There are a lot of cards on the market these days, and there are also more board partners kicking around then I have ever seen. What does it take to separate yourself from the rest? PowerColor launched its PCS series awhile back and now the new PCS+ has put PowerColor on the map for PC gaming. The new cooling systems are not just impressive but also very aesthetically pleasing. The heatpipe technology used on a GPU may seem like over kill but in all honesty it works and it looks incredible. Let’s take a good look at this card and put it through the paces to see how well it performs:
Provided by: PowerColor
Price: $419
Closer Look:
Specifications and Features:
| Graphics Engine | RADEON HD5870 |
|---|---|
| Video Memory | 1GB GDDR5 |
| Engine Clock | 875MHz |
| Memory Clock | 1225MHz (4.9Gbps) |
| Memory Interface | 256bit |
| DirectX Support | 11 |
| Bus Standard | PCIE 2.1 |
| Standard Display Connecors | DL-DVI/DL-DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort |
| Feature Support | |
| DirectX Support | 11 |
| OpenGL | Support |
| CrossFireX Technology | Support |
| ATI Stream Technology | Support |
| ATI Eyefinity Technology | Support |
| ATI Hypermemory Technology | |
| Display Support | |
| VGA Output | Via Adapter |
| DVI Output | Dual Link DVI-I x2 |
| DisplayPort | On Board |
| HDMI | On Board |
| TV Output | |
| HDTV Output | |
| HDCP Support | Support |
| Maximum Resolution | |
| VGA | 2048×1536 |
| DVI | 2560×1600 |
| DisplayPort | 2560×1600 |
| HDMI | 1920×1200 |
| Power Specs + Board Dimensions | |
| Board Dimensions | 257mmx111mmx38mm |
| Minimum System Power requirement (W) | 500W |
| Extention Power Connector | Two 6-Pin PCI Express Power connectors |
- 2.15 billion 40nm transistors
- TeraScale 2 Unified Processing Architecture
- 1600 Stream Processing Units
- 80 Texture Units
- 128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
-
- 32 Color ROP Units
- 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface
- PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
- DirectX® 11 support
- Shader Model 5.0
- DirectCompute 11
- Programmable hardware tessellation unit
- Accelerated multi-threading
- HDR texture compression
- Order-independent transparency
- OpenGL 3.2 support1
- Image quality enhancement technology
- Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing modes
- Adaptive anti-aliasing
- 16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering
- 128-bit floating point HDR rendering
- ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology2,3
- Three independent display controllers
- Drive three displays simultaneously with independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays
- Display grouping
- Combine multiple displays to behave like a single large display
- ATI Eyefinity Technology requires a Display Port out of three outputs
- ATI Stream acceleration technology
- OpenCL 1.0 compliant
- DirectCompute 11
- Double precision floating point processing support
- Accelerated video encoding, transcoding, and upscaling4,5
- Native support for common video encoding instructions
- ATI CrossFireX™ multi-GPU technology6
- Dual, triple, and quad GPU scaling
- Dual-channel bridge interconnect
- ATI Avivo HD Video & Display technology7
- UVD 2 dedicated video playback accelerator
- Advanced post-processing and scaling8
- Dynamic contrast enhancement and color correction
- Brighter whites processing (blue stretch)
- Independent video gamma control
- Dynamic video range control
- Support for H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2
- Dual-stream 1080p playback support9,10
- DXVA 1.0 & 2.0 support
- Integrated dual-link DVI output with HDCP11
- Max resolution: 2560×160012
- Integrated DisplayPort output
- Max resolution: 2560×160012
- Integrated HDMI 1.3 output with Deep Color, xvYCC wide gamut support, and high bit-rate audio
- Max resolution: 1920×120012
- Integrated VGA output
- Max resolution: 2048×153612
- Integrated HD audio controller
- Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required
- Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio format
- ATI PowerPlay™ power management technology7
- Dynamic power management with low power idle state
- Ultra-low power state support for multi-GPU configurations
- Certified drivers for Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP
- Driver support scheduled for release in 2010
- Driver version 8.66 (Catalyst 9.10) or above is required to support ATI Eyefinity technology and to enable a third display you require one panel with a DisplayPort connector
- ATI Eyefinity technology works with games that support non-standard aspect ratios which is required for panning across three displays
- Requires application support for ATI Stream technology
- Digital rights management restrictions may apply
- ATI CrossFireX™ technology requires an ATI CrossFireX Ready motherboard, an ATI CrossFireX™ Bridge Interconnect (for each additional graphics card)and may require a specialized power supply
- ATI PowerPlay™, ATI Avivo™ and ATI Stream are technology platforms that include a broad set of capabilities offered by certain ATI Radeon™ HD GPUs. Not all products have all features and full enablement of some capabilities and may require complementary products
- Upscaling subject to available monitor resolution
- Blu-ray or HD DVD drive and HD monitor required
- Requires Blu-ray movie disc supporting dual 1080p streams
- Playing HDCP content requires additional HDCP ready components, including but not limited to an HDCP ready monitor, Blu-ray or HD DVD disc drive,multimedia application and computer operating system.
- Some custom resolutions require user configuration
Testing Rigs:
1366:
- Asus P6T SEX58 Motherboard
- Core i7 920 CPU
- 6GB Crucial Balistix 8-8-8-24 1600mHz
- Powercolor 5870 PCS+
- Palit GT240 Sonic
- 750 GB Seagate Barracuda
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
- Inwin 850 Commander Series PSU
- Intel i7 860
- Asus P7p55D-E Deluxe Motherboard
- 4GB Crucial Balistix 8-8-8-24 1600mHz
- Cooler Master GX 750W PSU
- Cooler Master CM 690 II PC Chassis
- 750 GB Seagate Barracuda
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit Edition
Testing:
I had mentioned in the Closer Look video that we would be running sli performance of the 5570 against the PowerColor 5870 PCS+ but due to some technical difficulties with my back up server I lost all of our benchmarking files and hand to start from scratch. As such I decided to nix the 5570 in favor of multiplatform and budget versus enthusiast testing. So the result is this I tested the 5870 on both an 1156 and 1366 test bed and I put it up against a Budget Nvidia based card so you can see the difference shelling out more can get you. I will have future reviews that include the 5570 sli on the new benches but I just wanted to get this review out for you all to have a look at sooner rather than later. So here are the results:
Conclusion:
Well a few things I have to admit: the card performed above and beyond, but, and this for me is a big deal, I wasn’t able to get any stable overclock on this card. Does that mean you won’t? No, in fact I have seen several excellent overclocks on this particular card. I tried 100% fan speed, variable, fresh format install, nothing would work. Not to say it is a lemon because in stock settings this card performed like a dream no crashes no pixilation nothing. So my experience was not bad by any means gaming was a dream with this card.
The support for expansion to use eyefinity was AWESOME. Also including games like Modern Warefare 2 or DIRT 2 make it a nice little extra and if you already own the game selling it on ebay is easy because it is a Steam code, not that you would ever sell something that says not for resale or anything. Sarcasms aside this is a great card and seriously boosts your PC’s performance above and beyond $400 in hardware changes anywhere else would.
Would I recommend this card? No, but the exact same card yes; confused? Don’t be, what I mean is I haven’t heard of anyone else having OC problems, so my card I would not recommend but the line of PowerColor 5870 PCS+’s? Yes, great cards for under $500 with considerable boost in performance system wide, if you are looking for a new card and the 5970 is out of reach get one of these heck get two…
Pros:
- Although $400+ Price Tag Seems Scary, This Card is Worth Every Penny
- Great Performance
- Awesome Display Expansion Choices
- Looks Awesome With the Heat Pipe Cooler Choice
- Beautiful Gaming Experience
Cons:
- Could Not get a Stable OC on Mine 🙁
