VR-Zone

Turkish website Donanimhaber claim to have go their hands on official information regarding AMD's imminent release of Radeon HD 6850. After months of speculation, Donanimhaber reports that the Radeon HD 6850 is Barts Pro, after all, instead of Cayman Pro like initially expected. It will feature 800 SP, half of Cypress and the same as Juniper, but crucially, the new Northern Islands architecture may end up being significantly more efficient. The core clock is 775 MHz, and features 1GB GDDR5 at 4 GHz over a 256-bit bus. This translates to an identical memory bandwidth as the HD 5850.



The AIB price for the Radeon HD 6850 is said to be $175-$180, with the retail prices likely to end up in the $200 range. It appears that the HD 6850 is priced against the GTX 460 1 GB.

It is worth noting that the Radeon HD 6000 series revises the nomenclature, and the HD 6800 series is not a successor to the HD 5800 - that will be Cayman. It is neither a direct replacement for HD 5700 series, but rather a solution for a gap in the HD 5000 line-up, which the GTX 460 exploited. Unfortunately, with the GTX 460 768 MB continuing to drop in prices - now at $165 - perhaps another gap has been created, which may in the future be filled by a HD 6830.

The Radeon HD 6800 series is set to release on October 22nd and will be a hard launch. As for the Radeon HD 6870, preliminary reports suggest a 900 MHz clock, 960 SP and priced at $250.

The Radeon HD 6000 release has been shrouded by extreme secrecy and constant contradictions and disagreements by the rumour mill - many of which still rage today, even with as little as one week to go. For this release, it may be wise to take every information with a grain of salt till we see official information directly from AMD.

Reference: Donanimhaber