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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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. (…)

Read more: Conclusion – PowerColor PCS+ HD5870 & HD5850 Video Card Review | [H]ard|OCP