14 DAY TRIAL // A large variety of GeForce GTX 460 graphics cards have shown up over the past few days and the so-called pressure placed on AMD was enough to even lead to a price reduction of the ATI Radeon HD 5830. Nevertheless, it appears that the time has come for AMD's partners to retaliate, and PowerColor seems quite eager to spearhead the effort. The company has announced the PCS+ HD5770 Vortex Edition.
The PCS+ HD5770 Vortex Edition is, essentially, its first video board to make use of the Vortex cooler that was spotted about two weeks ago. This cooling solution is unusual because its fan can be pulled out or pushed in a few centimeters. This serves to enhance airflow and should lead to operational temperature drops of up to 15 degrees Celsius, at least compared to what the reference fansink allows.
The specifications of the video board are as one may expect from a severely customized card. The graphics processing unit (GPU), for instance, operates at a clock speed of 900MHz and even the 1GB of GDDR5 VRAM reaches 4,900 MHz. The interface is of 128 bits. Furthermore, the model features 800 Stream processors and connects to video output devices via dual-DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs. Obviously, DirectX 11 and all of ATI's proprietary technologies are fully supported.
“PowerColor offers an attractive option which features a brand-new cooling technology with additional factory overclocking,” said Ted Chen, CEO of TUL Corporation. “We never compromise - so here's the solution which can bring the ultimate gaming performance in a better cooling environment!”
The PowerColor PCS+ HD5770 Vortex Edition will start shipping on July 28, though its price has not been disclosed yet. A coupon for the free download of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 shall be bundled with the package.