Earlier this month, we learned that Korean PC cooling solutions expert Zalman was entering the graphics card market. At the time we could only see AMD Radeon graphics cards, those too, re-branded HIS Radeon graphics cards. We're now seeing the first true Zalman graphics cards, that implement Zalman's generations of expertise with VGA cooling. Pictured below are Zalman's HD 6700, HD 6800; and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card designs that implement Zalman-made VGA coolers. This also confirms that Zalman will be a neutral board partner, selling both AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce. Zalman will show off its graphics cards at the upcoming CES event.

Asian graphics card manufacturer known for its intriguing designs, Colorful, after a brief gap of four months, unveiled its latest graphics card in the works, under its Radeon-centric ColorFire brand. Called the ColorFire Xstorm HD 6850 X2 4GB, its name pretty much spells out what it's about: a dual-GPU (CrossFire on-a-stick) graphics card with two Radeon HD 6850 GPUs, and 4 GB of total memory (2 GB per GPU system). It's not just the specifications that earned Colorful/ColorFire its popularity, it's their nerdtastic choice of components. This card is no exception.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced a new high performance model in its extensive series of graphics cards - the HD 6850 Vapor-X Edition with SAPPHIRE exclusive Vapor-X cooler. The SAPPHIRE HD 6850 Vapor-X Edition has the same internal architecture as the standard model, with 960 stream processors and 48 texture processing units, but clock speeds are increased to 800MHz for the core and 1100Mhz (4.4 Gb/sec effective) for the memory giving users a considerable boost in performance.

The SAPPHIRE exclusive Vapor-X cooler ensures that the card runs quietly and efficiently. Together with other special hardware features including on-board 10-phase power control and SAPPHIRE's highly efficient, cool running second generation Black Diamond chokes this ensures there is a good margin for performance tuning (overclocking) by enthusiast users. SAPPHIRE's overclocking tool for these models - TriXX - is available free for anyone to download from a link on the SAPPHIRE website.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today introduces a passive cooling solution into the HD6800 family: the PowerColor SCS3 HD6850. While running passively, the PowerColor SCS3 HD6850 maintains the high performed specifications with core engine of 775MHz, 1000 MHz memory speed; with up to 1.48 teraFLOPs of computing power, easily accelerates the gaming rig and delivers extreme gaming performance.

The PowerColor SCS3 HD6850 features an effective passive cooling solution; with 62 piece of L shape heat sink which enlarge the heat dissipation surface areas, the excessive heat can easily being dissipated through 5 piece high performance heat pipes; furthermore, it's equipped with cooling plate fully covers memory and PCB, ensures every key components to stay cool in a quite setting.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today announces the first-to-market video card: the PowerColor HD 6850 single slot edition. The first available HD6850 single slot edition aims to fulfill the desire of performance and multi-function seekers when space is a premium.

The PowerColor HD 6850 single slot edition clocks in at 775MHz core speed and 1000MHz memory speed; accelerating gaming speed with 1.48 teraFLOPs of computing Power. The slim HD6850 can maximize the rig's performance in a single slot design, allowing a 4 way CrossFireX layout that delivers an out-of-box HD gaming experience like no other.

PowerColor is readying a new single-slot AMD Radeon HD 6850 graphics card. The advantages of single-slot aside, the new card will also support 4-way CrossFireX. So now you can pack four of these cards into pooly-designed motherboards with adjacent PCI-E x16 slots, or you can sneak one into the slot that happens to be the bottom-most one. PowerColor's HD 6850 Single-Slot Edition uses a custom PCB design which is not much longer than the reference design, it uses a typical single-slot cooler design with tightly-packed aluminum fin air channels to which heat is fed by a copper plate. Air is flown through these channels by a blower.

Apart from 4-way CrossFireX capability, the PowerColor HD 6850 Single-Slot Edition uses nearly complete display connectivity, with one DVI, a full-size HDMI 1.4a, and two DisplayPort 1.2. Power is drawn in from a single 6-pin power connector. The card uses AMD reference clock speeds of 775 MHz core and 1000 MHz (4.00 GHz effective) memory. There's 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface onboard. Based on the 40 nm Barts GPU, HD 6850 features 960 stream processors, and full DirectX 11 compliance. More details and pictures are awaited of this intriguing new card.

Perhaps the fastest silent graphics card in the making, PowerColor's new HD 6850 SCS3 finally taken shape, and will launch soon. The card was spotted first in November 2010, but has since undergone many little changes, particularly with its PCB and components. The card is designed to draw power from one 6-pin power connector, and run the GPU at reference speeds, while relying entirely on a massive heatsink to cool it. The heatsink uses five copper heat pipes to draw heat directly from the GPU, and through the large aluminum fin array. The HD 6850 features 960 stream processors, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface.

Unknown to the west, Hong Kong-based graphics card manufacturer, AFOX, that caters to Far-East markets such as Japan, unveiled a new AMD Radeon HD 6850 1 GB graphics card that sports a single-slot design, and completely relies on the PCI Express slot for power. Most, if not all, Radeon HD 6850 graphics cards feature double-slot coolers, and require a 6-pin PCI-E power input, which is not the case with AFOX' new card.

The AF6850-1024D5S1 from AFOX features a red PCB, a black single slot cooler that covers all of the board's obverse side, and looks to feature a dense heatsink to which air is circulated by a blower. The card uses reference clock speeds of 775 MHz core, 1000 MHz (4.00 GHz GDDR5 effective) memory. The HD 6850 is rated by AMD to have 127W typical max power draw. It would be interesting to see how the card is managing to run the GPU with the slot's 75W. What's more, the card doesn't compromise in the display connectors department, packing one each of DVI, full-size HDMI 1.4a, full-size DisplayPort 1.2, and mini-DisplayPort 1.2. In Japan, the card is priced at 19,780 Yen, which converts to US $245.

ColorFire released its new Xstorm HD 6850 graphics card. ColorFire is a sister-brand of Colorful, which focuses on AMD Radeon-based graphics cards, as Colorful specializes on NVIDIA GeForce ones. Shortly after its introduction, the ColorFire team led by overclocker Carl from China was able to break a 3DMark Vantage record for the Radeon HD 6850. The overclocker achieved P27751 points, some 3810 points ahead of the previous record-holder. The card sustained overclocked speeds of 1500 MHz core and 1275 MHz (5100 MHz GDDR5 effective) memory, and backed by an Intel Core i7-980X clocked at 5.7 GHz, with the entire setup being cooled by liquid nitrogen. The HWBOT validation can be found here.

The Xstorm HD 6850 from ColorFire features the same mid-range exorbitance characteristic of Colorful. It features a PCB with a strong VRM, making use of high-quality components; and a large cooler. It features 1 GB of memory, a 4+1 phase VRM, dual-BIOS, OCP unlock switches, and consolidated voltage-measure points. The VRM uses high-grade chokes and POSCAP capacitors. The cooler uses a large (quiet) fan to cool a big heatsink to which heat is conveyed by three heat pipes.More pictures of the setup and card follow.

Announcing the winners of the second and final month of PowerColor and TechPowerUp GPU-Z giveaway (January 2011). We picked up three lucky winners from a pool of 20,000 entries, from all over the world. Spanning across December 2010 and January 2011, the contest gives six lucky winners some rad graphics hardware from PowerColor. Here are the winners:

• Danny from Israel, wins PowerColor Radeon HD 6970
• Steve from United Kingdom wins PowerColor Radeon HD 6870 PCS+
• Grant from United States wins PowerColor Radeon HD 6850 PCS+

Huge congrats, guys! PowerColor will contact the winners directly and arrange for shipping of the prizes. This concludes the giveaway. We would like to thank PowerColor for making the giveaway possible. TechPowerUp will return with more interesting contests such as this.

HIS started shipping two new models of graphics cards based on the AMD Radeon HD 6850 GPU, that use the company's in-house IceQ X design board and cooling solution. The two consist of a base model that sticks to AMD reference clock speeds, and a Turbo model that comes overclocked out of the box. The IceQ X cards use a standard length blue-colored PCB on which sits the IceQ X cooler. The cooler makes use of a slightly large aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed by 8 mm thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes, which is centrally ventilated by a 92 mm fan. The cooler is covered by a frosty-looking shroud. The base model uses 775/1000 MHz (core/memory actual) clock speeds, and the Turbo model runs at 820/1100 MHz.

Here are the winners of PowerColor and TechPowerUp giveaway for the month of December, 2010, month 1 of 2 of the Giveaway. For the months of December and January, three lucky participating users each month of GPU-Z got to win some groovy hardware from PowerColor. This month's winners are as follows:

• John from United States wins PowerColor Radeon HD 6970
• Farhan from Malaysia wins PowerColor Radeon HD 6870 PCS+
• Mahen from Sri Lanka wins PowerColor Radeon HD 6850 PCS+

A big congratulations to the winners. PowerColor will contact them directly and arrange for the shipping of the prizes. If you have already made a submission in this round (PowerColor TechPowerUp Giveaway December 2010 - January 2011), you don't need to make a submission again. Being an ongoing contest, winners are picked from an ever-growing pool of submissions.

Internationally renowned graphic card and mainboard manufacturer MSI today officially launches the R6850 Cyclone 1GD5 Power Edition graphic card equipped with the latest AMD Radeon HD 6850 GPU. Apart from being the first Radeon HD 6850-based graphic card supporting triple over-voltage functions, the R6850 Cyclone 1GD5 Power Edition is equipped with the 6+1 power system to improve power supply quality and stability. Also the critically acclaimed Cyclone thermal solution can reduce the GPU temperature by up to 14°C and lower noise by 4dB versus the reference design under full-speed operations. MSI also introduces the exclusively developed P/S Switch for users to adjust fan speed between the Performance Mode and Silent Mode. The former emphasizes an enhanced cooling power; while the latter stresses on quiet operations.

With the P/S Switch, power users can switch from one mode to another to meet their needs at different times. In terms of materials, the R6850 Cyclone 1GD5 Power Edition is equipped with the latest Military Class II materials exclusively from MSI. In addition to the Hi-C tantalum caps and solid caps, these include the SFC high-performance choke to ensure the best power supply quality and stability. Overall, the R6850 Cyclone 1GD5 Power Edition is one of the most powerful Radeon HD 6850-based graphic cards with the most functions and highest quality.

XFX' in-house design AMD Radeon HD 6850 accelerator, was released to the markets, carrying a price tag of US $195. The card uses a custom high-performance dual-fan GPU cooler that makes use of a large aluminum fin array to which heat is conveyed by 8 mm thick copper heatpipes. The card also makes use of AMD reference speeds: 775 MHz core, and 1000 MHz (4000 MHz GDDR5 effective) memory. It draws power from one 6-pin PCI-E power connector, can pair with another HD 6800 series graphics card over CrossFireX, and includes display outputs of two DVI, an HDMI, and a DisplayPort.

MSI released a new factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 460 1 GB graphics card that makes use of the company's new sporty-looking single fan cooler the company first introduced with its Radeon HD 6850 graphics cards. The uses the same PCB as the one on the GTX 460 Cyclone OC graphics card. The cooler uses a 90 mm fan to blow air onto a large aluminum fin array, to which heat is conveyed by 8 mm thick heatpipes. The clock speeds are also identical with those of the Cyclone OC: 725 MHz core, 1450 MHz CUDA cores, and 900 MHz (3600 MHz effective) memory. The card also features software voltage control, which when combined with increased frequencies, up performance by 30%. Released in Europe, the new GTX 460 OC is priced at €155.

PowerColor is readying the first AMD Radeon HD 6850 graphics card that features a passive cooler, a completely silent cooling solution. The company is currently evaluating a new design that makes use of a large GPU heatsink featuring an aluminum fin array that ensures the card occupies just two expansion slots, while adding surface area by propagating to the top of the card, in an L-shape. The heatsink uses no less than five heat pipes to convey heat to the fins. PowerColor's card will be branded under the company's "SCS3" line of silent graphics cards. Based on the 40 nm "Barts" silicon, the AMD Radeon HD 6850 features 960 stream processors, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface. Availability and pricing is unknown as the design is yet to be finalized.

Hot on the heels of the global launch of the new HD 6000 series of graphics cards based on the latest generation of graphics technology from AMD, SAPPHIRE Technology announces its first enhanced product - the HD 6850 TOXIC Edition. The SAPPHIRE HD 6850 TOXIC Edition has the same internal architecture as the standard model, with 960 stream processors and 48 texture processing units, but clock speeds are increased to 820MHz for the core and 1100Mhz (4.4 Gb/sec effective) for the memory giving users a considerable boost in performance. In addition, the efficient SAPPHIRE original cooler ensures that there is a good margin for performance tuning (overclocking) by enthusiast users. A new overclocking tool - TriXX - is available to SAPPHIRE users as a download from the SAPPHIRE Select Club - free for SAPPHIRE enthusiasts to join online.

Unlike the standard model, the SAPPHIRE HD 6850 TOXIC Edition has the more versatile output configuration of two DVI, one HDMI and two mini DisplayPort connectors. Using two of the DVI/HDMI outputs as well as the two DisplayPorts enables this card to support up to four monitors in Eyefinity (SLS) mode. With the release of the DisplayPort v1.2 drivers, it will be also be possible to daisy chain additional DisplayPort v1.2 monitors from each DisplayPort output.

AMD released the fifth hotfix update for Catalyst 10.10 WHQL. Catalyst 10.10e, like Catalyst 10.10c Hotfix, packs a number of game-specific performance improvements, and extends MLAA (morphological anti-aliasing) support introduced by Catalyst 10.10d Hotfix, to all Radeon HD 5000 series GPUs. The new Catalyst AI controls in control center are extended to Radeon HD 5000 GPUs, these were previously available only to users of Radeon HD 6800 series. Support for new stereoscopic 3D capable hardware was also added.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 10.10e Hotfix Update

A detailed list of changes follows.

Club 3D B.V. is pleased to announce the introduction of the next generation video card based on the Bart PRO chipset, AMD's second generation DirectX 11. The new Club 3D Radeon HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 Overclocked Edition video card now features the AMD HD3D technology which allows you to play your favorite games in full stereo 3D with a single video card (up to 3 monitors, and enjoy with the new EyeSpeed technology to watch the latest Blu-ray movies in 3D.

Do things faster with AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) technology on the most demanding applications and take advantage of the Dolby True HD support for a theatre-quality experience. Now is available to you with 820 Mhz GPU Clock, 4400 Mhz GDDR5 and 960 Stream Processors.

VERTEX3D, a new brand of AMD graphics card, today announces an advanced version of the next generation HD6850 graphics: the VTX3D HD6850 X Edition. The X series aims to deliver extreme gaming performance in the ultra quiet working environment with factory overclocked setting, and tackles the most demanding gamers and applications.

The HD6850 X Edition features superior factory overclocked ability, with core clocks at 800MHz and memory clocks at 1050MHz. Equipped with the most advanced GDDR5 memory, delivering faster and higher bandwidths, allows the ultimate gaming performance on the maximum setting. Gamers can easily tune their rig to its limitations.

We scored an early look at MSI's latest graphics card, the R6850 Cyclone OC Power Edition. This AMD Radeon HD 6850 based graphics card makes use of MSI's popular Cyclone GPU cooler, which it has used on several generations of graphics cards. It consists of a GPU based turned heatsink with spirally-projecting aluminum fins, from which heat is conveyed to two aluminum fin arrays on either sides of the GPU, by 8 mm thick heat pipes. Carrying the "power edition" label, this card is geared for overclocking, in which software voltage control is provided and made use of.

The PCB draws power from just one 6-pin power connector, it uses a 6+1+1 phase VRM that makes use of high-grade components. Display connectivity includes two DVI, and one each of HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2. While MSI did not mention what clock speeds it ships with, it definitely put it through some OC tests. The card was able to achieve 1000/1200 MHz (core/memory) with a core voltage of 1.2V. The card was put through Furmark, where it settled down to 65 degrees Celsius. MSI will introduce this card to the market very soon.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, adds its own cooling solution to the HD6850 series: PCS+ HD 6850. This powerful upgraded edition embraces the PCS+ series features which equips with superior factory overclocked setting and excellent cooling solution, unlimited the ultra gaming potential in the coolest working environment.

PCS+ HD6850 clocks at 820 MHz core speed, while memory clocks at 1100 MHz. The factory overclocked setting ensures gaming efficacy can effortlessly go beyond the standard version, delivering the out of box gaming performance which will easily blow up gamers' mind.

AMD gave out the latest hotfix driver update to its recently published Catalyst 10.10 WHQL, which is a whole lot more than being just a hotfix, this time. A hotfix update is usually given out by AMD if it misses out on addressing a couple of important issues with a recently published Catalyst WHQL driver update. Catalyst 10.10c Hotfix adds early OpenGL 4.1 support, and surprisingly adds multiple game-specific performance improvements (unusual for a Hotfix).

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 10.10c Hotfix
Details are as follows:

Chinese graphics card manufacturer ColorFire designed a new non-reference design AMD Radeon HD 6850 graphics card that that uses a stronger VRM and a Zalman VF-3000 GPU cooler. The PCB sets the red color-scheme, and the cooler keeps up with it, using a hot rod looking shroud. The card uses a 7+1 phase VRM that draws power from two 6-pin power connectors, facilitating high clock speeds. The PCB also holds two CFBI fingers, indicating the card to support 3-way and 4-way CrossFireX. Low-latency (0.5 ns) GDDR5 memory chips by Hynix are used.

The VF-3000 has some hefty credentials, it can handle very high thermal loads. The cooler makes use of a dense aluminum fin array that is ventilated by two 90 mm fans. The exact clock speeds are not known. Display connectivity includes one each of DVI, D-Sub, HDMI 1.4, and DisplayPort 1.2. Like every other HD 6850, this one packs 960 stream processors, and supports the latest graphics APIs such as DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.x. It's not known if ColorFire will market this card outside China.

TechPowerUp announced the latest version of Radeon BIOS Editor (or RBE), the popular ATI/AMD Radeon graphics card BIOS manipulation utility. Version 1.26 is designed to offer early support for AMD Radeon HD 6800 series graphics processors, stability improvements for the Hex editor, and a more stable flashing procedure. It also corrects compatibility bugs related to Winflash.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp Radeon BIOS Editor v1.26

A change-log by the software's creator follows.