It's been almost a year that AMD announced its HD5XXX series graphics cards. Now ASUS already has the HD6850 DirectCU ready which carries a non standard cooler and is one of the major players in the midrange sector. Customers should really be aware that the HD6850 isn't the direct successor of the HD5850 it is more the successor of the HD5770.
We'd like to thank ASUS for providing us with the testsample.
The HD6850 carries a cheaper version of the GPU which before the launch has been known as "Barts". On the ASUS HD6850 we find this GPU with a clock speed of 790 MHz which is a bit above the reference value AMD recommends for this chip. It's very likely that ASUS decided to overclock this GPU because the used their own "DirectCU" cooler which works more efficient than AMDs reference cooler. Furthermore the card also works with the ASUS SmartDoctor Tool which makes adjusting voltages and clock frequencies possible.
On the following pages we will show you the strenghts and weaknesses of the ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU.
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