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The PowerColor HD6950 features a unique cooler

Subject: Graphics Cards | July 22, 2011 - 01:00 PM |
Tagged: amd, hd6950, powercolor, 6950 PCS+ Vortex 2

We have seen non-standard HD6950's with dual fans before, but not quite in the way that PowerColor implemented them.  The fans can slide in and out of their shrouds, not only for cleaning but also to fine tune the way that they cool the card.  Hardware Heaven managed a rather decent overclock on the card, hitting 908MHz on the GPU and 1496MHz GDDR5.  The full list of features reads like a dream, copper block with thick heatpipes, dual BIOS, aluminium fins, solid capacitors, ferrite core chokes and DrMos, probably why this card costs a wee bit more than your average card.

HH-powercolor-radeon6950-vortex2_fan2.jpg

"Today we will be putting the 6950 PCS+ Vortex 2 and its unique cooler through a selection of real world gaming, multimedia and GPU computing tasks to see how it stacks up against some of the best competitor cards on the market."

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Source: Hardware Heaven

Powercolor's passively cooled and pricey HD6850 SCS3

Subject: Graphics Cards | July 12, 2011 - 02:19 PM |
Tagged: powercolor, passive cooling, hd6850

Powercolor's SCS3 HD6850 1GB GDDR5 graphics card is an odd beast, neither fish nor fowl but a strange hybrid of the two.  To passively cool an HD6850 you need a lot of metal, about 4 slots worth in fact, which makes it all but impossible to use this card in an HTPC or other SFF system.  That size also makes it rather hard to set up in Crossfire system and for extreme performance you need to think about adding a fan in close proximity if not attached to the heatsink, which makes paying the extra money for this card a poor decision.  That said, Benchmark Reviews saw good performance and even managed a respectable overclock with this card, though even with good airflow through their case they saw troubling temperatures on occasion.  Even if you can't picture yourself picking up the card it is worth clicking through just to see the heatsink.

BR_Powercolor_hd6850_scs3.jpg

"PowerColor's a familiar name to the AMD Radeon community. If they don't offer the widest variety of variations on AMD's reference designs, I don't know who does! They have no fewer than eight different versions of AMD's Radeon HD6850 card, ranging from factory-overclocked "PCS+" variants to a single-slot-cooler version to the one Benchmark Reviews is looking at today: the passively-cooled PowerColor SCS3 HD6850 1GB GDDR5. This card uses a massive fan-less heat sink to offer the performance of an HD6850 without any noise at all, and is certainly one of the highest-performing graphics cards I've ever seen with a passive cooler. Will this really work? How far will it overclock? Let's take a look."

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Source: Benchmark Reviews

Double the price but not double the performance; Powercolor designed a dual GPU HD 6870

Subject: Graphics Cards | July 8, 2011 - 02:22 PM |
Tagged: powercolor, HD6870 X2

PowerColor's HD 6870 X2 is a non-standard card sporting a pair of HD6870 GPUs on one PCB which unfortunately costs more than twice as much as standard HD6870 though within the same ballpark as the GTX580 which is its competitor.  Powercolor really went out on a limb designing this card with no help from AMD and as far as performance goes it is a success as it can beat the GTX580's frame rate when gaming.  However as far as pricing goes, it ranks with the GTX590 and HD6990, in that it is very expensive when looked at from a performance per dollar perspective.  For those enthusiasts that want the absolute best that is probably not going to matter, but if you have the slots you should consider buying a pair of reference HD 6870s.  Check out techPowerUp's full review if the $500 asking price hasn't scared you off.

tpu_6870x2.jpg

"PowerColor's exclusive HD 6870 X2 unifies two HD 6870 graphics processors on a single card. This approach offers performance that can compete with other high-end cards like GTX 580. In our testing we saw nice results that make this card a worthy alternative in today's high-end graphics card market."

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Source: TechPowerUp

Powercolor's take on the ultimate HD6970

Subject: Graphics Cards | June 24, 2011 - 12:50 PM |
Tagged: powercolor, amd, HD6970, factory overclocked

Head over to [H]ard|OCP to meet the PowerColor PCS+ Radeon HD 6970 with a 60MHz bump on the CPU to 940MHz and memory of 1425MHz which is a 50MHz bump, along with an improved cooler.  They also added some extras to the back of the card, a dual-link DVI-I port, a single-link DVI-I port, one HDMI port, and two mini-DisplayPort jacks which will make setting up EyeFinity a breeze.  The boosted speed helped in overcoming the GTX 570  in almost every single benchmark, pity that the same can be said of the price as it costs more than NVIDIA's card and doesn't surpass it in performance enough to justify the increased cost.

H_powercolor_6970.jpg

"PowerColor's highest-end Radeon HD 6970 is on our test bench today. The PCS+ Radeon HD 6970 has a respectable out-of-the-box overclock, a custom cooler, and a free game, but does it offer value for its price premium?"

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Source: [H]ard|OCP

PowerColor Shows Off New 4GB AMD Graphics Card With Two Stock Clocked 6970 GPUs

Subject: Graphics Cards | June 2, 2011 - 11:33 PM |
Tagged: powercolor, HD 6970, computex, amd

Computex 2011 is in full swing, and PowerColor has joined the fray of product reveals with a new PowerColor 6970 X2 AMD graphics card that combines two stock-clocked 6970 GPUs onto a single PCB.

TweakTown was able to get a hands-on of the card at the company's Computex booth.  They report that the GPUs are clocked at 880MHz, and each GPU is allotted 2GB of GDDR5 memory each (for a total of 4GB across both GPUs), and is clocked at 1375MHz (5500MHz QDR).  The interesting aspect of the dual GPU card is that the two GPUs are connected by a Lucid Logix chip, which will be interesting to see how this setup would compare to an overclocked 6990 graphics card, which amounts to two CrosseFired 6950 GPUs.

The new card uses three 8-pin PCI-E connectors for up to 525 watts (including 75 watts provided by the motherboard) of power, which should provide ample power for stock and overclocked clocks.  The card will futher feature two DVI connectors (one Dual-Link, one Single-Link), two mini-DisplayPort connectors, and one HDMI port.

For those looking for maximum gaming performance, two of these 6970 x2 cards in a CrossFire configuration will become the new high-end AMD standard.  You can see more photos of the card along with a preview of it's smaller 6870 x2 sibling over at TweakTown.

Computex 2011 Coverage brought to you by MSI Computer and Antec

 Image copyright 2011 TweakTown.com.  Used under fair-usage guidelines for purposes of commentary and news reporting.

Source: TweakTown

Buy an AMD GPU (or two) and get a free copy of DiRT 3

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | May 24, 2011 - 02:29 PM |
Tagged: xfx, sapphire, powercolor, msi, his, free, dirt 3, amd

If you haven't heard of DiRT 3 by now, you've been missing one of the more technically innovative games developed recently.  Racing fans will go overboard for the choice of cars, spanning 50 years of racing history, which you can compete with in races across all terrain types and the more artistic will like the freestyle gymkhana events. 

The techies will be impressed by the depth of support for DX11 features and we're not just talking about tessellation added on as an afterthought.  The game was designed from the ground up to take advantage of the best graphics cards and to move the way light and shadows interact beyond DX10 HDR and the features other new games have been using. 

Whichever you are, picking up a new Radeon card from Sapphire, Powercolor, MSI, HIS or XFX nets you a free copy of the game! How can you go wrong with that?

 

 

No doubt you’ve heard that the newest addition to Codemasters’ racing games, DiRT 3 has launched today. The reviews are also in, and they’re great, I mean, they’re really great.

Being a Gaming Evolved title, we worked with Codemasters very closely on this one - DiRT 3 makes advances in graphics technologies, taking full advantage of the DirectX™ 11 API, first supported by AMD Radeon graphics. Here’s a glimpse of what DiRT 3 is truly capable of doing – giving players the ultimate visual experience:

  • Shader Model 5.0 Contact Hardening Shadows
  • DirectCompute Accelerated High Definition Ambient Occlusion
  • Optimized Hardware Tessellation

In addition, DiRT 3 has been validated for various Eyefinity configurations, including the brand new 5x1 setup. But the fun doesn’t stop there. You’ll see some examples of it here.

We believe DiRT 3 is such a great game, that we’ve been working with our AIB partners to make this game widely accessible to everyone who buys an AMD Radeon graphics card from our select AIBs, FOR FREE – please visit www.amd.com/dirt3 for more details.

 

Source: AMD