. That same chipmaking process was a major contributor to uncharacteristically long delays in Nvidia’s DX11 GPUs, which left a frustrated AMD with a market largely all to itself-a market it couldn’t fully supply. These new Radeons were quite good products, with a few strokes of brilliance like the Eyefinity multi-monitor gaming feature, but those highlights were counterbalanced by a frustrating series of supply problems stretching into 2010 caused by TSMC’s troubled 40-nm chip manufacturing process. At least, that’s always been my way of thinking, and we’ve had no shortage of intrigue, one-upsmanship, and swings of momentum in the GPU arena over the past year or so.ĪMD grabbed the lead with the debut of its DirectX 11-class Radeon HD 5000-series graphics processors last September, well ahead of long-time rival Nvidia’s competing chips. For a journalist, there’s nothing better than having a good story to tell.