Interestingly, XFX is using a vapor chamber cooler here, which is uncommon for cards at this price range. XFX is using a partially shrouded design in order to keep hot air from blowing out of the bottom of the card & towards the motherboard, along with providing some structural stability to the card. These open designs are both cooler and quieter as air doesnвЂ™t need to be forced through several inches of heatsink & shrouding, at a cost of relying more on a caseвЂ™s cooling abilities. As is common with cards in this price range and performance level, XFX has ditched the 5850/6850 blower for a more open design that features a center-mounted fan that blows air out the front and the rear of the card. Meanwhile in terms of build quality the card is fairly normal for a mainstream video card along with the usual solid capacitors, XFX is also using solid state ferrite core chokes here.ДЄttached to the top of the card is a completely custom cooler. Unfortunately the PCIe power socket is still rear facing, meaning while the card is shorter than the reference 6850, you need to factor in space needed for a PCIe power cable. The PCB runs half an inch shorter than the reference 6850, measuring 8.5вЂќ, while among other differences the XFX 6850 has a second unused set of pads for a second 6pin PCIe power socket. In terms of design the XFX 6850 only bears little resemblance to the reference 6850.

Kicking of our look at 6850s is XFXвЂ™s Radeon HD 6850 (HD-685X-ZNFC), a card weвЂ™ve had since the 6850 launch two weeks ago and provided to us by XFX to allow us to test 6850 CrossFire performance.

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