The recent focus of hardware review websites has been on NVIDIA's all-new GeForce 480/470 GPUs, but the vast majority of discrete gaming cards are sold with an etail price well below £200, let alone £450.

AMD's current mid-range graphics card is the Radeon HD 5770, launched in October 2009, and it can be thought of as a Radeon HD 5870 split into two.

Partners have a bevy of retail cards available, ranging from £115 to £150, and, lately, we've seen a greater number of in-house-designed models hit the market.

To this end, PowerColor is announcing the 'ultra-overclocked' PCS++ HD5770, pictured below.

Clocking in at 875MHz engine and an effective 5,000MHz memory, compared with the default 850MHz/4,800MHz, the PCS++'s higher frequencies aren't huge. PowerColor reckons that the custom-cooled design, equipped with a slow-spinning 92mm fan, is good for a 950MHz core, however.

Indeed, the company's CEO had this to say on the overclocking potential of the card: “PCS++ HD5770 is an advanced version of PCS+ HD5770, featured not only factory overclocking and superb cooling ability, but also allows the core speed can run up to 950MHz;” said Ted Chen, CEO of TUL Corporation. “This is the right choice for the enthusiast gamers!”

The cooling is different, and the PCB is shorter than standard, but the outputs remain a reference-matching twin dual-link DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort. PowerColor sweetens the deal by bundling in a Steam voucher for DiRT 2.

We expect the card to etail for around £150, representing a £35 premium over a bone-stock model. It might do well, we think, because NVIDIA's new mid-range architecture is still some way off and AMD's next GPU up, Radeon HD 5830, is no great shakes once value is factored in.