PowerColor PCS+ AX6870 1GBD5-PP2DHGJ Radeon HD 6870 Power Jack Bundle 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

Pros: Excellent Card. Nice factory overclock. Strong 6870.
Can max out most games.

Cons: Operating like a charm.

Other Thoughts: Got it at a good price.

Pros: Very good cooling with the PCS+ series. Stock overclock at 940Mhz. Running stable at 1Ghz core and 1200 Mhz memory at stock voltages. CCC maxes out at 1000Mhz core and 1250 memory. Ran 3D Mark Vantage @ 1080 resolution 4 times in a row at 1Ghz with no issues.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Got it last month for 219.99 - $30.00 rebate
Great price - $189.99

Pros: Noticeable performance improvement over their PCS+ 4870 (though I am aware that the rest of my system is holding it back). Fan control can be improved a little with 3rd party software like Afterburner.

Cons: Inferior cooling, somewhat poor fan control. Idled at 35-36% (loudest fan in my case) at around 50C out of the box (ambient room temp is around 21C). However, with Afterburner, fan is only barely noticeable at 25% and still idles at just 50-51C. Tops out at around 75C with fan at 90% in Stalker: CoP. Not exactly what I was expecting from 'higher end cooling' after professional reviews said it was better and quieter than the reference design. Giving the design the benefit of the doubt, it might be as simple as sloppily applied thermal paste. If I get ambitious, I may take it apart and try to remedy or replace the cooler completely. For comparison, out of the box, my PowerColor PCS+4870 (which I gave 5 stars) idled with the fan silent at 7% and temp around 47C. The fan would only get noticeable under load and temp never got above 60C.

Other Thoughts: Purchased in early Dec 2010. Unlike the PCS+4870, the PCS+6870 shroud covers the full height of the card. Had problems seating it fully because the shroud is tight against the ATA cable and port on my M/B. I finally slid the rubber cover on the end of the ATA cable further up from the port and mashed the cable flat to allow the card to seat. The Powerjack seems useless unless you have a tiny case or use it for the low card in crossfire.

Antec 900 Case (all stock fans, plus side panel 120mm blowing over the 6870)
Silverstone ST75F 750w
MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital M/B
Athlon 64X2 5600+ (2.8GHz)
Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 (2x1GB)

Pros: Performance to price ratio is very high. These new cards perform better than the ATi 5000 series, use less power, and cost half the price of their nVidia counterparts. For the price of one nVidia 500 series, I can purchase two of these and Crossfire them together. Which is exactly what I did and I am very happy with my decision.

I run all of my games on two 1080p Acer h243h bmid monitors, but usually the game runs full screen on just one while the desktop on the other. Nevertheless, I am playing a game one and the cards are driving both monitors. I know I have two of them and have no room to speak about the performance of one, but I can run all of my games on max settings (GTAIV, BC2, CS:S, DOD:S, etc) without a hiccup.

The stock cooler is listed on both pros and cons. It is a really great design on the PCS+, different from the reference cards with a heat-pipe cooling solution and a quiet fan.

Cons: And the fans are quiet. But now, at 37dBA iirc from reviews, they are the loudest fans in my case. I can hear them running at anything above 20% which is on around 45C, and at 35% fan speed the card is running at a toasty 60C.

But that's not enough to dock off an egg.

Other Thoughts: Note about aftermarket coolers: Anything that works on a 5870/50 reference card will work on the 6870/50 reference card. Since the GPU, RAM and VRM placement on this board is reference design, this is true. I'll be getting something later when the noise finally gets to me. I'm looking at Arctic Accellero Xtreme Plus, but at $80 a pop including RAM/VRM sinks, thats a $160 graphics card cooling solution. Yikes.

I purchased this card because it was the first 6870 that didn't have the standard blower fan on it. Powercolor, a smaller brand, made me hesitant at first. But I was building a system and I needed the parts then and there. The blower fan is a huge turn-off because of my old Radeon X1800 that literally sounded like a jet taking off when gaming. The heat-pipe design was also of great interest to me-a stock cooling solution like this is an amazing alternative to a regular blower fan.

I'm very happy with my purchase, and kudos to Powercolor for the highest stock overclock of a 6

Pros: none

Cons: DOA

Other Thoughts: I've owned two other Powercolor cards without issue and was surprised when this card somehow slipped through powercolor quality assurance. I'll be RMAing for a refund and buying another brand.

Manufacturer Response:

I apologize for the problem you encountered with your card. We're always striving to achieve the highest levels of quality in our products, but unfortunately sometimes a card may slip through the cracks. Was the card physically okay? Is it something that possible happened in shipping? I don't necessarily mean newegg's shipping methods, but if our box itself was damaged then maybe something happened when the card was in transit between us and Newegg.

-Hugo

Pros: I installed Zerotherm Coolmax 2000's on my two 6870's and used the ATI Overdrive Autotune. 990MHz on the GPU core and 1240MHz on the memory. Temps don't exceed 56C! I tested on Metro 2033. DX11. Volumetric smoke. Snow. Outdoors. Not even a stutter. Splinter Cell Conviction like silk. Oh so stable (thus far.)

Cons: I had to splice the wires to plug the new VGA coolers into the plug on the video card. I had to cut the plug on the old coolers for the right plug. Alas. It was a hard decision not knowing if they'd work. But all is perfect. Took two seconds. Fans still work as designed. Manually adjustable or auto speed both work.

Other Thoughts: Q9650 oc'd to 3.5ghz. 8 gigs Balistix Tracer ddr2 800's. Vista Ultimate 64 bit. Dual 6870's in Crossfire oc'd to 990MHz and 1240MHz for GPU and memory respectively.

Other other thoughts. The stock cooler doesn't have heat sinks on the memory itself. I imagine you could get pretty good overclocks with the stock coolers anyway.

Pros: Incredible cards. I upgraded with two 6870's in crossfire from two 4870's in crossfire. When I started playing Metro 2033, my 4870's couldn't keep up with all that volumetric smoke. Metro 2033 is a very graphic intensive game.

With the 6870's, I could crank it up to DX11, with ultra high settings and these cards spun out smoothness. My 4870's were giving me chop in some of the outdoor areas. Two 6870's, I might almost suggest, are overkill. Batman, Arkham Asylum 40-60 fps, Splinter Cell Conviction 30-60 fps. Farcry 2 50-60fps. Although my fraps didn't work for Stalker Call of Pripyat, I cranked it up to DX11 with all settings maxed and it was seamless. That was another game where the 4870's were getting choppy in some areas, and that was only DX10. And by the way, DX11 is nice. The graphics look deeper. I'd review Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2, but they were smooth on the 4870's.

Cons: This sucked, although it's not about card performance. I only had one pci slot which my $179 Asus Xonar audio card went in between my two graphics cards. My 4870's didn't over heat, but with these, that area between the 6870's needs to be clear for airflow with no equivocation on that point. I was happily playing Metro 2033 for about 5 min when my computer just shut down. I thought I had a bad card. I clicked on ATI overdrive and monitored the temps redlining when I realized what was going on. That's about 90C. Once I cleared everything, temps dropped to 69C under heavy load. (They idle at 39C). I actually ordered some Zerotherm Coolmax 2000's before I figured out my audio card was blocking the intake. Yeah, I'm slow. They'll be better in the long run though, I'm sure. One pci audio card for sale:)

Other Thoughts: Q9650 OC'd to 3.5ghz. 8 gigs Crucial Ballistix Tracer ddr2 800's. No other relevant info I can think of. When I get my Zerotherm's I bet I can overdrive the video cards even more. They already come factory oc'd to 940ghz. But what the hell, eh? Every inch counts.