Powercolor Radeon HD 6790

PowerColor HD 6790 Review

Now that AMD has solidified their higher ranks of graphics cards, they've finally got time to work on mid-range and lower cards. First up is the AMD Radeon HD 6790, this design packs 800 Stream Processors on the Barts core, similar to the Juniper series 5770s although the internal designs have been changed to make the card more efficient in less space. The core is clocked at 840MHz while the 1GB GDDR5 memory is set at 1050MHz on a 256-bit bus equating to approximately 134.4 Gb/s memory bandwidth, the same configuration as on a 6870. There exists a possibility that this card could unlock more Stream Processors to either the 6850 or 6870 level with BIOS flashing as has been done with the other 6-series cards. The TDP is less than 150W since it only needs two sources of power: the x16 slot provides up to 75W and each 6-pin power connector up to another 75W. The overall design is similar to the 6800-series cards, as the core is the same with some features disabled. The PCB has room for a second 6-pin power plug, and another DVI and Mini DisplayPort output. The 6790 being reviewed today was sent by PowerColor with stock clock speeds. The heat sink used has three heat pipes and an aluminum base.