PowerColor Radeon HD 6850 PCS+
PowerColor approaches the pre-overclocked HD 6850 challenge a little differently. A smaller PCB means that the company has less room to play with when cooling the card. This particular model uses the tried-and-trusted PCS+ cooler found on a number of mid-range PowerColor models.
It comes away with the removal of the four screws which keep the GPU in place. The four-heatpipe cooler, however, doesn't make contact with the underlying memory chips. The position of the fan, right in the centre, means that hot air spills out from around the card and circulates in the chassis.
The rear outputs comprise of single- and dual-link DVI, along with full-sized HDMI v1.4a and DisplayPort v1.2. The vent at the top seems like a token gesture; most of the air escapes from around the heatsink's shroud.
The plastic heatsink's cover spills over the edge of the PCB, but this doesn't impact on any connectivity; it's easy to plug in a six-pin PCIe cable. A front-mounted PCIe power port and overhanging heatsink means that the card's quoted 8.5in length is 9in in reality.
What's more, unlike the Sapphire and ASUS cards, third-party overclocking utilities don't pick up voltage adjustment on this card; you're stuck with the default 1.175V.
Most modern cards have all the memory chips and associated circuitry on one side. That is true with the PowerColor card, as well.
In terms of bundling, the PCS+ is supported only by a CrossFire cable and DVI-to-VGA adapter. We believe it's an oversight on PowerColor's part not to include a branded overclocking utility on the PCS+ part.
