PowerColor PCS+ HD 4870 1GB GDDR5

When the Radeon HD 4870 first hit the scene, it was universally praised as a great performer and excellent value. But one major concern among many users of Radeon HD 4870 cards was heat. Although outfitted with a beefy two-slot cooler, reference Radeon HD 4870 cards ran quite hot.

By tweaking fan profiles, manufacturers (and users) were able to address the 4870's heat output somewhat, but PowerColor took a different approach and simply replaced AMD's reference cooler. The PowerColor PCS+ HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 features a custom cooler with a large center-mounted fan, four heatpipes and a densely packed array of aluminium heatsink fins. The cooler's design looks relatively simple and elegant, and it's far lighter than AMD's reference cooler.

During testing, I actually found the cooler performed better than PowerCOlor's claims. Whereas our reference Radeon HD 4870 idled at around 75 degrees Celcius and peaked at about 90C, PowerColor's offering with the PCS+ cooler ran at roughly 60C and 80C under idle and load conditions, respectively. And PowerColor's card also had a higher-clocked GPU and a 1GB frame buffer.

One issue with the PCS+ cooler is noise, however, At idle, this card is a bit louder than reference cards. Under load, noise output is about the same. All inall, the PowerColor PCS+ HD 4870 1GB is an attractive product.

by Marco Chiappetta
Computer Power User January 2009