PowerColor Radeon HD 6870 X2 graphics card review — Graphics
History suggests that dual-GPU graphics cards are all about optimum performance and maximum bragging rights. Recent examples — including the AMD Radeon HD 6990 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 — unite two top-end GPUs on a single PCB in order to contend for the title of world’s fastest graphics card.
They’re mighty impressive products, but pricing in excess of £500 puts them out of reach of most consumers. So what would happen if a manufacturer opted to pair two cheaper GPUs in an effort to hit a more realistic price point of around £300? Turns out that’s exactly what PowerColor decided to do, and it created this:
Dubbed the Radeon HD 6870 X2, this custom-designed beastie features a duo of AMD’s upper mid-range 6870 graphics processing units — codenamed Barts — hooked up internally via CrossFire to give the power of two.
Independently, the Radeon HD 6870 is far from being the quickest GPU available, but two of them running in tandem does result in some tantalising numbers. Doubling up on AMD’s reference design, this here card provides two GPUs running at 900MHz apiece, a total of 2,240 stream processors, 112 texture units and 64 ROPs. On top of that, each GPU is hooked up to 1GB of GDDR5 memory via a 256-bit interface, resulting in 2GB of total on-board memory.
The numbers suggest that the Radeon HD 6870 X2 will be faster than any single-GPU graphics card currently on the market. And it’ll be cheaper, too. While NVIDIA’s single-GPU GeForce GTX 580 will set you back somewhere in the region of £350, PowerColor’s touting a suggested retail price of £314 for the dual-GPU 6870 X2 and it’s throwing in a free copy of DiRT 3, too.
This is a card that clearly has the GTX 580 in its firing line, but there’s a small problem with the suggested retail price — you could go out and buy two standard Radeon HD 6870s and pair them in CrossFire at a cost of roughly £280. So, aside from the bundled game, why pay more?
The simple answer would be convenience.
By pairing two GPUs on a single PCB, PowerColor’s Radeon HD 6870 X2 requires only a single PCIe x16 slot, and if you’ve only two slots available, this then leaves room for future upgrades.
But there are disadvantages, too. In order to squeeze all of the components onto one card, the length of the 6870 X2 has been stretched to 300mm (some 50mm longer than a standard 6870) and two eight-pin PCIe power connectors are required to keep both GPUs topped up with juice.
What’s also interesting is that PowerColor has opted to use a Lucid bridge chip to pair the two on-board GPUs in favour of the traditional AMD/PLX solution. PowerColor has told us that the «Lucid bridge chip has much better availability with lower price,» and adds that «the performance difference is not considerable».
Then there’s the small matter of cooling. Two GPUs on a single PCB are a recipe for heat, so PowerColor has conjured up an impressive heatsink that’s tasked with keeping both chips in check.
Each GPU makes direct contact with three ultra-thick copper heatpipes, and these are then routed to a card-long array of aluminium fans that’s cooled by two PWM fans.
The heatsink looks impressive, but the exterior plastic shroud does feel a little flimsy — and it’s probably that thin shell that helps keep the card’s total weight down to 858g. For reference’s sake, that’s actually lighter than a single Radeon HD 6870, which tips our scales at 903g.
Intrigued? We were, so read on to find out how the 6870 X2 stands up to today’s range of high-end competitors.
AMD Radeon HD 6870 X2 Specs, Price, and FPS in Games
Build a PC
| 1 GB | GDDR5 | 256-bit | 134.4 GB/s |
| Memory Size | Memory Type | Memory Bus | Memory Bandwidth |
|---|
Pixel Fillrate
28.8 GPixel/s
5%
Texture Fillrate
50.
4 GTexel/s
3%
Availability
MSRP in USD: $520
No items available
TOP 6 Games With AMD Radeon HD 6870 X2
Specifications
| General | |
|---|---|
| Release Date | Jul 8th, 2011 |
| Generation | Northern Islands |
| Outputs | 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort |
| Power Connectors | None |
| Power Consumption | 300 W |
| Performance | |
|---|---|
| Base Clock Speed | 900 MHz |
| Memory Clock Speed | 1050 MHz |
| Pixel Fillrate | 28.8 GPixel/s |
| Texture Fillrate | 50.4 GTexel/s |
| Memory | |
|---|---|
| Memory Size | 1 GB |
| Memory Type | GDDR5 |
| Memory Bus | 256-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 134. 4 GB/s |
Find out which of the 2 GPUs performs better, view a side-by-side specification comparison.
GeForce RTX 4070 Ti
$819.99
GeForce RTX 3050
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GeForce RTX 3050
$245.99
GeForce RTX 3060
$309.99
GeForce RTX 3050
$245.99
Radeon RX 7900 XTX
$1,069.99
GeForce RTX 3050
$245.99
Radeon RX 7900 XT
$799.99
GeForce RTX 3050
$245.99
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Video card Radeon HD 6870 X2
Description
AMD started Radeon HD 6870 X2 sales on July 8, 2011 at a suggested price of $520. This is a desktop video card based on TeraScale 2 architecture and 40 nm manufacturing process, primarily aimed at gamers. It has 1 GB of GDDR5 memory at 4.2 GHz, and coupled with a 256-bit interface, this creates a bandwidth of 134.4 Gb / s.
In terms of compatibility, this is a two-slot PCIe 2.0 x16 card. The length of the reference version is 304 mm. An additional power cable is not required for connection, and the power consumption is 300 W.
We don’t have test results for the Radeon HD 6870 X2.
General
Information about the type (desktop or laptop) and architecture of Radeon HD 6870 X2, as well as when sales started and cost at the time.
| Place in the performance rating | does not participate | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | 90 022 TeraScale 2 (2009-2015) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GPU | Barts | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Type | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Release date | July 8, 2011 (12 years ago) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Release price | $520 04 Radeon HD 6870 X2’s general performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. They indirectly speak of Radeon HD 6870 X2’s performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.
Compatibility and dimensions
Information on Radeon HD 6870 X2 compatibility with other computer components. Useful for example when choosing the configuration of a future computer or to upgrade an existing one. For desktop video cards, these are the interface and connection bus (compatibility with the motherboard), the physical dimensions of the video card (compatibility with the motherboard and case), additional power connectors (compatibility with the power supply).
Operational memoryParameters of the memory installed on Radeon HD 6870 X2 — type, size, bus, frequency and bandwidth. For video cards built into the processor that do not have their own memory, a shared part of the RAM is used.
Video outputsTypes and number of video connectors present on Radeon HD 6870 X2. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference video cards, since for laptop ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model.
API supportAPIs supported by Radeon HD 6870 X2, including their revisions.
Benchmark tests
These are the results of Radeon HD 6870 X2 rendering performance tests in non-gaming benchmarks. We don’t have any test results for the Radeon HD 6870 X2. Competitor from NVIDIAWe believe that the nearest equivalent to Radeon HD 6870 X2 from NVIDIA is GeForce GTX 660 OEM. GeForce GTX 660 OEM Compare Other video cardsHere we recommend several video cards that are more or less similar in performance to the reviewed one. GeForce GTX 660 OEM Compare Recommended Processors According to our statistics, these processors are most commonly used with the Radeon HD 6870 X2. 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% 10% User ratingHere you can see the rating of the video card by users, as well as put your own rating. Tips and comments
Here you can ask a question about the Radeon HD 6870 X2, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Quick Test: VTX3D Radeon HD 6870 X2The Radeon HD 7970 marks the next generation. But even after the appearance of the first «Southern Islands» crystals, new video cards of the Radeon HD 6000 family continue to enter the market. And today we offer you to get acquainted with the VTX3D Radeon HD 6870 X2 video card, which has something to offer. The AMD Radeon HD 7970 came out a few days ago, and the «younger» version will be on sale in the near future, but the representatives of the Radeon HD 6000 line are still relevant. Just one of them is the VTX3D Radeon HD 6870 X2. The video card, as you can guess from the name, is the manufacturer’s own solution, so it is not officially approved by AMD. At the same time, we got a very close analog of the PowerColor Radeon HD 6870 X2, which has already been in our test lab. This version of the VTX3D graphics card is equipped with two Barts GPUs, which are cooled by a dual-slot cooler with two 75mm fans and six thick heat pipes. » Photostrecke As we already mentioned, the VTX3D Radeon HD 6870 X2 uses two Barts XT chips. They are still manufactured by TSMC on the 40nm process and provide 1120 stream processors in the maximum configuration. The latter are habitually organized into 14 SIMD blocks. Each SIMD is connected to a TMU with four texture units, which gives a total of 56 texture units for the GPU. Eight 128 MB memory chips are connected to each GPU, which gives a total of 2048 MB of memory for the VTX3D Radeon HD 6870 X2 video card. As usual, the two memory chips are connected together over a 64-bit interface, resulting in the GPU working with memory over a scalable 256-bit interface. Each memory controller works with eight raster operation pipelines, which gives 32 ROPs per GPU. As with the Radeon HD 6870, the graphics processor runs at 900 MHz and the memory at 2100 MHz. For a video card with two GPUs, the manufacturer VTX3D decided not to overclock, leaving it to the discretion of the buyers. The new dual-GPU graphics card uses a dual-slot cooler with numerous aluminum fins, six large heat pipes, and two 75mm fans. We ran a typical set of tests, and below you will find out how the video card performed in them. But first, let me give you some basic information:
Clearly, there is no reference layout for a video card. But the frequencies of the VTX3D Radeon HD 6870 X2 900 and 2100 MHz are the same as those of the competing video card from PowerColor. |
700 million 
4 Gb/s 
The overall score is set from 0 to 100, where 100 corresponds to the fastest video card at the moment. 
Both GPUs work with 1120 stream processors (224 5D) and 1024 MB of GDDR5 video memory. In terms of clock frequencies, we, again, observe similarities with the PowerColor video card. The processors run at 900 MHz and the memory runs at 2100 MHz. 
7 billion 