PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 & HD5850 Video Card Review

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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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.
 
I'm surprised at how well BF BC2 runs on these cards, the game is visually pleasing IMO, specially the jungle / forest areas
 
Nice review, especially with the temp data.

Do you have any speculation as to why we are not seeing many board partners come out with non-reference cooling solutions on reference-type designs that allow overvolting?

I know that ASUS and Gigabyte and MSI have their non-ref boards out that allow overvolting.

Or is it a case of AMD not allowing people to install non-ref coolers on ref boards?

Just seems like a big segment of the enthusiast market is missing here.
 
Thanks for the review. Was hoping for some benefit for the 5850 version. I really wish you guys had noise readings in your reviews as it sucks have to go to sites I don't prefer and having to take their words for the noise readings. Your subjective views don't help me at all in deciding if its actually quiet since I think we have different standards for what is quiet. Also, any word on retail 5830 reviews? I want to see if I can save a few bucks so that I can purchase a seasonic x750 at the same time as my video card instead of waiting a month in between.
 
anthrex said:
Thanks for the review. Was hoping for some benefit for the 5850 version. I really wish you guys had noise readings in your reviews as it sucks have to go to sites I don't prefer and having to take their words for the noise readings. Any word on retail 5830 reviews? I want to see if I can save a few bucks so that I can purchase a seasonic x750 at the same time as my video card instead of waiting a month in between.
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We have our opinions about noise posted on pg7. We've got a retail 5830 evaluation currently being started.
 
Great review. Is there a review of xfired 5770's based on current drivers?
 
I would think that the "stock" Radeon 5870 would be just as "cool" or even cooler if one went into ATI Overdrive and just set the fan cycle on 45% manually.
I just don't understand the need for these "improved" coolers when you have that ability for free.....unless the "improved" cooling solutions are less noisy, but that's about all they bring to the table. But I understand you are comparing "apples-to-apples" out of the box.
My 5870s run rarely over 65C under load with the fans on 50%....OC'd to 875/1290.

Secondly....MSI Afterburner will allow voltage adjustments on most "stock" ATI 5000 series cards.....with the correct voltage regulators.

Very nice write-up.
 
Unfortunate they're charging $100 over the reference cards with this model. Seems like they might be trying to recoupe design costs for the custom cooler.

I can say that the PowerColor 5870 LCSs I'm using are superb. I run them at 990 core/1340 memory all day and they never break 65c. I had to RMA a card early on due to artifacting (think it was a bad mem chip), but PowerColor's service was great and I recieved a replacement quickly.
 
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Yo, AIB manu's, where's the 6 port DP cards that were proposed a while back?

2x6 pls, in my mouf, now.

(kyle?)
 
Brent_Justice said:
We have our opinions about noise posted on pg7. We've got a retail 5830 evaluation currently being started.
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Yes I had seen the section you have on each video card review. I just wish you could have a little more detailed review of the noise such as is done with the heatsink review. I know it is time consuming, but since I trust ever other part of the review it would be nice if I could get your methodology applied to noise. If you can't its ok, I just wish it was there :) Looking forward to the 5830 review
 
Very good review.

While I appreciate various companies devoting time and resources to develop a new PCB layout, placing the power connectors at the end serves very few and probably costs them potential customers. Significant time is spent to make a shorter PCB, but they shoot themselves in the foot when one needs another inch and a half of case length to facilitate the power cable connection.
 
nice pick i always wondered how good those pcs were seems they aren't as good as newegg reviewers hype them and btw hopefully will see stalker in next review
 
System Test Setup said:
While it might be a bit "overkill," we use the 3.6GHz overclocked quad-core processor in an attempt to keep from putting our evaluation into a position of being CPU limited.
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When will the test bed be changing? DDR3 1600 has been out for over a year, and the Core i7 and i5 are pretty mainstream as well. I would suggest either upgrading or altering the statement. A QX9650 is not "overkill" relative to available cpus today.
 
Wow, this is a good thing that HardOCP is letting us know about the ridiculous power consumption of these cards. Thank you, Matthew and Brent! I'll make sure to avoid these brands unless I become filthy rich and not mind paying extra for the electricity bills!
 
I read somewhere, don't remember where, that Powercolor uses cheaper parts in the power department that are less efficient. That's where the extra power would be coming from.
 
Nice review. The power usage numbers are definitely eyeopening. I expected higher readings but that's quite a bit more over reference.

Also by any chance will we see a similar review on the MSI Lightning 5870/5850 cards? That would be great.
 
It would be interesting to underclock the cards to the reference clock speeds and see what happens to power consumption, temperature and noise.

You mention the $100 between the two PCS+ cards, but I didn't see any mention of the price difference between the PCS+ cards and their respective counterparts with the reference coolers.
I've not found anyone who carried both, so it's a little difficult to determine how much Powercolor is actually charging for the custom cooler.
 
Honest (did not have to read between the lines like most sites) and to-the-point review and well written/editied. Such a refreshing change from the typical "look at this shiny bit of stuff, its wonderful." reviews that are too common on other sites. Excellent. Thank you.
 
I' am not complaining but why not just run both cards at the same resolution both without any AA, gives a better picture on the actual performance difference between the 2 cards....enabling AA on the 5870 really cripples it compared to the 5850 not using any....like I said not complain just a thought. You going to have people who look at the fps and bam make a decision right there without noticing the fact that the 5870 is running with aa which equals better image qaulity.
 
If you have a 5870, and you're getting 110 fps, with no AA, wouldn't you turn on AA? The comparison to the 5850 with no AA justifies it's existence: those who can live without AA and want good eyefinity performance and save some money.

I think the methodology works great. This has been the [H] standard method of best playable settings for a few years now.
 
Tabasco69 said:
I' am not complaining but why not just run both cards at the same resolution both without any AA, gives a better picture on the actual performance difference between the 2 cards....enabling AA on the 5870 really cripples it compared to the 5850 not using any....like I said not complain just a thought. You going to have people who look at the fps and bam make a decision right there without noticing the fact that the 5870 is running with aa which equals better image qaulity.
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I don't think you are quite aware of how we do things here, read Evaluation Method on this page - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/15/powercolor_pcs_hd5870_hd5850_video_card_review/2
 
I have the PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 and have been very happy with it. It is very quiet, even at load. Definitely worth the $10 additional cost to have a nice, aftermarket cooler that is whisper quiet. I can even use MSI Afterburner to control the fan (I have it running at 10% in 2D - dead silent).
 
I hate how you turn the video quality down on the 5850 for testing. It pisses me off so much and makes me think that the results mean squat. Yes, you can compare a PCS+ 5850 to a regular 5850, but you can't compare to the 5870 because the AA is turned off and the like. I want to see if fully cranked games will make a video card cry or not, and if it does how much of a difference would it be compared to the rest of them?
 
Looks to me that the PC card is the cheapest 5870 card on newegg atm. How is their quality/warranty?
 
blgdinger said:
I hate how you turn the video quality down on the 5850 for testing. It pisses me off so much and makes me think that the results mean squat. Yes, you can compare a PCS+ 5850 to a regular 5850, but you can't compare to the 5870 because the AA is turned off and the like. I want to see if fully cranked games will make a video card cry or not, and if it does how much of a difference would it be compared to the rest of them?
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Read below.


Brent_Justice said:
I don't think you are quite aware of how we do things here, read Evaluation Method on this page - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/15/powercolor_pcs_hd5870_hd5850_video_card_review/2
Click to expand...
 
BillParrish said:
Honest (did not have to read between the lines like most sites) and to-the-point review and well written/editied. Such a refreshing change from the typical "look at this shiny bit of stuff, its wonderful." reviews that are too common on other sites. Excellent. Thank you.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. Shopping for a new RED flavour vid card and this review knocks PowerColor off the contenders list. May the RED cards drop in price this week...
 
These things look great. Maybe we'll see some price drops too!
 
After reading the [H] review I thought I'd give this card a miss. Then I noted at my local supplier that this card was cheaper than most vanilla 5850's and it came with MW2. I checked out a couple of other reviews that contradicted this review so I thought if I could at least get a cooler running and quieter card then I'd be happy.

Well I got those two things... and I got a much better OC than [H] did without any other adjustments. Right now it's happily running at 860/1150 and I haven't fully pushed the GPU OC yet. It Idles at 33 C and while running Furmark for a while it gets up to 69 C without any noticable noise increase. I can't tell you about the power consumption, but frankly I don't care that much. Further, while I haven't done any extensive benchmarking, my DX11 Heaven benchmark increased from around 24 to 33.5 FPS (Avg at 1920x1200 resolution all other settings at default). So at least in this benchmark there is a significant increase by OC'ing). Just be aware of the length of the card, it fit my case ok, but will definately be too long for some. Just thought I'd add a bit of a different experience.
 
Any idea if this card is quieter than the Sapphire Vapor-X 5870? I haven't found a website, or anybody really, that compares them both. I want to purchase whichever one is quieter.
 
just got the 5850, thing overclocks like a beast.. and is cool as a cuke at full load.. and very quiet.. i love this card
 
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