Conclusion
Going in to this review, the challenge was to see if Sapphire’s HD 6870 could refresh an aging desktop into a modern gaming powerhouse for a relatively low cost. After gaming with the system for two weeks, and judging performance increases from overclocking, I can assure you that the 6870 comes through with flying colors. Sapphire has truly struck the perfect balance between cost and performance with this card, as for under $200, a customer can purchase a 6870, pop it into a machine made somewhere in the past five years, and play today’s games, no crazy upgrades required. For those of you still in doubt, the test results from the 6870 on a relatively old system beat out scores from its direct competition, Nvidia’s GTX 560.
Sadly, I did have a few issues with the card overall. The cheap housing of the GPU not only looks painful, but also impacts cooling. The card runs slightly on the hotter side, especially when stress testing using Furmark. That being said, even while under full load within stress tests, the card holds stable at 84 Celsius, a seemingly high temperature until compared to the GTX 560, which can go as high as 85 or 86C, with less performance.
