AMD Launches Radeon 6000M Series Mobile Graphics Cards
Built for notebooks and tailored toward graphics-intensive gaming, AMD's latest high-end processors offer support for Direct X 11 and several other features aimed at enhancing the visual experience. However, the Radeon HD 6850 and HD 6870 feature similar specifications and speeds as their predecessors, 5850 and the 5750.
Based on a 40-nm fabrication process, the Radeon HD 6850 includes 12 SIMD engines, 32 ROPs, and 256-bit memory running at a core frequency of 775 MHz. With just one PCI power connector, the lower-end 6950 manages to keep its power consumption down with a TDP of 127W and idle power of 19W.
The Radeon HD 6870 includes 1120 stream processors, 32 ROPs, 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, a 256-bit bus and 42-MHz of memory clock to go with cores clocked at 900 MHz. Its thermal design power (TDP) is 151W when loading and 19W when idle.
"One year ago AMD claimed the title of undisputed technology leader in mobile graphics performance and since then we continue to pave the way for mobile computing innovation," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager of AMD's GPU Division, in a statement. "With the introduction of the AMD Radeon AMD Radeon HD 6000M Series HD 6000M series, AMD‘s best just got better by cementing its leadership in notebook graphics."
The 6000M processors include AMD Eyefinity technology, which AMD says supports up to 1.3 teraflops of performance across up to six displays, as well as AMD HD3D technology and AMD EyeSpeed technology for enhanced video quality.
AMD's branding for the high-end Radeon processors emphasizes power and cost-efficiency rather than performance in determining models, which has caused some confusion in the past.
After announcing that it would drop the "ATI" brand name earlier this year, AMD released the 6800M series in October, the first not to bear the logo of the company AMD acquired in 2005.