Final thoughts and rating
Truth be told, AMD's Radeon HD 7850 isn't a giant step up from previous-generation cards. If you're using performance and price as your primary metric, you'll find little difference between AMD's new HD 7850 and NVIDIA's 16-month-old GeForce GTX 570 - they cost roughly £200 apiece and deliver a similar amount of graphical oomph in today's latest games.
Upgrading from the old to the new doesn't make a lot of sense, but if you're coming from a card that's two or three generations behind, AMD's Radeon HD 7850 is in our estimation the most appealing sub-£200 solution on the market today. Delivering good 1080p performance, coupled with the latest multimedia capabilities and excellent power-draw characteristics, AMD's 28nm solution is well-rounded and performs well in all areas.
Improving on that underlying goodness, PowerColor's HD 7850 PCS+ delivers improved performance through a healthy 16 per cent core overclock, while maintaining class-leading temperature and noise levels through a well-equipped cooler. If there's a snag, it's that NVIDIA is yet to launch a current-generation alternative to AMD's Pitcairn cards, and HD 7850 pricing possibly won't be as competitive as it ought to be until it's challenged by a GeForce GTX 660 Ti.
Ifs, buts and maybes aside, the PowerColor HD 7850 PCS+ is one of the best mid-range AMD cards on the market. A safe bet, providing PowerColor can keep close to the £200 mark.
The Good
Faster than reference
Very quiet in use
Excellent cooler
Lots of overclocking potential
Runs off a single power connector
The Bad
Not a big step up from last-gen cards
HEXUS Rating
PowerColor Radeon HD 7850 PCS+
HEXUS Awards
PowerColor Radeon HD 7850 PCS+
HEXUS Where2Buy
TBC.
HEXUS Right2Reply
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