A lot of rumors on the upcoming AMD Graphics card line seem to be invalid. Some websites have jumped onto that, let me iron out some of the gossip.
Despite rumors from DigiTimes earlier this week that mentioned delays of the Radeon HD 6000 series until November, we still think that the Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 graphics cards will be released on October 18th, give or take a day.
As you guys know, both cards will be and are based on what is now know as the 'Barts' GPU. One rumor is correct though, the 6800 series will in fact be segmented into mid-range, and not high-end as many people expected.
So the Radeon HD 6800 will segment itself in the mid-range market, whereas the Radeon HD 5800 series will be updated with the Radeon HD 6900 (Caymen) series, with a dual-GPU part named Radeon HD 6990 (Antilles).
So that is certainly something to think about, as the naming scheme has changed. The 6800 products will be targeted directly against NVIDIA's GTX 460 series products (GF104). The Radeon HD 6850 will be faster than the Radeon HD 5830 and the Radeon HD 6870 will be faster than the Radeon HD 5850.
The Radeon HD 6870 will be a pure reference product, while the Radeon HD 6850 will see many custom designs and boards. In the end it will be all about pricing. Here are some leaked (unconfirmed) specs that show the differences in-between some of the old and new products:
| Specifications | Radeon HD 5770 | Radeon HD 5850 | Radeon HD 6850 | Radeon HD 6870 |
| GPU | Juniper XT | Cypress Pro | Barts Pro | Barts XT |
| Manufact. tech. | 40nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm |
| GPU frequency | 850 MHz | 725 MHz | 725 MHz | 850 MHz |
| Stream processors | 800 |
1440 | 800 | 960 |
| Memory frequency | 4 800 MHz | 4 000 MHz | 4 000 MHz | 4 200 MHz |
| Memory bus |
128-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory buffer |
1 GB GDDR5 | 1 GB GDDR5 | 1 GB GDDR5 | 1 GB GDDR5 |
| Power consumption |
108 watt | 151 watt | ~ 120 watt | >150 watt |
| Performance |
- | - | Better than 5830 | Better than 5850 |
