opinions on this 6870?

zCypher

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2002
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"HIS
Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort", it's $144.49 after a $45 Instant Rebate, and $124.99 after another $20 Mail-in Rebate. Price seems really good compared to all the other 6870 I have seen recently (cheapest other one I found was $150 with mail in rebate).

I've never heard of this "HIS" brand. I assume that only so much can go wrong since they are all pretty similar, save for any HSF or memory clock differences among various 6870 cards. Is it worth saving the money? I'd like to pick two of them up as my board has two slots and supports xfire, would be my first time going dual GPU.

I currently have a GTX 460 which came from my E5200 build. Current system is a 1100T (on its way) and 4x4GB Kingston HyperX in a Biostar TA870U3+. I have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to gaming, so I'm looking forward to enjoying great framerates at 2048x1152. My GTX 460 hasn't exactly been a slouch, it has been perfect. But I see its future lying with the E5200 which is now in a different box, to serve another purpose.

So anyhow, it's been a long time since I have used AMD. The last AMD system I had was an 1800+ with a 9200SE (still kicking around somewhere, it was great also). I can't speak to brand loyalty as the Ti4200 I've had in another system was wonderful as well, even though the fan failed on it, it never succumbed to any sort of failure.

I might be going dual monitor in the near future so eyefinity would be interesting to check out. The 7970 is a bit out of reach for me, and I have a feeling that dual 6870 should satisfy my upgrade-itis for some time.

So is the "HIS" one a good deal?
 

Bobisuruncle54

Senior member
Oct 19, 2011
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HIS is a good brand, they make some very good products. As for the price I couldn't say as I live in the UK, but I have nothing but good stories from my experiences with HIS cards. :)
 

zCypher

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2002
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good to know
just realized it's out of stock at memoryexpress, can't even complete the order at all
NCIX allows you to complete the order even though it's back order there, but they don't have the extra mail in rebate. hmm...
 

MrTeal

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2003
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I bought the same card on Friday during the sale when it was $110+$35MIR, it shipped today. My little bit of research into it indicated it's a non-reference PCB/Cooler, and the cooler performs worse than the reference. I was planning on waiting on GCN, but I couldn't turn down $90 after all taxes and shipping were included. I'll let you know how it works once I get it.
 

tweakboy

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Jan 3, 2010
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Stick with your quad core. It will do fine with your 460. Try opening the side case panel and give her some air flow. Also make sure the fan is at 100 percent manually when you play gams.Y

You will never reach 100 percent full load unless your doing video or audio rendering

With a SSD you will immedieatly shocked, eerything load in 0 seconds thumbnails are already there.

Save that money get a SSD. Then later in oin 2012 or 2013 if you have the itch to upgrade then youll so it while keeping yoru precious SSD.. gl
 

zCypher

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2002
6,115
171
116
stick with your quad core. It will do fine with your 460. Try opening the side case panel and give her some air flow. Also make sure the fan is at 100 percent manually when you play gams.y

you will never reach 100 percent full load unless your doing video or audio rendering

with a ssd you will immedieatly shocked, eerything load in 0 seconds thumbnails are already there.

Save that money get a ssd. Then later in oin 2012 or 2013 if you have the itch to upgrade then youll so it while keeping yoru precious ssd.. Gl

lol :D
 
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zCypher

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2002
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Already have SSD tweakboy. MemoryExpress and NCIX are both out of stock for the particular 6870 that looked interesting, ah well.
 

Panopticon

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Dec 27, 2011
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I dont think a 6870 is gonna do the job at that resolution. Even @ 1080p some titles might tax a card with only 1gb of vram. I game at 1080p and earlier today I had bf3 use 1.9gb of vram just food for thought.
 

zCypher

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2002
6,115
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I dont think a 6870 is gonna do the job at that resolution. Even @ 1080p some titles might tax a card with only 1gb of vram. I game at 1080p and earlier today I had bf3 use 1.9gb of vram just food for thought.

Thanks for the input. I was going to get two of them though, wouldn't that be good enough? I thought 2GB was good enough for most games today.
 

Bobisuruncle54

Senior member
Oct 19, 2011
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Thanks for the input. I was going to get two of them though, wouldn't that be good enough? I thought 2GB was good enough for most games today.

When you use crossfire (or SLI for that matter) the memory isn't doubled for storage. Think of it as having a 6870 with twice the amount of memory bandwidth, rather than twice the amount of storage.

1GB is still good enough for most games today.