HD 6870 and HD 6850 cards from MAXSUN

October 21 2010. Tomorrow AMD launches a new generation of DX11 cards — HD6800 series.
One of the main AMD partners in China, MAXSUN, decided to share its HD 6800 line-up and details. At the start, there will be three models: Terminator MAXSUN HD6870, Terminator MAXSUN HD6850 and MAXSUN HD6850 Black Knight.

Terminator MAXSUN HD6870 is a reference design card with black and red housing and company’s logo spinning on the fan. The heatsink covers all main card’s components: graphics core, memory, power elements, while providing efficient component cooling and the ability blow the heat outside quickly. Terminator MAXSUN HD6870 or Barts XT based on 40 nm core, with 1120 stream processors , supports DirectX 11 API and Shader Model 5.0. Memory config: 1024MB of GDDR5, eight 0.4ns Hynix chips size 32M * 32bit, 256bit memory bus width. The clocks for core and memory are 900MHz and 4200MHz, respectively. Power subsystem uses 4 +1 +1 phase electrical design. The cards has support for “EyeFinity” multi-screen technology and features the following output connectors:two DVI, two mini DisplayPorts and one HDMI interface.

Terminator MAXSUN HD6850 cards features AMD design PCB. The overall style is the same as HD6870, although, the card is shorter. HD6850, code-named Barts PRO is junior HD 6800 model with hte following specs, 960 stream processors, supports DX11 and SM5.0 effects, carries
1024MB of GDDR5 memory (same Hynix 0.4ns chips) via 256bit bus interface. Default operating clocks are775/4000MHz. Power supply is organized with a 3 +1 +1 phase design. The PCB features closed type high quality solid capacitors and inductors in order to ensure the perfect work of graphic cards. HD6850 also supports “Eyefinity” technology, has two DVI, two miniDisplayPort and an HDMI outputs located on the back of the card.

MAXSUN HD6850 Black Knight has non-reference design board. The first thing to note is that there is a bit different display output configuration: DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI, VGA. Another interesting thing is power subsystem, which, as stated, is going to be 7 +1 phased thus ensuring card’s stable operation at higher clocks. Solid capacitors, inductors and closed ferrite material are also used here.
The cooling system is also different. It features large heatsink with four heat pipes. The heatsink covers all major components, providing quiet and efficient cooling of the card. However, the main difference from the reference design cards is Black Knight’s default clocks — 888/4200MHz — which almost the same as HD 6870, This can result in more than 20% performance boost. The card also features 1024Mb/256bit of GDDR5 memory.