Date:
Sunday , March 14, 2010
Author:
Matthew Krysiak
Editor:
Brent Justice
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PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 & HD5850 Video Card Review

We are going to take an in-depth look at the PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 and HD5850 today. Both video cards offer a custom configuration, with higher clock speeds, but you might just be surprised at what these video cards don’t offer you. This is also the first time we’ll be using ALL DX11/DX10 video games for testing.

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Green to Glutton

One of the most amazing things about AMD’s Radeon HD 5000 series has been its ability to sip power, instead of gulping it. In our power testing today however, we found that it is possible for these GPUs to be gluttons if the right conditions are met.

We discovered that the PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 and PCS+ HD5850, which both use custom Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) and cooling solutions, drew much higher power at load than either of the stock reference video cards. In fact, both PCS+ video cards drew almost 25% more power at load!

The PCS+ HD5870 under load drew 422 Watts where as a reference Radeon HD 5870 drew 338 Watts. The PCS+ HD5850 drew 388 Watts at load while the reference ATI Radeon HD 5850 only drew 312 Watts. We have to consider that both video cards are using a custom PCB, have higher than reference clock speeds, and a custom cooling solution. Still, we feel that the power draw seems a bit high all things considered.

Thermal Control For The Win

One of the features of the PowerColor PCS+ Edition video cards is its thermal control. Our temperature testing shows that the PowerColor PCS+ cooling system works quite well, and is a highlight feature of these video cards. When you think about the fact that the added Wattage is being poured out as additional heat (compared to a stock video card) it makes those temperatures all the more impressive.

Our PCS+ HD5870 was able to best our reference Radeon HD 5870 at load and at idle by 5c. The PCS+ HD5850 didn’t fare as well as we had hoped at full-load, only matching the temperature of the stock video card. Yes, it is running with higher clock speeds, and yes it is eating more Wattage, but even then we had hoped for temperatures that would have been cooler than the stock video card. Considering the PCS+ HD5850 is using a larger PCB, and has more surface area for cooling, this is slightly disappointing. But hey, at least it wasn’t hotter!

Higher Clock Speeds Not For The Win

Another goal of any manufacturer frequency boosted video card is for those boosted frequencies to provide meaningful added performance that improves the gameplay experience. The PCS+ video cards have increased GPU and memory frequencies, but they are paltry and meaningless. In this area, the PCS+ video cards fail.

We went through each game, and tested apples-to-apples performance, to compare the PCS+ clocks speeds to their stock frequency counterparts. The PCS+ video cards were almost always within 1.5 average FPS of each other, and more times than not within 1 average FPS of each other. This turns these clock speed boosts into more of a gimmick then a real feature.

Value

Finally, we wanted to compare the PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 with the PowerColor PCS+ HD5850 to see which one provided the best value considering they are near $100 apart in price. Well, it turned out that in every instance today the PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 provided a better gameplay experience, this is not in question. The problem is, was the difference in the experience worth the $100 price difference?

In every game we played today we found that the only option that really only needed tweaking was the antialiasing setting. With every game we were able to have ALL the in-game options at their highest levels. Therefore, both video cards provided the best gameplay experience as the developer intended. The only difference was with what AA setting we could enable at a given resolution.

The PCS+ HD5870 genuinely allowed higher AA settings, while the PCS+ HD5850 had to use lower AA settings. This was the major difference we found. In the worse case, you can always run at a lower resolution with the PCS+ HD5850 and achieve higher AA settings. We just don’t feel that the price premium of the PCS+ HD5870 is worth it for the added benefits. For most people, the PCS+ HD5850 is simply going to provide the best value for gaming. Only in an Eyefinity situation would we suggest the added power of the PCS+ HD5870 is really worth the added price. If you can find Radeon HD 5870’s for lower prices though, certainly it will provide better performance in any situation when compared to the Radeon HD 5850.

The Bottom Line

From what we have seen today, the feature that should be most hyped on the PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 and HD5850 video cards are their thermal solutions. The PCS+ cooler does its job very well, and if the power utilization wasn’t as high as it was, we’d be seeing some very impressive full-load temperature readings. Even as they are right now, their idle temperatures rival anything we’ve seen yet.

The issue we had is that while the cooling solution was great, it really didn’t give us that hardware enthusiast overclock we were looking for. We think the potential is there, and if PowerColor offered overvolting technology similar to ASUS, we might actually see some very impressive overclocking results. Still, we are a bit worried as these video cards were eating Wattage for breakfast as they are.

With that in mind, the added boost in frequency provided by the PCS+ models added nothing to the gameplay. We might as well have been using stock frequencies. In fact, the PCS+ models should just go ahead and ship with stock frequencies since the added frequency adds nothing. At least this would bring the Wattage down, and make the PCS+ cooler seem even that more impressive.

All things considered, we have to say that we just aren't impressed with either PCS+ video card when compared to even just a stock clocked video card of the HD5850 and HD5870 variety. Considering a stock HD5850 or HD5870 will consume less Wattage, cost a little less cash, and still provide the same gameplay experience, the benefits of the PCS+ video cards wanes in our eyes.

We can't find any advantages that either PCS+ video card provide to the gamer at this point in time. The PCS+ cooling solution is great, the inclusion of DiRT 2 is nice, but both PCS+ video cards are marred by the fact that they consume more power, and offer nothing in improving the gameplay experience or overclocking ability. The fact is that you can get the same, for less.

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