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Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation’s award-winning Left 4 Dead. The game launched on November 17, 2009, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 in the United States; it launched November 20 in Europe. It builds upon the cooperatively-focused gameplay of the original and uses Valve’s proprietary Source engine, the same game engine used in Left 4 Dead. The game made its world premiere at E3 2009 with a trailer during the Microsoft press event.
In a similar fashion to the original, Left 4 Dead 2 is set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic pandemic, and focuses on four survivors fighting against hordes of the infected. The survivors must fight their way through levels, interspersed with safe houses that act as checkpoints, with the goal of reaching a rescue vehicle at the campaign’s finale.
The gameplay is procedurally altered by an artificial intelligence engine dubbed the “Director” that monitors the players’ performance and adjust the scenario to provide a dynamic challenge. Several new features have been introduced: new types of infected, melee weapons, and a story-arc that connects the game’s five campaigns together.
Left4Dead 2 uses Valve’s Source engine and it’s not a particularly taxing engine for modern hardware, therefore we will run tests at 1920×1200 with this title.
The Powercolor Vortex has no problem with the Source engine as we expected and delivers stunning frame rates at the native resolution of the 24 inch screen we are using.
Powercolor seem to be a on a roll lately. compared to their cards 2 years ago these are light years ahead. I thought initially the cooler idea on this was a gimmick, but its actually rather practical as you say. First review on the net of this? well done !
Well I am glad someone else commented on the weird car type coolers on these boards, ive no idea why asus and powercolor are keen to promote their cards as vehicles 🙂 Anyway its better than frogs which palit used !
Good board and as always a fantastic review, love the noise level testing that is one hell of a good performance for an overclocked card.
I cant see it for sale anywhere? any ETA on sales?
The HD5770 as a series is SO damn good right now, £130!, I will wait to see how powercolor price this, if its £140-145, its a no brainer. I think this might even be better than the vapor X from sapphire. Which I wasnt expected.
I have to comment on the testing. the fact there arent 40 graphs per page with a focus on a real world setting is such a joy for me. I have seen some sites test a HD5770 at 2560×1600 with 8AA and they show results of 2fps. Thats really helpful to everyone. NOT!
So good job, and as the rest have said already, great performer.
Love these reviews from Zardon on KG, so much detail yet its all relevant. Killer review and what another great product from Powercolor. just hope they make it available where I live as they often dont.
Well this is quiet surprising, but the HD5870 review on kitguru surprised me also. Powercolor are really stepping up to the plate with these card releases. I am so glad they didnt put a whirring fan on this to get lower temperatures at the cost of noise.
Good job from powercolor, but for some reason i cant shake their perspection as a ‘cheaper’ maker, when compared to sapphire, am I wrong?
HD5770 is a solid buy, it always was, but the price drops mean you can get one of these heavily modded boards for the original price of the reference design, cant be bad to that 🙂
@ Frank. You arent the first person to say it, but I think its changed. I know most of these cards are made by the same handful of companies in the first east anyway, so I dont think quality is going to be an issue. The difference between the cards now is really down to the creative minds and R&D teams in each company who come up with the cooler ideas, and the key selling points to differentiate their cards from the other makers. Sapphire have been leading this for years, but with XFX and powercolor stepping up their game lately its not so black and white.
I wouldnt judge powercolor by a preconceived notion of their name from the past. check out the HD5870 review on Kitguru over here http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/powercolor-hd-5870-pcs-review/. that is a seriously impressive card and I would rather have it than the MSI version which everyone loves 🙂
Great review, solid testing and another winner from PC
Only thing I dislike about powercolor is the naming. this one isnt so bad, but all that PCS+ and PCS++ crap just irritates me.
Like this card a lot, its in the right price range, hopefully its nearer 140 than 150, cause its putting it rather close to the GTX460 if its 150.
HD5000 power consumption always impresses me greately. those fermi cards are just beasts by consideration.
For those handful of people complaining about powercolor name, I had a card fail last year by them and I got it replaced within 2 weeks, and this is in France. I was quite happy with their service. Might not be up to XFX standards but their cards generally are a bit cheaper.
That was great, and I really like the look of this card. I cant see it for sale yet, and its weird they havent released it as the press releases ive found from google said it was out yesterday!?!?!
140 would be a good price for it. if its 150, i think its a bit close in pricing to the GTX460 which would knock it into a cocked hat.
Nice review, like the noise and temp testing, always better than most sites out there who rate noise on some weird scales no one understands.
Powercolor make some great boards, they all follow a reference design for the components and while they slot on new coolers etc, there is very little they can do to ruin one of these cards anyway. as someone else said I think palit make most of the cards anyway for everyone. believe it or not !
Great review, think ill go order one if I can find it.
Any pricing lists yet? I cant find this bloody card anywhere.
I am sorely tempted to pick one of these up later next month
as much as that card is nice its less powerfull atleast on the benchmarks i use then the GTX 260 which atleast now is being sold for around the same price on newegg and given that the GTX 460 is around 41% more powerfull on the benchmarks i run and only costs like 50 more it seems like it would be a btter idea to just hold on to my money for 1-2 or 3 paychecks and get the GTX 460
I’ve just build new gaming rig & i dont regret buying this card. I play starcraft 2 all max settings with no lag even in most intense battle, fps doesnt go down below 25fps. Im very happy with this card