Building gaming rigs these days can be a bit confusing, with the continuous launch of new cards on virtually a weekly basis it seems it can be hard to sift through the masses and find the right fit for you. Asus has always been a brand I personally trust for putting out quality products so when they offered me a 6850 with their own brand of aftermarket cooling I jumped at the chance. I have seen a lot of cards come and go but when it comes to my systems my permanent cards have always been Asus with the exception of one 5870 from PowerColor  PCS++ series which I was very impressed with. Today we will be running the numbers on the Asus EAH6850 HD Direct CU graphics card and we will see if it is a good fit for your next build:

Provided by: Asus

Price: $221.99

Closer Look(and Testing):

All benchmarks have been set as default settings:

ASUS Exclusive Innovation Overclocked! Factory overclocked to perform at 790MHz, higher than stock performance, resulting in higher frame rates in games. DirectCU Precision mounted DirectCU copper heatpipes in direct contact with the GPU for rapid heat dissipation – creating 20%* cooler and quiet performance in idle. Voltage Tweak Full throttle overclocking with exclusive ASUS Voltage Tweak via Smart Doctor – boosting 50%* more speed, performance and satisfaction! ASUS Smart Doctor Intelligent system monitoring for efficient overclocking with an intuitive slide bar. ASUS Gamer OSD Real-time overclocking, benchmarking and video capturing in any PC game! Splendid™ Video Intelligence Technology Optimizes colors in various entertainment scenarios with five special modes — standard, game, scenery, night view and theater. Graphics GPU Features Powered by AMD Radeon™ HD 6850 AMD Eyefinity Technology Unlocks the power of GPU’s processor cores to accelerate the most demanding system tasks AMD HD3D™ Technology Optimize stereoscopic 3D gaming and movie-watching entertainment. Microsoft® DirectX® 11 Support Bring new levels of visual realism to gaming on the PC and get top-notch performance AMD CrossFireX™ Technology Gets up to 1.8X of a graphics performance boost in dual mode. Microsoft® Windows® 7 Support Enable PC users to enjoy an advanced computing experience and to do more with their PC Software 50% off of TriDef® 3D Experience Save 50% off the purchase price of TriDef® 3D Experience with purchase of AMD Radeon™ HD 6800 Series graphic card I/O Ports Highlight

Testing Setup:

• Intel i7 1155 2600 
• Sabetooth P67 1155 Motherboard
• Crucial Ballistix BX DDR3-1866 Active Cooling DDR3 4GB Memory Kit
• Intel 160GB X25 SSD
• NZXT Hale 750W PSU
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit

Conclusion:
The EAH 6850 is not the fastest card in the world nor is it the most powerful, it is however a lot of card for the price. The stock OC and the cooling make it a rock solid gaming powerhouse for under $250. It is not sucking huge amounts of power and it is also staying very cool. I was surprised at the price after running the benches on this card. I have always like ATI as a company and with a board partner like Asus they are pumping out cards with some great features.

Would I recommend this card? Yes I have used a lot of cards in my day but this one has a lot of bang for your buck so take notice all you ATI haters because this card may give your Nvidia cards a run for their money.

Pros:

• Price
• Performance
• Aftermarket Cooling
• Not Power Hungry
• OC Voltage adjustments 
• Great Benchmark Numbers

Cons:

• None Really 

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