How good is Powercolor?

[lehtv]

Hmm.. that's a rather deceiving design. It looked almost completely sealed apart from the fans, I just didn't look closely enough D:

 

[GodisanAtheist]

XFX makes great looking cards, just not great cooling cards. I picked up this XFX 7950 because it hit $200 bucks and it was the shortest 7950 available... but I am NOT impressed by the cooler. AT ALL. They must be of the philosophy "more thermal goop the better" but I can't even find out because removing the cooler voids the warranty...

 

[Asphodelus]

Thanks for all the info, everyone. Anyways, the card I'm considering is:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131461

Definitely not a high end card. I would actually prefer a reference 7750, but nobody sells one. In fact, nobody other than Powercolor even understands that the entire reason for the 7750's existence is to be the fastest single slot <75W card. Everybody else slaps on completely unnecessary (and for me, unwanted) custom double slot coolers and PCIe power connectors

But I digress. If anyone knows of a reference 7750, please let me know.

 

[OCGuy]

But I digress. If anyone knows of a reference 7750, please let me know.

Doesn't XFX call reference designs "core"?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150612

 

[Asphodelus]

That's not a reference card. The reference card (reviewed by Anandtech nearly 2 years ago) looks like this:

 

[Fanatical Meat]

As I've said in the past....a Power Color X850(XT?) Evil Commando is the only card I've ever owned that failed.

 

[xLegenday]

Looks like they have a membership website, DevilClub for all who buy their Devil Series, they offer live chat support, special bios etc..
Very few brands offer live chat support!

Have one Devil13 and it's the card quality is just amazing.

 

[Smoblikat]

I have had nothing but problems with powercolors. The only brand I would avoid more than them is zotac. My old 5850 didnt run right with the stock settings. I had to give it a little extra voltage just to run at stock speeds, and it couldnt OC at all. Then I had a powercolor 7870 that did the same exact thing, needed more volts to run at stock specs. Now zotac on the other hand.........anything that can go wrong with a video card will go wrong if you buy one of those. Stickers put on upside down, stickers peeling off, fans dying, thermal paste drying up, outputs randomly dying, driver crashes etc...

EDIT - For reference, my favorite nvidia brand is EVGA/ASUS and my favorite for AMD cards is XFX/ASUS. You cannot go wrong with an ASUS card from either company.

 

[Sonikku]

Pretty much this. XFX is the one company I will not buy from.

PowerColor should be fine, just make sure it has a good manufacturer's warranty, and look at user reviews if there are any.

What's so bad about XFX? I would think their warranty would speak for itself.

 

[ozzy702]

My 4 powercolor 480's (all purchased separately over the course of a month) all require significantly more voltage (30-100mv) than my xfx, sapphire, asus and gigabyte reference 480's. I realize that they are reference cards but I wonder if powercolor takes lower binned chips at a discount. It just seems like more than just a coincidence given that my other 16 cards from various vendors are all pretty close to each other (within ~ 15-20mv) and my worst powercolor takes 120mv more than my other average cards.

Now at stock voltages they all work fine, but I think it's common knowledge that AMD has gone crazy with voltages on the 480 more than likely to increase usable yields.

 

[nathanddrews]

I have owned (and still own) a couple PowerColor GPUs and never had issues, but I've never had a GPU go bad so take my sample with a grain of salt.

 

[IronWing]

I've had two PowerColor cards. The first was a passively cooled 5750 (I think that was the number) that showed screen artifacts within a couple months of purchase. The vendor replaced it with a passively cooled 6750 card that lasted five or six years with no problems. I replaced it last month only because I wanted a faster card. I never tried to OC the cards.