PowerColor PCS+ Radeon HD 7970 3GB VORTEX II Overclocked Video Card Review

Final Thoughts

PowerColor has put together a really awesome high-end AMMD Radeon HD 7970 video card here that stands out in a pack of already modified HD 7970's on the market. The VORTEX II cooler does a fantastic job of helping us achieve a really strong overclock and while that does come at the cost of some added noise and warmth, it's a small price to pay considering the impressive amount of performance you're getting.

Combing the performance of the VORTEX II cooler with the overall looks as well, you've just got a really awesome video card that manages to perform well in all the important categories. If you're after a serious HD 7970 this is another really good option that should hit the market soon.

We say "soon", because it's not quite yet available. We should see it in the coming weeks as stores start to get stock, though. So, if you can't find it just yet, it might be worth the wait to pick it up.

Moving away from the video card, we dive into the package and it's good to see that this is an area that PowerColor hasn't chosen to neglect. While we get all the usual bits and pieces, the inclusion of two MiniDP connectors in the bundle is excellent. They continue to be something that companies are choosing to ignore. When you move to a more modified version like the PCS+ here, though, it's nice to see that PowerColor has gone to the effort to make the bundle a little bulkier and not just focus completely on the video card itself.

We're starting to see some really awesome HD 7970s with the heavily modified HD 7970 Lightning from MSI and the PowerColor version we've got here today. No doubt over the coming weeks we'll see even more come into our labs.

We're getting to the point where we're past companies just slapping a slightly upgraded cooler on the reference PCB. We're seeing some move to a dual 8-pin PCIe power setup and some heavily modified coolers that are helping us achieve some awesome overclocks.

Outside of all this, though, one of the more impressive features of the PowerColor PCS+ HD 7970 VORTEX II is the out of the box overclock. 1100MHz up from the default 925MHz is awesome and you can see the kind of performance you'd be able to get out of that today based on our HIS video card, which was clocked at just over 1100MHz.

If you can't be bothered going down the path of overclocking or just don't know how to, it's great to know that out of the box, this is one of the fastest HD 7970s on offer. For a lot of people that is a feature that becomes really enticing as you're able to get some really strong performance without lifting a finger. While still not on the shelves, if you're looking for a really fast out of the box HD 7970 or something that will hit that 1200MHz OC core mark, the PowerColor PCS+ HD 7970 3GB VORTEX II is brilliant.