ASUS HD6870 Crossfire EXCLUSIVE Review

Conclusion

We postulated at the start of the review whether the HD6870 really could be the new King of the rarely mentioned and quite wordy “two cards for the price-of-one but with buckets of performance” sector of the market previously held with a fist of iron by the 4770xf and then 5770xf.

So does it?

Unquestionably.

Whilst the performance of the single card is still not bad, alright, pretty good, and other slightly disappointed adjectives, when paired with another it’s breathtaking.

In 3D Mark Vantage it leaves all of the single cards of the last generation for dead, including the HD5970. In many tests it is up there with a HD5870 Crossfire setup, such has been the improvement in the quality of Crossfire scaling.

The extra memory overclock we managed to obtain really gave us a benefit too. With a pure Core overclock there is very little to be gained, but once the memory is pushed upwards too there definitely is a bit of performance to be had. Just not mind-blowing levels.

Crossfire is really where it’s at if you’re looking to upgrade from a 5 Series card, or even switching across to ATI from nVidia. If you don’t plan on going Crossfire then we’d wait for the full-fat 69xx cards to appear.

Results are definitely good enough that the ASUS 6870 deserves a Bronze award, and we’re also going to award our Performance award for it in Crossfire as there is no denying the potential there.

       and for Crossfire 

Thanks to ASUS for supplying the 6870 for todays testing. Discuss in our Forums