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The Powercolor fixation with the Buggati Veyron is still an integral part of their box artwork. There is obviously no direct link with a 250+ mph sports car and a video card, but the concept is cool.
The bundle includes a free copy of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as well as literature on the installation, a software CD, VGA converter, Crossfire connector and a mini Displayport to Displayport converter.
Powercolor are using their custom made heatpipe cooler and the PCB is also a custom PowerColor design. Already off to a good start.
The PCS++ is a two slot design with 3 thick pipes passing heat into two series of aluminum fins on either side of the PCB.
The card requires an 8 pin and a 6 pin power connector for operation and it can also be operated in 2/3/4 way CrossfireX configurations.
The naked cooler exposed. As can be seen from the images above, the core design can actually accept 4 heatpipes, although this particular cooler only utilises three, passing heat into various sections of parallel running fin arrays.
The memory is Hynix H5GQ2H24MFR-T2C which are rated for 1250mhz (5000mhz effective speeds). A fully fledged HD6970 uses faster memory rated to 1500mhz (and set to 5.5GBps by AMD on the reference design). We also noticed that Powercolor are using a ChiL 8228 voltage controller instead of the Volterra VT1556 which is on the AMD reference design. Clearly this is to help manage the final price of the product.
There is a bios switch on the PCB which toggles between HD6950 and HD6970 ‘modes'. Both settings are shown above in the GPUz screenshots.
really clever idea to have a dual bios preconfigured like this. I know some people dont want to flash their cards due to the risk of killing it and having no comeback.
Its a really nice idea to be seen as being active like this. they do release some particularly impressive cards in the last year.
Their cooler is great, my friend has another card with the same cooler and its very quiet. dual fans always works great.
PCB design is good, and although I know they could maybe have used the better memory it would put the price up a good bit.
Im still not sold on their cards, I hear horror stories of their UK support system. which is basically non existant. that is why I go for sapphire, cause I know ill get a replacement if the hardware fails. same for HIS, crap UK support.
I like their PCS cards, always really well made, but I do echo a feeling of concern in the Uk. I know my wifes brother bought a powercard card years ago and it did fail after 10 months and no one would accept it back. A word of caution for those people buying one in the UK, their local support is not good. (or wasnt ).
Their support in USA is very good.