Are PowerColor Video cards any good?

Matt2488 · 26 Aug 2011

So I'm having problems with my HIS HD Radeon 5770s... They seem to be overheating a lot. Even at max fan settings they rarely set at 50c idle. I sent a help ticket towards the HIS support I told them my situation and explained that a red light comes kicks on the video card when my games crash to an non-responsive screen - in which I have to manually reboot to solve.

They said my cards are probably overheating. So I cleaned them down thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly. Took over the cooler, removed the fans used compressed air to blow away all the dust, used microfiber cloth and q-tips to wipe away dust off around the card and in hard to reach areas.

Used 99% Isopropyl alcohol and completely removed the old factory thermal paste on the cores and reapplied my own after I let the alcohol dry completely under a desk lamp with a 40w light bulb.

After all this I still get non-responsive crashes with the red light. Decent cable management, and good airflow are also in place. 1 120mm fan directly above the video cards blowing in cool air, 120m fan at the lower front of the case, blowing in air towards my hard drives and my Video cards. 1 120m rear exhaust, and 2 top 120m exhausts. (I even turned the clock settings back to the defaults and the card still is up in the 50cs, idle with 100% fan speed.)

These are my current cards. I honestly just believe they have very bad cooling design.

HIS HD 5770 Fan 1GB (128bit) GDDR5 PCIe (DirectX 11/ Eyefinity) < HD 5700 Series < Desktop Graphics < Products | HIS Graphic Cards

Anyway.. I plan on only spending a little more money on this machine because I want to save for a few years to rebuild another computer.

This the card I'm looking at.

Newegg.com - PowerColor AX6870 1GBD5-2DH Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

I just need to know if PowerColor has decent cooling systems on their cards.. Far as I can tell by the looks this one looks decent, and a lot better than my old cards.

I'm looking to spend less than 200. Also like to note that my case only seats a card up to like 9.6 inches long so anything else really high end won't fit. This particular card is 9.5 inches, so tight fit.

simmo · 27 Aug 2011

Hi mate..I read this thread and thought someone may have replied but

I have never heard anything to say Powercolor cards are'nt any good. Personally I have never used one as I use ASUS/Gigabyte/EVGA cards usually.

Maybe someone who is using a Pwrcolor card will respond if in fact someone on the forum is using one. You could just google for a review on the card.

If the card you have is still under warranty I'd RMA it asap.

mickey megabyte · 28 Aug 2011

i see no reason why powercolor should make cards any worse than the competition.

i used to have a powercolor hd 4850 for a few months - i chose it as it came with a quiet quality zalman fan as standard.

i only sold it when i bought a 1920x1080 monitor a while back and needed a bit more grunt in the gfx department. as i had a bit of spare cash, i sold the 4850 and upgraded to a 4890. the 4850 is still going strong (and quiet) in my friend's pc.