AMD has officially released the Radeon HD 6790, but almost no PR. The chipset tackles the low- to mid-range segment at $150 and is the spiritual successor to the 5770. It uses the same 800 stream processors and 40 texture units but upgrades to a twice as wide 256-bit memory bus in return for slightly slower core clock (840MHz) and memory (1.05GHz) speeds.
The design makes the most of the advances in technology by lowering the power consumption to help it fit in small or low-power desktops. Early benchmarks show it roughly on par with the Radeon HD 5830 but trailing behind the outgoing GeForce GTX 460 at the same price.
Cards should be shipping today from partners like PowerColor, Sapphire, and XFX. Computer builders are also likely to use the 6790.
