14 DAY TRIAL // There have been many sightings of custom-made video cards lately, and it seems that PowerColor is intent on making its own contribution, in the shape of the PCS+ HD 6870, a factory-overclocked card with a non-reference design.
Among the most recent releases of NVIDIA or AMD-based graphics adapters are Sapphire's HD 6850 Toxic Edition and MSI's Twin Frozr II HD 6870.
The new model, one which PowerColor is preparing, was actually revealed last week and has a GPU (graphics processing unit) clock of 940 MHz instead of 900 MHz.
On that note, the memory, 1 GB of GDDR5 VRAM to be exact, operates at a frequency of 4,400 MHz, not 4,000 MHz like the reference card.
There are also 1,120 stream processors, as well as a memory interface of 256 bits, plus the obvious support for DirectX 11, among other things.
Furthermore, the custom-built cooling module uses three copper heatpipes and a 92mm fan to drive temperatures lower by 15% compared to the original.
This should prove especially useful here considering the extra heat that the factory overclocking is sure to generate.
Other specifications include dual DVI, an HDMI connector and a pair of DisplayPort outputs, plus support for CrossFireX, which allows card to be placed in multi-GPU configurations.
There is no mention of an exact price tag at this time, nor is there any exact mention of the day when listings and shipments are supposed to start, despite how the official release has been made.
Sales should commence before the end of the month, however, so interested consumers can at least find solace in the knowledge that it won't take overly long.
When it does become available, the PowerColor PCS+ HD 6870 will be bundled with Activision's first-person shooter known as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.