| Rating | Where to buy |
 | Amazon.com *Same or similar item |
The MSI Radeon R6850 Cyclone is an affordable graphics card. It features 256 bit 1 GB GDDR5 graphics memory. Its core clock runs at 775 MHz and memory clock at 4000 MHz. The maximum resolution supported by R6850 is 2560×1600. R6850 supports DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0.
What’s in the box
The box of MSI R6850 Cyclone contains MSI Radeon 6850 Cyclone Power Edition graphics card, a DVI to VGA converter, an external power cable, Ribbon cable to interconnect ATI CrossFire graphics card, a user manual, and a driver disk.
Features
Cyclone power edition R6850 has excellent heat dissipation system; it has heat pipe going to the fan facilitating effective cooling. The powerful 9 blades fan keeps the card cool when running graphically demanding programs for a considerable amount of time. The fan is quiet. Cyclone R6850 Power Edition has a single six-pin power connector. There are two DVI ports, an HDMI, and a full display port.
Cyclone R6850 is a crossfire ready card. Your package may or may not contain a Ribbon cable to add another graphics card to your motherboard to double up the performance.
ATI Afterburner software comes bundled with Cyclone R6850. This utility enables you to improve the performance of R6850 and monitor critical information in real-time.
MSI Cyclone R6850 supports ATI HD3D technology that enables 3D display capabilities for many computer applications. It also features AMD Eyefinity, a technology that allows you to enjoy a game over multiple displays to expand your visual area across up to three displays with innovative ‘wrap around’ capabilities to maximize your field of view.
Performance
We tried the MSI Radeon R6850 Cyclone Power Edition in our 2012 Custom Gaming Desktop. That post is replaced by our Custom Gaming Desktop 2018 post. We ran games such as NFS Hot Pursuit, Dirt 3, Flight Simulator X, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, Bioshock Infinite, Mass Effect 3, Torchlight 2, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Our gaming experience was pretty impressive with a minimum 40 to maximum 75 frames per second.
The card remained cool (below 40-degree centigrade) and silent even after extensive gaming for 5 consecutive hours.
The specialty of ATI graphics card is that it yields better shadows, better color, and more object details than NVidia cards. The MSI R6850 was not an exception. The details were eye-catching and realistic.
| Pros | Cons |
| MSI R6850 Cyclone PE is affordable. It delivers an impressive frame rate, high details. Stays cool and silent. Sports Dual DVI, CrossFire, multi-display support. HD, 3D, HDMI enabled. | There’s nothing much to complain except for its look, which is not as impressive as its performance. |
Conclusion
MSI R6850 Cyclone Power Edition 1GB GDDR5 is an affordable gaming graphics card that remains cool and silent throughout extensive PC usage. It is built with solid capacitors. It will last a few years. This card will enable you to run the latest games and graphically demanding software without trouble. We highly recommend MSI R6850 Cyclone.