PowerColor PCS+ AX7870 2GBD5-2DHPPV Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition (Vortex II Edition) 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Pros: Card works very good for my purposes, no problems. Despite rebate issues, this is a 5 star card.

Cons: 5 months later the rebate has not been honored.

Other Thoughts: Don't count the rebate price when comparing similar products from this company and another company. The currency may collapse before you receive it.

Pros: i get an average of 55fps in ultra settings with farcry 3 soloing this card so yeah. this card is pretty good.
as far as heating issues i've had zero, this heatsink is a beast.
i havent tried crossfire and am a little hesitant to use this card twice for heating issues as it doesnt blow the hot air out of the back it just blows it away from the card (my case is a monster when it comes to airflow so this is no issue at all)
ive thought about grabbing the comparable powercolor 7870 that blows the heat outside the back of the case to place below this one.

Cons: i had some slight driver issues but that may well have been my own fault, at first i downloaded the driver through windows update (unintentional) but then i got the driver/software through powercolor and all is well.

Other Thoughts: with the heat dissipating piped on the side this makes for a snug fit against the side door to your case, i have to bend my power cables down to fit the door on with my fan in the way.

Pros: Great once i got it working had to redo thermal paste and bump voltage to get stable at out of box clocks so far no more issues

Cons: Had a vision in my head for my birthday i was going to buy a second 1 for crossfire as they match my Thermaltake ARMOR A60 AMD edition case perfectly but low and behold discontinued 2 weeks after i purchased the first 1 because of the poorly timed Myst. edition (Should be 7930 in EVERYBODYS opinion) Super disappointed In Powercolor as this was my first purchase from them. maybe my fault for waiting but who could forsee that they would pull this card altogether unless there was a memo and i didnt get it

Other Thoughts: Was going to get a refund on it for 2 cards that match but i guess ill just use the 1 since it is pretty and performs fine in single card config but man once you have crossfire its hard not to do it again (kinda miss my 5770 crossfire) Maybe in the future i may pair it with an asus or something as long as it red and black i guess

Pros: 2GB GDDR5 w/ 256-bit bus
1280 stream processors
PCIe 3.0
Great Cooler

Cons: Touchy with overclocking (See other thoughts)
No games? (Other thoughts)

Other Thoughts: Overall this is a fantastic card. The 1280 stream processors make GPU-accelerated hash cracking a breeze, I can run about 2million hashes/sec with this, not even using all of the processors. As for gaming performance, it is outstanding as well, provided that the card you have remains stable at the factory clock speeds. By default, this card come set to run the GPU core(s) @ 1150MHz and the memory @ 1250MHz. Unfortunately, when I was using these settings, my games (all of them) would constantly cause the graphics driver, and sometimes even the entire computer, to crash. I was using Catalyst 12.10 originally, but I have since backdated to the version that comes on the driver CD (Catalyst 12.3). I still have to underclock the card a bit (my current stable core clock is 1070MHz), but it is now quite stable. Even at a lower clock with older drivers, this card still runs Borderlands 2 @ 60fps on Ultra, New Vegas @ 60fps on Ultra, Deus Ex: Human Revolution @ 60fps on Ultra, need I go on?

As for the games, I saw no hint of a coupon code or anything in the box or the packaging. If I somehow missed the deal, fine, but I was looking forward to testing Far Cry 3 on it :D

All-in-all, fantastic card, just wish I could run it at full speed.

--System Specs--
AMD Phenom II x6 1090T @ 3.7GHz (overclock)
Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 Motherboard
24GB GSkill RipjawsX RAM (1333MHz)
PowerColor Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition (This product)
1x1TB 7200rpm HDD
2x500GB 5400rpm HDD
Raidmax RX-730SS 730 watt modular PSU

Pros: This is a really nice card! I have it paired with an AMD Fx-6300 and it runs skyrim at ultra at 1366x768. Love the backplate, wish more cards had something like that. The card isn't loud at all. Great cooler, the only 7870 I'd choose over it with be the gigabyte one with windforce cooler but it had a blue pcb and I wanted it to match my case.

Cons: Card is a bit heavy when you pick it up. Wish it came with a powercolor sticker.

Other Thoughts: I lost my coupon for the free games and have no way of retrieving it...Is there any way to get it back?

Pros: Price/performance champion of any 7870 @ $250
Fastest video card bang for the buck around at the time of review 2013/01/03.

Cons: Heat pipes are outside of the atx specification and fit poorly in any case that has tight tolerances. I had to install the card in my bottom pcie slot of my Dell Precision T5500 and using tin ships notch a corner out of the hard drive tray to allow for the pcie auxiliary power connectors. This means I cannot xfire a 2nd card due to how I cannot fit it into

Other Thoughts: The heatsink and fan assembly is a bit cheesy quality wise in my opinion however cooling wise works as expected. I have not attempted overclocking as of yet.

Newegg gives a "free copy of far cry 3" which is untrue in my case and if you read reviews others agree. Will contact newegg to see what is going on.

Pros: Runs like a champ.

I've got a 5-year old motherboard and Q6600 quad core 2 that I'm planning on upgrading in the new year, but I had some games that I wanted to play now, so I did the research and bought a new graphics card first. My old card was having a hard time keeping up with Skyrim, but this one has no trouble - everything looks great. When I bought this, it came with a copy of Far Cry 3, which also runs and looks great. I have a super-quiet case to begin with, but with the large double-fan design, I can't hear a thing.

Cons: Wasn't a problem for me, but be aware - this card is a beast. It's longer than a standard ATX mobo, so it hangs off the end a bit. Because my motherboard is old and I have the card in the slot closest to the CPU, the card is right up against the RAM slots and the card is bent juuust slightly, but it hasn't affected the performance. Most new motherboards have that slot further away, so I doubt that would be a problem with anyone else.

Someone else mentioned that the power connections on the card are problematic - the connectors are tightly tucked into the housing, so it's a little tricky to unlatch them should you need to uninstall it. This card also requires two (2) power connections.

Other Thoughts: Be sure you have the latest drivers.

Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz
Intel 975XBX2KR, Socket 775
4G Ultra DDR2 800MHz
Silverstone FT02 case
Silverstone 750W ST75F-P PSU

Pros: Updating my earlier review re: not including the games coupon. Newegg responded very quickly, and I'm completely satisfied. Now playing Skyrim at ultra with no hiccups. Awesome card (and terrific customer service from Newegg).

Cons: None

Pros: Looks cute.

Cons: Got my computer assembled, card fails on WEI and games and graphics tests. Getting black-no signal issues frequently and green screens with no text. All drivers fully updated. Company is based in Taipei, only one USA-based tech support representative who is apparently not going to get back until next week. That's right, no tech support until Monday the 31st for all United States customers of Powercolor products.

I'm going to return it for a refund, not taking a chance with another graphics card from this company.

Other Thoughts: Don't buy this card. You'll regret it.

Manufacturer Response:

I apologize for the issues you are having with our product. We at PowerColor stand behind our products and would like to have this resolved for you - that is if you are still in possession of the card as you mentioned you will be returning it. If so, please contact me directly at jgaray@powercolor.com so that I may assist you in having this rectified for you.

Also, please understand that due to the recent holidays, our staff was on a "skeleton crew" and as a result our support services were a bit hampered during that time period.

Thank you,

Jonathan

Pros: Works great - only tried it on DAO so far, but everything is smooth.

Cons: Was supposed to come with free games - I looked everywhere in the packing materials for the coupon codes, but there was nothing. Knocking off eggs only for that.

Manufacturer Response:

Please contact me directly at jgaray@powercolor.com so that I may assist you with the missing games.

Thank you,

Jonathan