With the HD6850 and HD6870, AMD is using a new GPU called Barts, has added new technology to enhance the overall experience, and has made the pricing more competative.

Another significant difference comes in terms of energy efficiency. At idle the EAH6870 drew about the same amount of power as the HD5850 and the HD5870, but under full load the EAH6870 drew about 55 Watts (or 19%) less power. That is a big difference, which might translate to some savings on your electric bill, but will definitely help keep the card cool and quiet.

Test Setup:

• CPU : Intel Core i7-920
• CPU Cooler : Cooler Master Z600
• HDD : Seagate BaRAM : acuda XT 2TB
• Memory : Crucial Ballistix Tracer 6GB DDR3-1600MHz
• Motherboard : ASUS P6X58D-E
• Optical Drive : Toshiba slim DVD drive
• OS : Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
• PSU : Nesteq EECS 700 Watt

Instead of manually trying to find the maximum speed for overclocking, the Auto-Tune feature of the Overdrive can handle this as well. After what seemed like an eternity of tuning and testing, it finally choses a GPU core speed of 990MHz and a memory speed of 1215MHz.