MSI AMD Radeon HD 6870 Video Card Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,188 words · ~5 min read
0:00
Today we're going to be unboxing something very exciting from AMD. And
0:04
actually, it's funny that I should say from AMD because right here you can see
0:09
they've actually changed the branding. Finally. AMD acquired ATI way long time
0:15
ago, but now finally instead of ATI Radeon graphics, it is now officially
0:20
AMD Radeon Grai Graphics as of the 6000
0:24
series. So this is the Radeon 6870 which
0:27
is one of the first two Radeon 6000 series graphics cards. It supports up to
0:32
four displays in AMD iinity. So that's
0:36
an increase of up of one more display from the 5870 series. Okay. So that
0:41
means you can run two off of the DisplayPort. So those are two mini DisplayPort
0:45
and then two off of DVI or HDMI. So you've got a total of three connectors
0:50
there. Let's turn this over and we'll have a look at what it's got to say
0:54
about itself on the box. So, this is an MSI card. That means they've got a lot
0:58
on here about MSI Afterburner, which allows you to overclock and uh do
1:02
optimal fan profiles, all that good stuff. After Burner is an awesome piece
1:05
of software. You've probably seen me use it on my blog a lot of times. It's got
1:09
solid caps, which means up to 10 years of lifetime. They actually calculated
1:13
out to 12 years, assuming you're actually gaming 24/7 for all 12 years.
1:18
Here's a couple of highlighted features which I guess I'll sort of I'll talk
1:22
about that briefly while I open the box and we'll have a look at this card right
1:25
away because to be perfectly honest with you. I have not seen this. I have never
1:30
seen one of these cards. This is going to be my first time just like you. Oo,
1:35
nice sticker actually. Okay, so there it is. That is the Radeon HD 6870.
1:42
So, let's get it undone here and then I'm just going to lay this
1:47
out for you to sort of for cameraman to look at while I tell you a little bit
1:51
more about it. So, in terms of we
1:54
already talked about the displays out. So, we have support for AMD Avivo.
1:58
That's their HD video and display technology. We've got Crossfire X. Okay.
2:02
We've got only one Crossfire finger up there. So, that means we've only got
2:05
two-way Crossfire, not three-way Crossfire. We have iinity technology
2:09
with support for up
2:13
to three displays. Hold on a minute.
2:17
Pause the video. Blu-ray movie acceleration. By
2:21
the way, that looks like a typo on the features of the box cuz it does support
2:25
four displays. It's compliant with DirectX11, which we already have come to
2:29
expect. And it is designed for direct compute 5.0 and Open CL. Windows 7
2:33
support is a given. and it can accelerate Office 2010 applications. It
2:38
supports HDMI 1.4A, which means that you do have support for Blu-ray 3D playback
2:45
with the appropriate software. So, let's start moving this card around and have a
2:49
look at it. So, as I mentioned before, we've got one Crossfire finger up here
2:52
at the top for up to two-way Crossfire. So, you can run two 6870s in a Crossfire
2:57
configuration. You got a really slick looking shroud on here. So, this part is
3:01
actually metal. So, what I'm going to go ahead and speculate actually here, maybe
3:05
I can see through there. Um, no, I can't
3:08
really can't really see in there, but I would speculate that this piece of metal
3:11
is actually cooling some of the RAM chips on the front of the card, and then
3:15
it turns into plastic at this seam right here, as far as I can tell. And so,
3:18
that's just a plastic fan shroud. You've got two six pin PCI Express connectors.
3:23
And then moving around to the back of the card, you've got a continuation of that pattern that's just going to look
3:28
really, really sharp in your case. Whether you have uh a case with that
3:32
where the graphics cards are installed this way or one where you've got your motherboard tray on the other side and
3:36
it installs this way. It just looks really good. All right, so let's move
3:40
around to the business end of the card where we have two DVI connectors, one
3:46
HDMI connector. Now, just like the 50 uh 5000 series, you can only use two of
3:51
these at a time. If you want four displays, that means that two of them
3:55
will be powered by the mini DisplayPort connectors, which you find here. Much
3:59
like the 5870, it has only a half exhaust
4:04
uh at the back of the IO panel. So, that means that all of the air will have to
4:08
be exhausted out that small hole. With the 5000 series, it didn't have a huge
4:12
impact on the cooling performance. So, I wouldn't worry too much about it for
4:16
this one because I'd say based on the overall weight of the card, the
4:19
dimensions of the cooler, the size of the fan, it's probably got pretty
4:23
similar thermal characteristics to the last generation card. On the back, we
4:28
find a slick black PCB. Now, one thing that might seem like it's missing from a
4:33
6870 card is like a shroud on the back,
4:36
but you got to remember the 6800 series
4:40
is not the equivalent of the 5800 series
4:43
in terms of where it belongs in the AMD lineup. This is actually going to be a
4:48
performance uh like a performance card,
4:51
but not an extreme card. This isn't the highest end series. So, let's go ahead
4:56
and put this down and let's take out
4:59
what we have in here in terms of accessories. So, first we have a quick
5:02
users guide. Then we have a driver disc,
5:06
which you may actually need to use depending on uh when AMD releases the
5:10
drivers on their site. Okay, driver and utility. Then we have a mini display
5:14
port to DisplayPort adapter. So, that'll allow you to at least run uh
5:19
iffinity with three displays if you don't have any mini DisplayPort
5:22
monitors or adapters. Then you've got two Molex to PCIe six pin power
5:26
connectors. You've got one Crossfire bridge, which is all you will need. Then
5:30
you have a DVI to VGA adapter if you are still using a VGA monitor. Last but not
5:36
least, we've got a 6800
5:39
series. Well, another quick start guide by the look of things. Shows you how to
5:43
update your drivers using their live update. So, there you have it. The 6800
5:48
or 6800 series 6870 from MSI. And we're
5:51
going to be doing a ton of videos about this guy, power consumption, length,
5:55
review, all that good stuff. So stay tuned.