Introduction

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AMD's Radeon HD 6950 has been released in mid-December. Both the HD 6950 and the HD 6970 are using a new VLIW4 shader architecture as opposed to the VLIW5 configuration of previous cards. Great news came for HD 6950 users in late December in the form of our HD 6950 to HD 6970 modding article, which describes how you can unlock the shaders on the HD 6950 to the same configuration as on the HD 6970.

PowerColor has built upon this and offers their HD 6950 PCS++ with a custom cooler, custom PCB and a BIOS preinstalled that lets you complete the unlocking progress by the flick of a little switch. With a price increase of $15 over the reference design cards, the price increase of the PowerColor HD 6950 PCS ++ over the HD 6950 reference design does not seem too bad either.

<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td>Radeon<br>
HD 6850</td>
<td>Radeon<br>
HD 5850</td>
<td>GeForce <br>
GTX 470</td>
<td>Radeon<br>
HD 6870</td>
<td>Radeon<br>
HD 5870</td>
<td>Radeon <br>
HD 6950</td>
<td><strong>PowerColor HD <br>
6950 PCS++</strong></td>
<td>GeForce <br>
GTX 570</td>
<td>GeForce <br>
GTX 480</td>
<td>Radeon <br>
HD 6970</td>
<td>GeForce <br>
GTX 580</td>
<td>Radeon<br>
HD 5970</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Shader units </th>
<td align="right">960</td>
<td align="right">1440</td>
<td align="right">448</td>
<td align="right">1120</td>
<td align="right">1600</td>
<td align="right">1408</td>
<td align="right"><strong>1408 / 1536</strong></td>
<td align="right">480</td>
<td align="right">480</td>
<td align="right">1536</td>
<td align="right">512</td>
<td align="right">2x 1600</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>ROPs</th>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right">40</td>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right"><strong>32</strong></td>
<td align="right">40</td>
<td align="right">48</td>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right">48</td>
<td align="right">2x 32</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>GPU</th>
<td align="right">Barts</td>
<td align="right">Cypress</td>
<td align="right">GF100</td>
<td align="right">Barts</td>
<td align="right">Cypress</td>
<td align="right">Cayman</td>
<td align="right"><strong>Cayman</strong></td>
<td align="right">GF110</td>
<td align="right">GF100</td>
<td align="right">Cayman</td>
<td align="right">GF110</td>
<td align="right">2x Cypress</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Transistors</th>
<td align="right">1700M</td>
<td align="right">2154M</td>
<td align="right">3200M</td>
<td align="right">1700M</td>
<td align="right">2154M</td>
<td align="right">2640M</td>
<td align="right"><strong>2640M</strong></td>
<td align="right">3000M</td>
<td align="right">3200M</td>
<td align="right">2640M</td>
<td align="right">3000M</td>
<td align="right">2x 2154M</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Size</th>
<td align="right">1024 MB</td>
<td align="right">1024 MB</td>
<td align="right">1280 MB</td>
<td align="right">1024 MB</td>
<td align="right">1024 MB</td>
<td align="right">2048 MB</td>
<td align="right"><strong>2048 MB</strong></td>
<td align="right">1280 MB</td>
<td align="right">1536 MB</td>
<td align="right">2048 MB</td>
<td align="right">1536 MB</td>
<td align="right">2x 1024 MB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Bus Width </th>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right">320 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right"><strong>256 bit </strong></td>
<td align="right">320 bit </td>
<td align="right">384 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right">384 bit </td>
<td align="right">2x 256 bit </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Core Clock</th>
<td align="right">775 MHz </td>
<td align="right">725 MHz </td>
<td align="right">607 MHz </td>
<td align="right">900 MHz </td>
<td align="right">850 MHz </td>
<td align="right">800 MHz </td>
<td align="right"><strong>800 / 880 MHz </strong></td>
<td align="right">732 MHz </td>
<td align="right">700 MHz </td>
<td align="right">880 MHz </td>
<td align="right">772 MHz </td>
<td align="right">725 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Clock</th>
<td align="right">1000 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1000 MHz </td>
<td align="right">837 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1050 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1200 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1250 MHz </td>
<td align="right"><strong>1250 / 1250 MHz </strong></td>
<td align="right">950 MHz </td>
<td align="right">924 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1375 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1002 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1000 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Price</th>
<td align="right">$180</td>
<td align="right">$200</td>
<td align="right">$250</td>
<td align="right">$220</td>
<td align="right">$270</td>
<td align="right">$290</td>
<td align="right"><strong>$305</strong></td>
<td align="right">$350</td>
<td align="right">$400</td>
<td align="right">$370</td>
<td align="right">$500</td>
<td align="right">$580</td>
</tr>
</table>

Packaging

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You will receive:

Graphics card
Driver CD + Documentation
DVI Adapter
Mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort Adapter
CrossFire Bridge
PCI-Express Power Cable (not pictured)

The Card

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PowerColor is using a large dual-fan heatpipe cooler on their card, the PCB is a custom PowerColor design.

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The card requires two slots in your system.

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The card has two DVI ports, two mini-DisplayPorts and one HDMI port. AMD's display output logic is clearly superior to what NVIDIA has to offer at this time. Vendors are free to combine six TMDS links into any output configuration they want (dual-link DVI consuming two links) - and use them all at the same time. AMD has also introduced DisplayPort 1.2 support with their new cards which allows the use of a DisplayPort hub to connect multiple monitors, or daisy chain them together.

An HDMI sound device is also included in the GPU. The HDMI interface is HDMI 1.4a compatible which includes Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC-3, DTS and up to 7.1 channel audio with 192 kHz / 24-bit output. The new revision also brings support for Blu-ray 3D movies which will become important later this year when we will see first Blu-ray 3D titles shipping.

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You may combine up to four HD 6900 cards of any model from any vendor in CrossFire.

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Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

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The heatsink uses a copper base and three heatpipes to keep the card cool.

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This little switch is present on the HD 6950 reference design too. Originally it was designed to provide a way to restore the card in case of a bad BIOS flash. PowerColor has changed this somewhat. When you set the switch to the "backup BIOS" position, the card will use a special BIOS that enables all shaders and sets clock speeds of 880 MHz core and 1250 MHz memory for a nice performance boost.

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The card requires one 8-pin and one 6-pin PCI-Express power connector.

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The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Hynix, and carry the model number H5GQ2H24MFR-T2C. They are specified to run at 1250 MHz (5000 MHz GDDR5 effective).

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Instead of the Volterra VT1556 like on the AMD reference design, PowerColor has chosen to use a CHiL 8228 voltage controller. Just like VT1556 it offers full voltage control via I2C.

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AMD's new Cayman graphics processor is made on a 40 nm process at TSMC Taiwan. It uses approximately 2.64 billion transistors on a die area of 389 mm².

Test System

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<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System - VGA Rev. 14</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="120" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz<br />(Bloomfield, 8192 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Gigabyte X58 Extreme<br />
Intel X58 & ICH10R</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">3x 2048 MB Mushkin Redline XP3-12800 DDR3 <br>
@ 1520 MHz 8-7-7-16</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">WD Caviar Black 6401AALS 640 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">akasa 1200W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows 7 64-bit</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">GTX 560: 266.56<br />NVIDIA: 266.58<br />ATI: Catalyst 11.1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Display:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">
LG Flatron W3000H 30" 2560x1600<br /><img src="http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_6950_PCS_Plus_Plus/images/zotac.jpg" width="120" height="40"></td>
</tr>
</table>
Benchmark scores in other reviews are only comparable when this exact same configuration is used.

All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
All games were set to their highest quality setting

Each benchmark was tested at the following settings and resolution:

1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing. Common resolution for most smaller flatscreens today (17" - 19"). A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
1680 x 1050, 4x Anti-aliasing. Most common widescreen resolution on larger displays (19" - 22"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
1920 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing. Typical widescreen resolution for large displays (22" - 26"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
2560 x 1600, 4x Anti-aliasing. Highest possible resolution for commonly available displays (30"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.

Aliens vs. Predator

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Aliens vs. Predator is based on a merger of the Aliens and the Predators franchise: two legendary alien species that are in conflict with each other, fighting to the death with human marines caught in between. The first person shooter game was developed by Rebellion Studios, who also developed the first AVP PC title and released in February 2010. It was one of the first DirectX 11 games with support for new features like Tesselation, which is why AMD heavily promoted it at the time of their DX 11 card launches. We used the AVP benchmark utility with tesselation and advanced DX11 shadows enabled.

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Battlefield: Bad Company 2

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Battlefield: Bad Company 2, released in March 2010 by Electronics Arts, is the most successful DirectX 11 title so far. Even though it contains a full single-player campaign during which the player has to work with a squad to secure a secret weapon, the game is most well known for its fast paced, exciting multiplayer squad action. Thanks to a CPU-based Havok physics engine and skillful use of scripting, the game has destroyable objects, vegetation and terrain without requiring NVIDIA PhysX.
We tested the truck chase scene of the second single-player mission at maximum settings with DirectX 11 enabled.

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BattleForge

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BattleForge, a card based RTS, is developed by the German EA Phenomic Studio. A few months after launch the game was transformed into a Play 4 Free branded game. That move and the fact that it was included as game bundle with a large number of ATI cards made it one of the more well known RTS games of 2009. You as a player assemble your deck before game to select the units that will be available. Your choice can be from forces of Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow to complement each other.
The BattleForge engine has full support for DX 9, DX 10 and DX 10.1, we used the internal benchmark tool in DirectX 11 mode to acquire our results.

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Call of Duty 4

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Call of Duty 4 is a first-person shooter that is built on the award winning Call of Duty Series. It is the first version to play in modern times. In a near-future conflict between the United States, Europe and Russia you get to play as a United States Marine and a British SAS operative. The engine is Infinity Ward's own creation and has true dynamic lighting, depth of field, dynamic shadows and HDR. Even though the game plot is scripted you will find yourself in intense battles, often working together with computer controlled team mates.

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Call of Juarez 2

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Call of Juarez 2: Bound in Blood is a prequel to the first Call of Juarez game which was one of the first DX10 titles available on the market. This time the plot evolves around two brothers, before each mission you may pick one to play. Your choices affect the game play since both characters have different ways of handling situations and doing combat.
Call of Juarez 2 uses Techland's Chrome Engine 4 which adds Edge Anti Aliasing as one of the first engines on the market. Edge Anti Aliasing looks similar to normal AA but comes with a considerably reduced performance drop. However, due to the deferred shading design of Edge AA, normal AA can't be used on top of it.

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Civilization 5

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Sid Meier's Civilization V (or Civ 5 in common jargon), is the latest addition to the franchise of masterfully-crafted realtime strategy games that let you play God to a nascent civilization of your choice all the way up to the space-age. Civilization V uses large 3D worlds that are procedurally-generated, and takes advantage of hardware tessellation features offered by DirectX 11 to exponentially step up complexity of cities, models, terrains, and objects. It is also expected of this generation of GPUs to handle the larger texture loads that come with the eye-candy.

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Crysis

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After the tremendous success of Far Cry, the German game studio Crytek released their latest shooter Crysis in 2007. The game was by far the most hyped and anticipated game in 2007, the forums were full of "Can my system run Crysis?" threads because of the high hardware requirements of this game. Just like in Far Cry the plot evolves on a small island with a thick and richly detailed jungle world. A lot of attention has been given to small details like correct physics. For example when you fire on a tree trunk, it will shatter and the tree will fall over leaving a stump behind. Enemies in a car can be stopped by shooting the tire of the car. The game graphics are by far the best ever seen in a PC game so far, yet the game still runs well on most computers.

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Formula One 2010

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F1 2010 is an official implementation of the Formula One 2010 season with accurate teams, drivers and cars. One highlight of the game are the extensive realism options and the detailed weather effects. You pick a driver and get to race over several seasons, constantly improving your skill and trying to impress the big teams to score a contract with them to enjoy the faster car to race for the world championship. The game is based on an improved Dirt 2 engine and features the latest in DirectX 11 technology. We used the highest details setting for our testing.

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Far Cry 2

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Four years after the success of Far Cry, Ubisoft has published the sequel called Far Cry 2. While the first part was set on an island, Far Cry 2 takes you deep into Africa with game play that resembles Grand Theft Auto much more than the original Far Cry, which was a classical 3D shooter. Ubisoft engineered a completely new 3D engine called "Dunia" which offers a large amount of popular features like DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 support, destructible environments, physics and non-scripted AI while not being as much of a resource hog as Crytek's CryEngine. We tested the Ranch Medium level at DirectX 10 with highest details.

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Tom Clancy's HAWX

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Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. is one of the very few recent flight simulator games on the market. Being a console conversion it emphasizes "flight" more than "simulator". It is set in a near future in which private military companies have begun fighting conflicts for nations with their own military gear. You are playing an elite pilot who was recruited by such a private company. During the game you get to fly over 50 different aircrafts, ranging from the MIG 21 to the mighty F22 Raptor. One notable feature of its engine is the use of GeoEye satellite imagery for terrain generation which offers one of the most realistic incarnations of battlefield terrain available today.

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Metro 2033

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Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter game that is set in a post apocalyptic Moscow - as the name suggests inside the metro system. You will fight mutants or other humans who like to take away your shelter. The game has many gameplay elements similar to STALKER, also the engine has similar features. This is because two STALKER engine programmers left GSC Game World and started their own company which is now making Metro 2033.
The engine has support for all the latest eye candy like DirectX 11 and Tesselation. Unfortunately it leaves a less than optimized impression, making it a candidate to surpass Crysis for the highest hardware requirements. We tested in DirectX 11 mode with details set to "Very High".

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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky

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STALKER Clear Sky is GSC Gameworld's prequel to the 2007 hit "STALKER". Just like in the first part the game is set around the Russian area of Chernobyl and Pripyat, most well known for the nuclear accident that occurred there. You play the role of a mercenary who spends his days in The Zone trying to make a living. The Zone is an area which is affected by so-called anomalies which cause mutants to appear and laws of physics to change. While you investigate these anomalies the plot leads up to the events that happened right before the first game starts. A new in-game faction system encourages you to befriend various groups in The Zone in exchange for information or items. While the graphics of Clear Sky are based on the first Stalker game engine, there are numerous improvements, including support for DirectX10 and depth-of-field/volumetric effects. The 0.0 FPS scores for NVIDIA cards at 2560x1600 are caused by driver crashes which seem to be related to card with 512 MB memory and below. Since it works fine on ATI this is not a game problem but an NVIDIA driver issue.

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Unreal Tournament 3

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The fourth game in Epic's highly successful Unreal Tournament Series is simply called Unreal Tournament 3. It is based on the Unreal 3 engine which is a major step forward from the previous engine. The game principle is centered about an arena style gameplay where several contestants try to reach a certain kill count or capture a flag for example. For its time, the graphics were top notch, with large and detailed textures. Unreal Tournament 3 is an important benchmark because its engine has been used in a large number of other titles, and there are even some in development using it. One major drawback of the way the engine is designed is that there is no support for Anti-Aliasing.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

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World of Warcraft is the most successful massively multiplayer online game in the world with far over 12 milion monthly subscribers. The game is centered around the epic battle between the Horde and Alliance factions with many other races getting involved in a long and complex story line. Even though it has been released in 2004, Blizzard has always added incremental improvements to the graphics, especially with new expansions. One key success of World of Warcraft is that it will run on a large number of slower systems, but also delivers a decent graphics experience on high-end systems. We tested in DirectX 11 mode with details set to "Ultra".

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3DMark 11

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3DMark 11 is the very latest from the house of Futuremark, which has given out some of the most comprehensive benchmark applications for PC enthusiasts and gamers. 3DMark 11, as the name might probably suggest, makes use of Microsoft DirectX 11 API, and puts every feature at its disposal to use, creating astonishingly-realistic visuals. In the process, it evaluates DirectX 11 compliant GPUs, and lets gamers know what to expect from games from the near future that make use of the API, in terms of visual realism. The tessellation and depth of field tests are particularly of interest here.

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Unigine Heaven 2.0

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Unigine Heaven was one of the first demos that supported DirectX 11. Heaven is a technology demonstration for Unigine engine which supports DirectX 9 through 11 and OpenGL too. Version 2.0 adds more scenes and optionally more complex tesselation features. While there is some controversy surrounding the benchmark whether it is an accurate representation of what to expect from future games in regards to DirectX 11 we still chose it as test to get an insight into potential future gaming.

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Power Consumption

Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs.

For this test we measure power consumption of only the graphics card, via PCI-Express power connector(s) and PCI-Express bus slot. A Keithley Integra 2700 with 6.5 digits is used for all measurements. Again, the values here reflect card only power consumption measured at DC VGA card inputs, not the whole system.

We chose 3DMark03 Nature as a standard test representing typical 3D usage because it offers: - very high power draw - high repeatability - is a standard benchmark that is supported by all cards - drivers are actively tested and optimized for it - supports all multi-GPU configurations - easy to obtain - fairly compact in size - test runs a constant duration and renders a non-static scene with variable complexity just like any normal game.

The four result values are as following:

Idle: Windows Vista Aero sitting at the desktop (1280x1024 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed. Card left to warm up in idle until power draw is stable.
Average: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Average of all readings (12 per second) while the test was rendering (no title screen).
Peak: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. Highest single reading during the test.
Maximum: Furmark Stability Test at 1280x1024, 0xAA. This results in a very high non-game power consumption that can typically be reached only with stress testing applications. Card left running stress test until power draw converged to a stable value.
Blu-ray Playback: Power DVD 9 Ultra is used at a resolution of 1920x1200 to play back the Batman: The Dark Knight disc with GPU acceleration turned on. Playback starts around timecode 1:19 which has the highest data rates on the BD with up to 40 Mb/s. Playback left running until power draw converged to a stable value.

Power consumption of the PowerColor HD 6950 PCS++ is slightly higher than the reference design, but not by enough that it should have any impact on your buying decision.

It is interesting to see the substantially reduced power consumption of the HD 6950 PCS++ in Performance mode compared to the regular HD 6970. Ok, the PCS++ is running slightly lower clocks of 880 / 1250 MHz in that config (HD 6970: 880 / 1375 MHz). But that alone won't account for the difference in power. The PCS++ is also running at a higher GPU voltage, so in my opinion the difference comes from the use of "normal" GDDR5 memory chips as opposed to the 6 GHz chips on the HD 6970.

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Fan Noise

In the past years users would accept everything just to get more performance. Nowadays this has changed with people being more aware of the fan noise and power consumption of their graphic cards.
In order to properly test the fan noise a card emits we are using a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound level meter (~$4,000) which has the measurement range and accuracy we are looking for.

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The tested graphics card is installed in a system that is completely passively cooled. That is passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, passive cooling on the motherboard and Solid-State HDD.
This setup allows us to eliminate secondary noise sources and test only the video card. To be more compliant with standards like DIN 45635 (we are not claiming to be fully DIN 45635 certified) the measurement is conducted at 100 cm distance and 160 cm over the floor. The ambient background noise level in the room is well below 20 dbA for all measurements. Please note that the dbA scale is not linear, it is logarithmic. 40 dbA is not twice as loud as 20 dbA. A 3 dbA increase results in double the sound pressure. The human hearing is a bit different and it is generally accepted that a 10 dbA increase doubles the perceived sound level. The 3D load noise levels are tested with a stressful game, not Furmark.

Noise levels on the PCS++ in both modes are way too high in idle. Under load the card emits roughly the same noise levels as the HD 6950, but those still feel high, considering the low temperatures we are seeing on the card. My guess is that PowerColor did not spend much time optimizing the fan settings in the BIOS to match the capabilities of the cooling solution.

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Performance Summary

To create this graph we took all performance results of the five resolutions we tested, threw them together and calculated the relative performance of each card, compared to our review sample. In a sixth graph we also combined all tests in all resolutions to calculate the total relative performance of the review sample. Cards that do not support DX11 were given a score according to their performance in all other non-DX11 tests, which means cards were not penalized for not having DirectX 11 support.

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Performance per Watt

This graph was created by taking the relative performance numbers and putting them in contrast to the average power consumption results.

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Performance per Dollar

If you are looking for the best bang for the buck, then you will love this graph. We looked up the current USD price of each card on the popular online shop Newegg and used it and the relative performance numbers to calculate the Performance per Dollar Index.

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Overclocking

To find the maximum overclock of our card we used a combination of GPUTool and our benchmarking suite.
The overclocks listed in this section were achieved with the default fan and voltage settings as defined in the VGA BIOS. Please note that every single sample overclocks differently, that's why our results here can only serve as a guideline for what you can expect from your card.

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The overclocks of our card are 920 MHz core (15% overclock) and 1600 MHz Memory (28% overclock). I was able to reach those clocks, no matter if the card was in HD 6950 mode or in HD 6970 mode with all shaders enabled. A memory clock of 1600 MHz is spectacular and something I've never seen before. The highest memory clock so far was 1450 MHz on some HD 5770 cards - and those used exactly the same memory chips as the HD 6950 PCS++.

Overclocked Performance

Using these clock frequencies we ran a quick test of Call of Duty 4 to evaluate the gains from overclocking.

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The actual 3D performance gained from overclocking is 16.4% in normal mode and 8.9% in performance mode.

Temperatures

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Temperatures are low in all configurations, I'd rather prefer an optimized fan profile with less noise and slightly higher temperatures.

Voltage Tuning

It has been a long known fact that overclocking headroom increases as soon as you increase the operating voltage. Until recently, software voltage control on VGA cards has been the exception and most users were not willing to risk their warranty by performing a soldering voltmod. Nowadays almost all current graphics cards have voltage control in order to achieve low power consumption by lowering voltage when in idle or slightly loaded.
In this section we will increase the GPU operating voltage step by step and record the maximum clock speed possible. Voltage is listed as the value that the voltage regulator reports via software, not actual measured voltage. The card was installed in-case, with fan settings at the default, memory will not be overclocked either. If a card has thermal throttling we will reduce the operating frequency to keep performance at maximum for a given voltage. Please note that the fan profile will have an effect on observed temperatures: if the card gets hotter the fan will ramp up to reduce temperatures or keep them from rising fast.

The following graph shows the overclocking potential we saw on our sample. GPU clock is represented by the blue line, which uses the vertical clock scale on the left. The scale starts at the default clock to give a feel for the overclocking potential over the base clock. Temperature is plotted in red using the °C scale on the right side of the graph. An additional graph shows the full system power draw in orange measured at the wall socket when running at the given voltage, clock & temperature.

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Clock Profiles

Modern graphics cards have several clock profiles that are selected to balance power draw and performance requirements.
The following table lists the clock settings for major performance scenarios and the GPU voltage that we measured. We measure on the pins of a coil or capacitor near the GPU voltage regulator.

Normal Mode:
<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td><strong>Core <br>
Clock</strong></td>
<td><strong>Memory <br>
Clock</strong></td>
<td><strong>GPU Voltage<br>
(measured)</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Desktop</th>
<td align="right">250 MHz</td>
<td align="right">150 MHz</td>
<td align="right">0.91 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Blu-ray Playback</th>
<td align="right">500 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1250 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.01 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>3D Load</th>
<td align="right">800 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1250 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.13 V</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th colspan="2">CCC Overdrive Limits</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Core</td>
<td>840 MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Memory</td>
<td>1325 MHz</td>
</tr>
</table>

Performance Mode:
<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td><strong>Core <br>
Clock</strong></td>
<td><strong>Memory <br>
Clock</strong></td>
<td><strong>GPU Voltage<br>
(measured)</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Desktop</th>
<td align="right">250 MHz</td>
<td align="right">150 MHz</td>
<td align="right">0.91 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Blu-ray Playback</th>
<td align="right">500 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1250 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.01 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>3D Load</th>
<td align="right">880 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1250 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.23 V</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th colspan="2">CCC Overdrive Limits</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Core</td>
<td>950 MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Memory</td>
<td>1450 MHz</td>
</tr>
</table>

Value and Conclusion

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<td>

PowerColor's HD 6950 PCS++ will retail for around $305.

</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>

Easy switch to enable additional shaders while keeping warranty
Small price increase over the reference design
Outstanding memory overclocking potential
Much better performance/Watt than HD 6970 with shaders unlocked
Support for voltage control via I2C
Full size HDMI output
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Coupon included
Support for DirectX 11

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
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<td>

Lower memory clock speed than HD 6970 with shaders unlocked
Noisy fan in idle
Normal mode not overclocked out of the box
High Blu-ray power consumption
Only half the memory chips are cooled
DirectX 11 relevance limited at this time
No support for CUDA/PhysX

</td></tr>
<tr><th>8.5</th>
<td>PowerColor's HD 6950 PCS++ is an interesting product creation. Even though it is marketed as a HD 6950 with official standard specifications, it will magically turn into an almost HD 6970 card at the flick of a button - a feature that PowerColor does not really advertise, probably for political reasons. "Almost" HD 6970, because the card will have the same shader count of 1536 as the HD 6970, but it will run at a lower memory clock speed. HD 6970 uses higher-grade memory chips which are officially qualified by AMD to be able to handle its 1375 MHz memory clock whereas the chips on the HD 6950 are not. The big surprise is that the memory on the HD 6950 PCS++ can actually handle much much higher clocks. We have seen 1600 MHz rock stable on our sample, which uses the same chips that many other cards, which can't reach those clocks - maybe PowerColor found some secret sauce that improves memory overclocking.<br />
In terms of performance the HD 6950 PCS++ in HD 6950 mode does not bring any surprises, since it is running at HD 6950 reference specifications it performs just the same. Once unlocked to all-shaders performance mode the card gains 7% over the normal mode configuration, but is still trailing behind the regular HD 6970 by 3%, due to the lower memory clock.<br />
Power consumption in "performance" mode is considerably reduced compared to the HD 6970 mainly thanks to the different memory chips, running at lower clock rate which results in a significant power difference. Unfortunately the card is still plagued by the same high Blu-ray playback power consumption that we have seen on all recent AMD cards, but this is not something PowerColor can address on their own. A PowerColor specific issue are the noise levels of the card, which do not seem to be optimized to the capabilities of the thermal solution. In idle the card is quite noisy. With 3D load added, fan speed barely changes - a clear sign that someone didn't choose the right settings for the BIOS.<br />
Price-wise, a $15 price premium is asked for the HD 6950 PCS++ which is reasonable considering you get to keep full warranty, receive a guaranteed unlock and a free full version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. So basically, if you are lazy or feel that a manual BIOS flash, possibly with some BIOS editing is too complicated for you, then the PowerColor PCS++ HD 6950 is a great choice to gain some extra performance over a regular HD 6950. If you feel comfortable doing the flash yourself then a reference design HD 6950 would also be a viable choice.
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