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The makers of Metro 2033 – 4A Games was founded by people who split off from GSC Game World a year before the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, in particular Oles’ Shiskovtsov and Aleksandr Maksimchuk, the programmers who worked on the development of X-Ray engine used in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. The game utilizes multi-platform 4A Engine, running on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows. There is some contention regarding whether the engine is based on the pre-release X-Ray engine (as claimed by Sergiy Grygorovych, the founder of GSC Game World, as well as users who have seen the 4A Engine SDK screenshots, citing visual similarities, shared resources, and technical evaluation of the pre-release 4A Engine demo conducted at the request of GSC Game World), or whether the engine is an original development (as claimed by 4A Games and Oles’ Shiskovtsov in particular, who claims it would have been impractical to retrofit the X-ray engine with console support). 4A Engine features Nvidia PhysX support, enhanced AI, and a console SDK for Xbox 360. The PC version includes exclusive features such as DirectX 11 support and has been described as “a love letter to PC gamers” because of the developers’ choice to “make the PC version [especially] phenomenal”.
We tested at 1920×1080 with settings on default ‘normal’
The overclock helps the Powercolor card to top our chart, if only by a single frame per second. Metro 2033 is a taxing game at these settings, however we are impressed with the HD6870 performance.
Excellent, but I just wonder are they starting to encroach into the price sector planned out for the 6970? I hear it will be around 300 inc vat, so this could very well only be 60 less. which means it might not be quite the deal !
Well I wasnt expecting powercolor to be out first 🙂 nice board indeed. very impressive.
This is very sexy, worth it for the cooler alone, im not that bothered about the overclocks out of the box.
Nice cooler but bring on the 6970
Fucking sweet man. if I had the money right now id be all over this. Might wait for the 6970 tho and save a few more months !
Powercolor are kicking ass and taking names lately. They still have a ways to go before they get the acclaim that sapphire do, but I really like the company. never let me down yet
Weill be good to see how this handles against the black edition from XFX.
10 more sounds like a bargain to me. any ideas when this is out, soon I hope?
Cooler looks brilliant. Nothing really that awesome mind you, much like their last generation cooler.
I dont for the love of god see why anyone needs a GTX580 with the performance levels one of these generates at half the price. even on a 24 inch screen, its pointless.
Awesome review KG.
Well, this just hits the spot. im an nvidia lover however so ill not move, but tis nice to see competition.
Hey, nothing wrong with powercolor. its just idiots on the net who keep saying sapphire are the only make they will buy.
I had a powercolor card years ago and it died, they didnt replace it, and I gave up and swore never again. I think their UK support is poor, unless it has improved recently. im afraid its XFX or sapphire for me.
You know Kitguru, your benchmarks would be much readable if you used black or dark background. It just needs more contrast. This way they’re not very easy on the eyes.
Love the product from powercolor, I hope to see XFX and sapphires models soon.
Since you received word from PowerColor directly, may I ask if you could ask them when are they going to release the Radeon HD 6970 with the PCS+ cooler? Thanks.
In fact, I was going to purchase this very same card, until I heard of the new models being released (I didn’t know they were ready for launch), so I decided to wait a little just for a review on the (future, hope) PowerColor PCS+ 6970. Thanks again!