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Imminent 6850 Purchase- Drivers/Bios/Reseller Question

M

maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
I've pretty much decided I want to get a 6850, but I want to ask about some specific things first.

1. In perusing reviews of various 6850 models on Newegg, Amazon and wherever else, I've seen several mentions of using the "10.10e hotfix drivers" instead of the current, uh, 10.11 I think?(I forget exact number). Does this mean I should, in fact, download 10.10e drivers from AMD and not use the drivers available on the websites of XFX, Sapphire, etc? Just want to be sure.

2. I also saw under a review of an XFX card that people are having to flash the bios in order to prevent the card's fan from defaulting to running ramped up all the time. This review was a couple of months old, is it likely that this issue is fixed on cards that are shipping now? If not, are there any ways to identify such cards so I can order one that isn't known to need a bios update, or is it likewise probable that this card is an anomaly and no other brands have that problem?
3. I was considering ordering from Amazon because Newegg has a location in my state and charges tax; but I don't know anything about Amazon's VGA return policy, is it known to be good or at least tolerable?

The specific ones I was considering were the HIS 6850 model H685F1GD $179.99, Sapphire 100315L $179.99, and XFX HD685XZNFC $189.99(this one is one Tiger Direct not Amazon). The XFX one is the one that had the reviews saying you had to update your BIOS due to the fan.

Also, is there any point upgrading to an XFX Black Edition? Not just for the measly overclock, but the additional warranty or whatever they give you with BE?
 
maniacalpha1-1 said:
1. In perusing reviews of various 6850 models on Newegg, Amazon and wherever else, I've seen several mentions of using the "10.10e hotfix drivers" instead of the current, uh, 10.11 I think?(I forget exact number). Does this mean I should, in fact, download 10.10e drivers from AMD and not use the drivers available on the websites of XFX, Sapphire, etc? Just want to be sure.
Click to expand...

10.11 is more outdated than 10.10e hotfix, but now we have 10.12a.. which are the the latest drivers. 10.10e > 10.11

maniacalpha1-1 said:
Also, is there any point upgrading to an XFX Black Edition? Not just for the measly overclock, but the additional warranty or whatever they give you with BE?
Click to expand...

There is no difference in warranty.. both cards have double lifetime warranty.

EDIT: I see that 6850 BE has lifetime limited warranty Vs Double lifetime for stock XFX 6850.
 
Last edited:
I read through your benchmarks on the first posts, but not all the replies. It was one of the many reviews that helped me settle on the 6850, and I think I'm going to do the Sapphire.

One question though, I know little about overclocking; and I see you did 920/1150. I saw in Anandtech's overclocking 6850 review that they could do 850 without upping voltage, but they didn't specifically mention whether the 1150 part required a voltage increase - so, question is, is it likely to be able to 850/1150 without a voltage increase? I don't plan on overclocking immediately, maybe later to extend the GPU's useful life, but either way you can probably guess by wanting to avoid voltage increases that I'd prefer to remain within extremely safe parameters.
 
busydude said:
There is no difference in warranty.. both cards have double lifetime warranty.

EDIT: I see that 6850 BE has lifetime limited warranty Vs Double lifetime for stock XFX 6850.
Click to expand...
Both cards have the Double Lifetime Protection. The retailer is just wording them differently for some reason.
 
maniacalpha1-1 said:
I read through your benchmarks on the first posts, but not all the replies. It was one of the many reviews that helped me settle on the 6850, and I think I'm going to do the Sapphire.

One question though, I know little about overclocking; and I see you did 920/1150. I saw in Anandtech's overclocking 6850 review that they could do 850 without upping voltage, but they didn't specifically mention whether the 1150 part required a voltage increase - so, question is, is it likely to be able to 850/1150 without a voltage increase? I don't plan on overclocking immediately, maybe later to extend the GPU's useful life, but either way you can probably guess by wanting to avoid voltage increases that I'd prefer to remain within extremely safe parameters.
Click to expand...
I have 920/1130 @ 1.156, which is only +.006 on stock voltage. Haven't tried any higher as I don't have many reviews to reference.
 
Just FYI. For whatever reason the 6870s seem to be discounted more than the 6850s right now. Not sure if <200 is your budget but you can get the custom cooled Asus 6870 for $219 AR at Newegg.

The others have answered your other questions.
 
I have the Sapphire 6850 you mentioned in the first post. I got is for $155 after rebate and coupon. Although the coupon no longer works.

The fan at idle runs at 20&#37; and is very quiet. During gaming it maybe goes up to 40% speed, which is still quiet. No BIOS updates needed. I got the card maybe 2 weeks ago.

As an example, before I got the 6850, the loudest thing in my PC was the video card. Now, with the 6850 I can hear all the tiny noises in the case, like a PSU whining noise (I had to RMA it).

Can't go wrong with either brand, I would pick whatever is cheapest. Unless you are looking at warranties, or one overclocks more than the other, but I don't care about OCing.

And as mentioned before, the latest driver is 10.12 from the AMD website.
 
maniacalpha1-1 said:
I read through your benchmarks on the first posts, but not all the replies. It was one of the many reviews that helped me settle on the 6850, and I think I'm going to do the Sapphire.

One question though, I know little about overclocking; and I see you did 920/1150. I saw in Anandtech's overclocking 6850 review that they could do 850 without upping voltage, but they didn't specifically mention whether the 1150 part required a voltage increase - so, question is, is it likely to be able to 850/1150 without a voltage increase? I don't plan on overclocking immediately, maybe later to extend the GPU's useful life, but either way you can probably guess by wanting to avoid voltage increases that I'd prefer to remain within extremely safe parameters.
Click to expand...

The 1150 part, as you probably know, refers to memory. While it isn't a guarantee, it seems that the 6850 are using similar memory chips to the 6870, so achieving around 1100-1200 (or 4200-4800) on the memory shouldn't be that hard and require no voltage tweaks.
 
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