14 DAY TRIAL // As it has become rather customary, when one hardware manufacturer releases a slightly customized version of a reference product, other rivaling companies would quickly follow suite. In this case, the Radeon HD 5770 graphics adapter from AMD (ATI) was released at a very short interval by not only Sapphire, but also by PowerColor. As expected, the Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ from PowerColor boasts modifications to the reference version that are rather similar to Sapphire's release, in the way that both products modified the same aspect, namely the cooling mechanism and the clock frequencies.
PowerColor may boast that its board has a sightly higher clock speed, namely of 875MHz, compared with that of Sapphire's Radeon HD 5770 Vapor-X, which only reaches 860MHz and the reference card set at 850MHz. The 5770 PCS+ also boasts a slight memory clock boost, with the memory running at 4900MHz compared with the reference 4800MHz.
“The PCS+ series is designed to fulfill the toughest gamers' need,” Ted Chen, CEO of TUL Corporation, said. “With factory overclocking and superb cooling ability, the PCS+ HD5770 will surprise all gamers – you'll know that quiet, cool and gaming performance can co-exist without compromise.”
The custom cooler is a dual-slot cooling solution with a 92mm fan. Like the reference card from AMD, the new product features the ATI AVIVO technology, which enables smooth HD video playback, and ATI EyeFinity, which, as is now well known, allows for triple-display setups. The card also has full support for ATI CrossFireX, which allows for the installation of two identical Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ cards for an increased graphics performance.
Like other DirectX 1compatible graphics cards, the PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ comes bundled with the DiRT 2 PC game. The card is set to hit retail suppliers by December 18th.