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AMD Radeon HD 6790 - Confusing and Unnecessary

By Kenny Yeo - 21 Apr 2011

Temperature, Power Consumption & Overclocking

Temperature

The HIS 6790 IceQ X Turbo recorded a cool 61 degrees Celsius at load, markedly cooler than both reference versions of the Radeon HD 6850 and HD 5770. Although we did not have a reference GeForce GTX 550 Ti card to use as comparison, it is worth noting that the MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II OC was one of the coolest GTX 550 cards we have tested and it recorded a super cool 52 degrees Celsius.

We did not include results of our simulated Radeon HD 6790 because it won't be a fair estimation - after all, it is still using HIS' custom IceQ X cooler.

 

Power Consumption

According to AMD, the Radeon HD 6790 has a rated TDP of 150W, which exceeds that of the Radeon HD 6850 (127W) and is almost on a par with the Radeon HD 6870 (151W). In this instance, though the HIS 6790 IceQ X Turbo recorded power draw figures that were significantly lower than the Radeon HD 6870, but matched that of the Radeon HD 6850. Although the effects of this in real world usage is negligible, it’s disappointing finding nonetheless. If it’s any consolation, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti in the form of the MSI N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II OC recorded marginally higher power draw figures.


Overclocking

The HIS 6790 IceQ X Turbo was an able overclocker, as we managed a staggering 1000MHz at the core and 5000MHz DDR at the memory using the MSI Afterburner overclocking software. This allowed it to record 6542 3DMarks, an improvement of 11% over its stock form and 20% over a reference-clocked Radeon HD 6790. In its overclocked state, it also managed to outscore the Radeon HD 6850. 

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