Powercolor AMD Radeon HD 6950 Video Card Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,354 words · ~6 min read
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today we're going to be unboxing the allnew Radeon
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hd6950 so this is the latest edition to
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the 6000 series of graphics cards from AMD uh just like the 6870 and the
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6850 which were released a little while ago the 6970 and the 6950 have a very
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very similar feature set to those cards but as you might imagine because of the
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higher number they have more performance you know more more overall musle
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so let's uh go ahead and start opening the box because that's what I do on this
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channel get my knife open this up so
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this is a direct X11 graphics card as you might
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expect it has full support for AMD
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ifinity technology with up to four displays so that is one of the features
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that it does have in common with its uh little brother the
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6850 and here's something that I also
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wanted to mention about this card so
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AMD's numbering scheme has changed I did mention higher numbers are better and
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that is generally true uh however when they switched from the 5000 series to
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the 6,000 series The 5870 was actually
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not meant to be replaced by the 6870 the
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5870 um was replaced by the 6970 now and
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the 6870 replaced the old 5770 in terms
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of where they fall in the overall pricing stack okay so this
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6950 should be compared as like an evolutionary next step to last
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generation's 5850 that's what we're comparing it to
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so compared to the 5850 we've added much
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beefier tessellation performance we've added HDMI
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1.4a we've added ifinity support for up to four monitors instead of only three
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and we have also added more performance and and more RAM
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so this is a 2 GB graphics card compared
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to the 1 gig that was typical on
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850s and 5870 see I'm totally going to get my uh my signals crossed on all
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these uh numbering schemes okay let me just see if there's anything else that I
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need to mention oh yeah we've got support for AMD hd3d technology which
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means you can play 3D games 3D Blu-rays
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uh we have a driver CD which you should throw away as well as an installation
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guide for how to install your graphics card we have full support for 7.1 audio
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with the built-in HDMI port as well as
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uh full support for AMD Crossfire X technology so that is three-way or
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two-way on this particular card and I guess I better get
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that sorry about that guys all right
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let's have a look at what we've got in terms of accessories not a whole lot
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actually this is a fairly Bare Bones package but I've got no problem with
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that personally uh oh okay so here we've got a crossfire
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Bridge which is expected and then we have a DVI to VGA adapter although if
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you're really still using a VGA monitor or a VGA cable and you're buying a $300
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graphics card you might want to rethink your priorities and then next we've got
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a mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort adapter this one's pretty useful because
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not too many people out there are using mini DisplayPort monitors or mini
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DisplayPort cables so as long as you
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buy a DP monitor if it comes with a cable you will be able to connect your
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graphics card because this particular card does not have even a single
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standard DisplayPort connector it relies on mini DisplayPort to get um
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basically to squeeze some extra space onto the back iio
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Shield so that you can plug in up to four displays all right so here's the
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card itself the Radeon 6950 I love powerc colors Graphics
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actually they've got like just kind of a
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badass like robot knight like futuristic
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glowing eye dude he has like wings and he has like a huge sword that's uh I
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mean if you actually kind of extend it from uh where it's cut off by the fan it
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probably ends about here so it's like taller than he is and he looks pretty
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tall so um yeah most people don't care about the graphics I do whatever all
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right we got a power color sticker here and then we've got uh pretty much the
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same fan we've seen AMD using for the last little while on their high-end
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graphics cards let's move around to the top and then on the top of the card
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we've got our power plug so we have dual six pin PCI Express and one of the
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things I noticed about this card is it's one of the first I've ever seen that
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doesn't come with Molex to PCIe connectors so make sure you have a power
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supply with two PCI Express six pin
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connectors and actually why don't we have a quick look at the side of the box
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and see what uh 12vt Rail and fridge
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they recommend uh 500 water greater power supply with two six pin PCIe okay
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they don't say anything about the 12vt rail okay so also on the top of the card
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we have a couple of other things we have the crossfire connectors that is for
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two-way or three-way Crossfire and then we have a little dip switch here that is
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for flashing the BIOS on this particular graphics card some of the exhaust is
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actually done right here at the top and then you can clearly see down there the
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vapor chamber cooler that it that this car comes equipped with just like the
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6970 its big brother so speaking of its
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Big Brother the actual difference between the 6850 6950 and the 6970 is
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that it has fewer functional units they both have the same amount of RAM and
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it's also clocked a little bit lower it also consumes less power and it is
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cheaper so it's a slightly cut down
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6970 here on the back we find that same uh red and black pattern that we
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recognize from the 6870 and the 6850 as
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well as its Big Brother on the bottom we find a standard PCI Express 2.0 slot and
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lots of interesting stickers with serial numbers and whatnot on the back and I
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love this I gushed about it in my 6970 unboxing already so I'm not going to do
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it too much on this one but I love the
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uh the heat spreader on the back it's awesome makes the card look really
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really sharp and I mean even if you install a water block or like an
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aftermarket cooler most of them support keep the back plate on so it really
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makes the whole thing look really nice so on the back of the card we're going
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to find all of our inputs and outputs and no inputs really mostly outputs and
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we will find out what they are so first of all we have an air output exhaust
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that is so this card is kind of half and half external exhaust and internal
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exhaust and then we've also got two DVI connectors one HDMI and two mini display
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port adap connectors not adapters so when you're running four monitors you're
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going going to want to plug in either 2 DVI and two mini DisplayPort or one DVI
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one HDMI and two mini DisplayPort you can't use all three of these and one
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DisplayPort likewise if you're running three monitors you can't just use these
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three you have to use two of these three and then one of these two for triple
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monitor support so thank you for checking out my unboxing of the Radeon
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hd6950 don't forget to subscribe to lus techtips for more unboxings reviews and
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other great computer videos featuring me