Pre-overclocked HD 6870s Due Soon; HD 6950 1GB in Mid-February

[Tharic-Nar]

AMD has given us a heads-up that there are a few new Radeon HD 6000 series cards en route, one being an official reference release and the others being pre-overclocked versions of cards that have been on the market for a few months. In the weeks ahead, we should be seeing PowerColor, Sapphire and XFX all releasing pre-overclocked Radeon HD 6870s, with varying clocks.

You can read the rest of our post and discuss here.

 

[TheCrimsonStar]

I currently have my gigabyte 6870 at 950Mhz core / 1150Mhz mem and haven't touched voltage.

 

[Optix]

LAWL @ factory overclocks. I will bet you my 6850's that I can smoke ANY factory overclock applied to these cards. These cards are made for people who don't know how to overclock and are willing to throw money at an instant performance boost rather than take an hour or two, read and try it themselves.

 

[Doomsday]

wot if i just use my ATI overdrive to overclock my GPU?!? is it a good tool?!?

 

[Optix]

Overdrive has a safe limit set that can keep you from hitting the maximum overclock on your card. Grab Sapphire's TriXX or MSI's Afterburner.

 

[TheCrimsonStar]

wot if i just use my ATI overdrive to overclock my GPU?!? is it a good tool?!?

that program is a joke. I used the auto and it put my 6870 at 910/1060. lol. Used Afterburner to get my card to 950/1150 with the fan set at a constant 40%

 

[Optix]

My 6850 is running at 1015 core/1200 memory, which is WAY over what Overdrive would allow. TCS is right. As far as I'm concerned, it's a fail safe for people who would push their card too hard and end up requesting a pointless RMA because they get lock ups/restarts. Some poeple just should not overclock because they don't take the time to do it properly.

 

[TheCrimsonStar]

My 6850 is running at 1015 core/1200 memory, which is WAY over what Overdrive would allow.

did you overvolt at all? BC2 freezes for me if I bring it up above 1150 memory

 

[Optix]

Yep. I have it .15 but like Rob said in his review, it may not be needed but was done simply because it may aid in stability without increasing temperatures. Those clocks passed a 1 hour run of OCCT with only a 2 or 3 degree increase so I'm happy with those clocks.

Anything further and I get crashing. I did move up to .25 but did not really have a chance to do any testing. Maybe I'll do that when I get some free time.

Ha! Free time! What the hell is that?!