PowerColor Radeon HD 6950 2GB PCS++ graphics card review

Final thoughts and rating

In the days of increasing homogeneity in the PC market, being different is expensive. Take graphics card as an example; why would a partner reinvent the reference wheel, at considerable research and development cost, when it's not broken in the first place? The answer, somewhat paradoxically, is because being different - and paying the extra to be so - is the only real way to get noticed.

PowerColor's Radeon HD 6950 PCS++ embodies the very essence of what a non-reference card should be. Equipped with a quality custom cooler and an option with which to increase both the core frequency and shaders, this is a Radeon HD 6950 2GB like few others.

Aimed squarely at the enthusiast who wants a Radeon HD 6970 but can't quite stretch to the £280 asking price, PowerColor's card is a good example of a manufacturer thinking outside of the box, especially so if, according to the company's sales team, it is available for just a £10 premium over a regular HD 6950.

The Good

Excellent cooler
Supercharged BIOS delivers near-HD 6970-like performance
Good overclocking headroom
Small price premium over regular HD 6950

The Bad

BIOS switch should realise full HD 6970 specs

HEXUS Rating

PowerColor Radeon HD 6950 PCS++ 2GB

HEXUS Awards

PowerColor Radeon HD 6950 PCS++ 2GB

HEXUS Where2Buy

TBC.

HEXUS Right2Reply

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BIOS switch should realise full HD 6970 specs

the amount of cards failing the `upgrade` is increasing alot - i do think suggesting it , with the possible fallout from a failed `upgrade` isnt the best idea.

Increasing a lot? Where? Show me please. In fact you will find that the failure rates are very low and if you only mod the shadders then they are nil or nearly nil. You then can overclock your card to the maximum it can sustain.

By the way the reason the overclock didn't give you any increased results is because the memory was overclocked far too much and started throttling. In order to avoid that, just downclock your memory back to stock levels.

bang4buck page says it all, Gigabyte 560 SOC is better value (and that's even at Scan's over priced £230 instead of the £219.99 you can get it at DABS)

It would be nice if Hexus added Metro2033 and/or S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat to the games they test.

Edit!!

The 1GHZ GTX560 at £220 looks good value for money if you are using a 1920X1080 or 1920X1200 screen.

However,the HD6950 2GB PCS++ looks better suited for gaming at 2560X1600 or when using two or three monitors due to the extra video RAM.

The HD6950 1GB needs to drop under £200 at more retailers IMHO if the HD6950 is to become more cost effective when compared to the GTX560 at lower screen resolutions.

It seems that the GTX560 SOC 1GHZ won't be in stock for nearly another month at Dabs and Ebuyer though:

http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-560ti-1ghz-1gb-pci-e-hdmi-superoverclocked-7B28.html

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/253955

It seems there will be 35 cards available between Dabs and Ebuyer who are among the largest computer parts retailers in the UK.

There seems to be none in stock at Scan,OcUK,Aria and Novatech:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-gigabyte-gtx-560-ti-super-overclock-40nm-4590mhz-gddr5-gpu-1000mhz-shader-1800mhz-384-cores

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-075-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1341

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/nvidiageforcegraphicscards/nvidiagtx560tifermiseries/gigabyte/gv-n560so-1gi.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/nvidiageforcegraphicscards/nvidiagtx560tifermiseries/gigabyte/gv-n560so-1gi.html

It does not seem to be shipping in large quantities especially considering that other GTX560 cards are available in much large numbers.

luckily I ordered mine a week or so ago and will have mine next week

I think chances are if you're dropping £800 on a monitor or 2 or 3 then you're going to be not worrying about the extra an running £300+ GPU's