SAPPHIRE AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 PCIE Graphics Card - PC Components | Computer Hardware

Here is my computer setting: Dell XPS 8300 i5-2300 2.8GHZ, 6G RAM, 128GB SSD, Integrated graphics. I played Starcraft II a lot. The game is slow even if I use medium graphic settings (resolution:1600X900). Went through a few forums, I settled with this card. Here is what I find:

Pros:
1: It is very very quiet. my power supply is 460W. It is plenty for this card.
2: The windows experience index score is now 7.8 (Integrated graphics 5.2)
3: Starcraft II (utra high graphic settings): FPS is between 54-101. Average:75 (Using the integrated graphics, I only get 14-30.)
4: It has two 6pin power connectors I don’t need them as my power supply have them). It also comes with a VGA to DVI adaptor. This is really handy.
5: Surprise and bonus: There is no description on Amazon site that this actually include a free game: DIRT3: .
6: Great build quality
7: 3D experience (I have not tested yet)

Cons:
1: This is large card. You want to make sure you motherboard has enough space for it.

Tips:
This can be personal experience. When I first installed the card, I noticed the fan noise immediately and it could not be recognized and my monitors showed no signals. So I plugged my monitors back to the integrated graphic card and installed the drivers. Then I plug my monitors to the graphic card and powered on the machine. Then fan noise was disappeared and it became very very quiet. I saw signals in the monitors. Windows 7 started to recognize the new cards and install the drivers for it. The resolution still did not look good. After a restart, my two monitors were recognized and was set to their maximum resolution automatically.

Overall, I really love this card. This is great graphic card that you won’t regret buying it.

update (09/27/2011)
The card is still rocking.
It took me two weeks to finally get the AMD stream key to download DIRT3. The game has 11GB download size. I followed the instruction on the coupon code card. After filling out all the info,submitted, was asked to upload a scanned photo of the coupon for evaluation. Make sure you sign up their newsletter when submitting the code. otherwise you will receive no confirmation. I did not signed up in the beginning. No response after one week. I contacted them through web form. still no response. Then I re-did the process and signed up the news letter. I got response from them after two days. They said they are evaluating all the submission…
Anyway, great card, bad service from AMD.

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Initially placed an order for a Radeon 6850 but changed my order when i found this card for $3 more. Amazing performance for the price.

Pros——————-
Great performance.

Price. Can’t really justify a 6850 when a 6870 costs just a little more.

Noise. This card is particularly quiet when not stressed. Under load it becomes audible, but probably on par with any case or heatsink fan. Nothing crazy.

Cons*————————
Size. This card is massive. The card and attached cooler will occupy two pci slots.

Heat. Doesn’t produce excessive amounts of heat, but will make a mess of the airflow in your case. Especially an in an htpc gaming rig. Luckily the fan on the card vents the air out of the back of the case.

Power hog. This card requires two 6 pin pci-e power connectors. There are two molex to pci power adapters included in the box however. Just make sure your power supply can handle it. Sapphire states a 500w power supply is “required” but i highly doubt a smaller, quality psu wouldn’t work.

Other thoughts ——————-
My card included Dirt3 but wasn’t stated in the description. Also, I can’t vouch for the included driver CD as i downloaded the latest catalyst drivers directly from amd instead. I didn’t need the dvi to vga adapter either. Note to those looking to crossfire these cards: a crossfire bridge is not included so you will need to get one elsewhere. All in all, this is an amazing card for the price. The “cons” i stated earlier aren’t really cons, just things to be aware of before you buy. Just be sure you know what to expect and can meet the space/power requirements.

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First things first, it can max any game to date… Battlefield 3, skyrim & the old republic in big cities all have some hiccups but it’s great none the less. Now, I WAS having Blue screen of death issues since getting this card, I reset the bios and all problems are gone for now *knock on wood* The card isn’t loud I dont know why thats a common complaint, even if it was.. don’t you play with sound? or do you play all of your games muted? thought so. It runs pretty cool the only time i check it was at 40ish Celcius BUT it is the middle of winter and my room is cold as hell. I was not a fan of the customer service, they respond fairly fast but instead of me walking through potential fixes and etc… they asked me to sent it in and pay for the shipping… woah, what the f***… why would i pay for the shipping because your product isn’t working properly? thats complete crap and im fairly certain I wont buy another Saphire product again, hopefully my problems are gone and I wont have to Pay these tools to send me what should have came in the mail.

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