HIS AMD Radeon HD 6950 2GB Review

👤by Sahil Mannick Comments 📅14-12-10
Closer Look (Continued)

The cooler and shroud

When we remove the cooler and shroud, we can see that they are very hefty. The shroud is a combination of plastic on the outer case and metal on the under side to cool the memory chips. The thermal pads are indicative of the 8 memory modules on the PCB itself. The fan is attached to the metal bracing, which pushes air through the heatsink. The heatsink no longer uses a heat pipe design but instead employs a vapour chamber to ensure better cooling and consequently quieter operation. Its construction is a combination of aluminium fins and a copper base.


The bare PCB

The bare PCB reveals the layout of the individual components. Unlike the HD6870, the power circuitry has gone back to its traditional placement towards the power connectors. The GPU area is set in the middle and surrounded by 8 memory modules.


The Cayman GPU

The Cayman core seen here has a die size of 389 mm squared, significantly larger than the 255mm squared Barts core and the 334mm squared Cypress core. This is the largest AMD core since the notorious R600 core design which came at 420 mm squared. The fabrication is still on the 40nm process due to the lack of readily available 32nm or 28nm manufacturing.


The 8 Hynix memory modules

The memory modules are once again GDDR5 chips sourced from Hynix rather than Samsung. The H5GQ 2H24MFR T2C 039A chips operate at 1.5V. The T2 denotes that the memory is rated at 5GHz but as we will see later on, this is a very conservative clock speed. Unlike the HD6870, the memory controller is more robust and can benefit from the full potential of the Hynix module. Each module are 256MB to give a total of 2GB of VRAM.


The VRM circuitry

The CLA1108-4 chokes are unique additions to the card for a robust VRM power circuitry. The card appears to use a 6 phase PWM design.


The Volterra VT1556MF voltage controller

The Volterra VT1556MF voltage controller sees its first use on the HD6900 series. Currently, no third party software provides support for voltage tweaking but this will no doubt change soon.


Size comparison

The HD6950 is 27.4cm in length, 2.9cm longer than the HD6870 which comes at 24.5cm, and 0.6cm longer than the XFX custom HD5870. Fortunately, the power connectors have been conveniently placed on the side to allow installation in smaller cases without cables interfering with HDD bays.

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