14 DAY TRIAL // As end-users no doubt know by now, the HD 6000 series of AMD graphics cards will be made public this week, and it seems that ASUS' custom model decided it would also show off its looks, revealing the DirectCU cooler.
The AMD Radeon HD 6850, like the HD 6870, is based on the Barts graphics processing unit, which is built on the 40nm manufacturing process.
Basically, this board, as well as its sibling, will have to take on NVIDIA's Fermi graphics cards, especially the popular GeForce GTX 460.
This series of adapters will also be accompanied by AMD's decision to drop the ATI brand entirely, in order to strengthen its own brand.
Not too long ago, the Sunnyvale, California-based CPU and GPU maker even released the official press photos of both video controllers.
Granted, the actual performance numbers will only be made public on October 22, when the formal release is slated to take place.
Now, some photos of a custom-cooled model from ASUS have made their way to the web, revealing a black PCB and the DirectCU cooler.
The custom dual-slot cooler uses a pair of 8mm direct touch heatpipes, a heatsink and one fan in order to drive temperatures about 20% lower than those on the stock card.
As for actual specifications, it seems that ASUS succeeded in slightly overclocking the board, at least as far as the GPU is concerned.
The Barts chip has a frequency of 790 MHz instead of the reference 775 MHz, while the 1GB of GDDR5 VRAM operate at 4,000 MHz.
Finally, the card is supposedly configured with a memory interface of 256 bits and appears to need more power than AMD's original.
This is shown by the fact that, while the reference HD 6850 has a single 6-pin PCI Express power connector, ASUS' DirectCU version has two. It should debut on October 22, although its price is still unknown.
