Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 DiRT 3 Edition Review - PAGE 19

When it comes to creating excellent graphics cards, Sapphire is one of the best manufacturers and their bundled accessories and excellent thermal solutions really speak to this. Most manufacturers only include the bare essentials when it comes to mid-range market, but not Sapphire. The manufacturer included the same bundle seen in high-end graphics cards, and in the case of this particular card you'll get a CrossFire Bridge interconnect cable, D-Sub adapter, Mini-DP to DP cable, dual 6-pin to 4-pin power cables, a 1.8 meter HDMI 1.4a high-speed cable and the DiRT 3 code. That is quite the bundle for a graphics card priced under $200.

In addition, the Sapphire HD 6870 utilizes an outstanding dual fan thermal solution that kept the core relatively cool while keeping the noise low. During testing the HD DiRT 3 model maintained a load temperature of 71°C, which was a full 10°C cooler than the reference model. While this is not a huge difference and not the greatest result for thermal efficiency seen in the labs, the dual fans were nearly inaudible as the fans were rotating below 50% of the maximum rotation. They were only mildly audible even when the fans were running at their maximum level.

The overclocking headroom offered by the Sapphire HD 6870 DiRT 3 edition graphics card was also outstanding. The core clock pushed all the way up to 1035MHz, which is an increase of just over 13%. Overclocking the core clock to this level did require a substantial increase in the amount of voltage flowing through the card, but even with the voltage increase there were no issues keeping the core cool through increasing the RPM level of the fans. Similarly, the memory was also able to overclock quite well and results tapped out at 5080MHz Quad Data Rate, which is an increase of over 17%.

All in all this is yet another excellent graphics card based on the Barts XT graphics processor, that offers a lot of bang for the buck and would be a great option for any gamer looking for good performance when playing games at or below 1920x1200.