A Closer Look

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


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.


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


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).


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.


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.