Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3 is a new rendition of the AMD 6870 graphics card that offers a slight bit of oomph for an extra £10-£15, as well as a dual fan. The Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3 has an advanced cooling system, overclocked speeds and the game DiRT 3. The main reason to buy this graphics card may be the dual-fan cooler, considerably improving the user experience.
It’s not attractive, the fans covering up most of the card, leaving little room for the attractive pictures and logos which Sapphire likes to emblazon across its cards. But the Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3 will live inside your PC case, so only modders should worry about this aspect.
The system itself is extremely effective. The standard 6870 has a TDP figure of 151W. We don’t have a figure for the Sapphire, but our tests showed that the Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3 was typically saving 32-36 watts.
Noise levels were cut to almost nothing, even heavy loads inducing little more than a hum from the Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3 card. Connections haven’t changed, an HDMI and pair of DVI ports joined by a brace of Mini DisplayPort. Two power connectors are required.
See also: Group test: what’s the best graphics card?
It’s perhaps a shame that Sapphire didn’t do more in the way of overclocking. The Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3’s core clock has been upgraded from 900MHz to 920MHz. But the 1050MHz memory clock and 1GB of GDDR5 haven’t changed.
- READ MORE (Source): Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870 Dirt 3 review – PC Advisor
