Powercolor Promises Superior Overclocking with HD 6950 Vortex II Edition

Every overclocker knows the number one enemy to their way of life is heat. High temps are the bane of every overclocking enthusiast, and unless you can keep your components cool, you won't have much luck pushing the pedal to the metal. It's true of every component, including videocards, which is why we're excited to see Powercolor promoting a non-reference Radeon HD 6590 graphics card decked out with a custom cooling solution.

The "PCS+ HD6950 Vortex II Edition," as Powercolor calls it, comes clocked at 850MHz on the core and 1300MHz on the memory, resulting in 2.39 teraFLOPs of computing power. But it's the custom heatsink that gives this card an edge, according to Powercolor. By lifting the dual 92mm perforated fans, Powercolor claims it was able to optimize airflow. Combined with a 19.36cm2 copper base that fully covers the GPU, you can expect a 20 percent reduction in temps compared to a reference cooler, while also keeping the noise level down.


The Vortex II Edition also comes with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 bundled in. No word on price or availability, though a quick peek at Newegg reveals that other Powercolor brand HD 6950 cards go for between $245 and $270 (before mail-in-rebate offers).