As we explained in our introduction to AMD’s brand-new Radeon HD series, which you can read here, the Radeon HD 6850 is based on an entirely new GPU architecture optimized for DirectX 11 games. But don’t be confused by AMD’s branding: The Radeon HD 6850 will replace the Radeon HD 5830, not the Radeon HD 5850 and certainly not the company’s top-shelf GPU, the Radeon HD 5870.The XFX Radeon HD 6850 reviewed here departs only slightly from AMD’s reference design: There’s a single full-size DisplayPort connector instead of the dual mini-DisplayPorts that AMD envisioned, and XFX’s custom cooler delivers better airflow. The GPU and 1GB GDDR5 frame buffer on this card are clocked at the stock rates of 775- and 1,000MHz, respectively.