MSI R6850 Cyclone 1GD5 Power Edition/OC Pro Reviews

I feel that this 6850 rendition adds a lot to the AMD stronghold and really fills out the body of their market quite nicely. I have quite a few friends who enjoy PC gaming so much that it consumes their life, so much in fact that they find it difficult to amass the income to upgrade their beloved machine on a reasonable basis and are stuck at the lowest settings possible when a game even runs. That seems like an awful shame treating the die-hards so roughly. Releasing all these new parts that tech savvy enthusiasts such as you, our OCC readers can salivate over, along with prices reminiscent of expanded pay checks we would likewise salivate over. MSI has hit a balance. Offering an already good card at a reasonable price to those that want it, as well as an insane value for those brave hearts that know and want that extra performance offered by the impressive overclocks offered here.

As we had expected, the MSI R6850 Cyclone II Power Edition OC with its higher clock speeds recorded higher frame rates than the HIS 6850 IceQ X Turbo. Even though the difference was slight, the fact is that the MSI card is able to distinguish itself from its competitors as one of the fastest Radeon HD 6850 cards in the market today.

With the R6850 Cyclone, MSI has delivered a technical masterwork with an amazing price tag. At $189.99 before rebate, and $174.99 after rebate, it is right in the middle of the pack in terms of cost, but with an 860MHz GPU clock out of the box, it absolutely leads the pack in terms of speed. The MSI R6850 Cyclone is nothing less than the fastest Radeon HD 6850 based video card. When you consider overclocking potential, the value of this little beast just goes through the roof. In three out of five games in our testing suite, the MSI R6850 Cyclone beat its competition by an appreciable margin.

Even though the naming suggests otherwise, the biggest strength of the MSI HD 6850 Cyclone Power Edition is that its fan is able to run extremely quiet when the "silent" mode is engaged via the little switch on the board. In terms of performance MSI did a good job as well. The overclock out of the box is the largest available on the market so far. Other AIBs offer cards at 820 MHz, but MSI has chosen to go all out and specs their card at 860 MHz. The bottom line is, if you are looking for the quietest possible HD 6850 experience, then the price premium is worth $20.

This is just a fantastic version of the HD 6850 from every angle. First you've got the performance. Second, we've got the "Power Edition" tag which helps give us the ability to adjust more voltages, which in turn should give us the ability to reach a higher overclock. Third, we've got that Cyclone cooler which is nothing short of fantastic.