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The Powercolor cards arrive in an attractively designed box with a high resolution image of the product on the front. Each card can support up to four screens in Eyefinity.
The bundle contains literature on the product, a DVI dongle, Mini DP to DP cable, a driver CD and a CrossFire connector.
The card is built around a bright red PCB with a subdued sticker on the front highlighting the product name and the Powercolor logo along the bottom. It is a very attractive design, we like the accented gold stripe across the front of the card, then around the fan.
Each card has a single DVI DL port, next to an HDMI and 2 mini displayport connectors. All can be powered simultaneously for Eyefinity configurations.
The HD6850 Single Slot cards are 2, 3 and 4 way CrossFire capable and they require only a single 6 pin power connector (each) for operation.
Removing the cooler is a little more time consuming than normal, as it is held in place with 9 screws.
The PowerColor HD6850 single slot edition takes advantage of PowerColor’s Platinum Power Kit, utilizing 100% SMT type components: Volterra, Poscap and Proadlizer, enhancing the stability and efficiency. Furthermore, the latest edition uses 3 units of 8mm heat pipes with a full cover cooling plate, dissipating heat from its large pure copper base. Elpida memory is used on these particular boards.
Each card operates at 775 mhz core, and the 1GB of GDDR 5 memory runs at 1000mhz (4ghz effective) connected via a 256 bit memory interface. They are built around a 40nm BARTS core, with 32 ROPs and 960 unified shaders.
I admire powercolor for all the cool designs recently. I think they are on the rise as more people are buying their hardware (but maybe im wrong?)
I bought one of these last month and have been very happy with it. I did notice that the thermal paste application was poor , and that by applying my own temperatures dropped a good 5 c
I like their hardware, ive owned a few cards and they have been fine. I know sapphier get all the applause, but nothing wrong with PC.
Id prefer two of these to a GTX580, Direct X performance is clearly much better
You guys forget about the driver reliance. AMD are still slow updating drivers to support games. id have most of the games beaten by the time id have the profile for it.
ill pass
Nice cards, but no need for single slot for my system, ive been looking to upgrade, but I might wait on 7 series, cant be that far ahead now. maybe end of year.
Whats their warranty in the UK?
THe power consumption is excellent. AMD really have that sorted with the latest cards.
I dont think a single card card lasts as long as a dual slot, they tend to run hotter all over and things ‘burn out’ over time. its a risk with this design, especially in a media center.
I admire powercolor for making so many cool designs, outside the reference AMD plans.
These particular cards arent for me, but I dig their overall progress in this market recently.
Yeah thats good value for money, but with the yoyotech GTX580 being sold for £330 (asus direct CU II!) it knocks this off the ‘great deal’ imo.