“This card is factory overclocked with clock speeds of 940MHz on the Barts core and 1100MHz on the GDDR5 memory so you get a boost in performance to start with. When it comes to overclocking higher, there is some headroom left on the HD 6870 PCS+, though not much. On the core overclocking I was able to push the card to a clock speed of 1003MHz (63MHz) and 1208MHz (108MHz) on the memory. This amounts to increases on the order of 6.5% on the core and just under 10% on the memory. These increases, although slim, still offer measurable gains in performance across the test suite.”Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:
- PowerColor HD 6870 PCS+ 1 GB @ techPowerUp
- AMD Radeon HD 6850/6870 @ iXBT Labs
- ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU @ Bjorn3D
- ASUS EAH 6850 DC and 6870 DC @ LostCircuits
- HIS Radeon HD 6850 1GB Video Card in Crossfire w/ 960 Shaders Overclocked @ Tweaktown
- Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 Toxic @ Techgage
- ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU OC Edition Review @ OCC
- PowerColor 6850 PCS+ Review @ OCC
- Desktop Graphics Card Comparison Guide @ TechARP
- Mobile GPU Comparison Guide @ TechARP
- Sparkle Calibre X480 GeForce GTX 480 Video Card Review @ ThinkComputers
- ASUS GeForce GTX 580 Overclocked Video Card @ Benchmark Reviews
- ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU @ Bjorn3D
- ZOTAC GeForce GTX 480 AMP Review @ XtremeComputing
- Gainward GeForce GTX 460 SE 1 GB @ techPowerUp
- Palit GeForce GTS 450 Low Profile 1Gb GDDR5 Video Card Review @ Madshrimps
- SPARKLE Calibre X460G Video Card Review @ Madshrimps
If you don’t have Modern Warfare 2 yet then PowerColor has a 6870 for you

If you are in the market for a factory overclocked HD6870 then consider PowerColor’s Radeon HD 6870 PCS+ Call Of Duty Editionat about $275. OCC even found a little more headroom using Afterburner which put the final GPU clock at 1003MHz and the memory at 4832MHz effective speed. The big competition from nVIDIA is of course the GTX470 when it comes to speed and the GTX460 1GB when it comes to price. It really does come down to what features you need and one benefit of choosing this card are the outputs, 3 Mini Display Ports, an HDMI port and 2 DVI ports, one of which is Dual Link; all of which adds up to a lot of choices for multiple monitor setups.