PowerColor HD6970 Devil 13 2GB Review

The Powercolor Devil 13 is an impressive ‘collectors edition', something you are aware of immediately by the design and effort that has gone into the box alone! Supplying the card with a ‘turbo' button is an interesting idea and it is much easier to work with than a fiddly, tiny, bios switch. We can't imagine anyone contemplating buying this card will want the ‘reference' speeds mind you, but the option is there. The overclocked settings are some of the highest on the market, which will appeal to the hardcore AMD audience.

The bundle really is exceptional, particularly the quality Wiha branded screwdriver set which may prove useful to many modders and people who build their own systems. Wiha are not a cheap, ‘no name' far east brand destined to fall apart in a couple of months, they make a quality product.

The card is not silent, but the latest bios only emits a modicum of noise which will not annoy a gamer, it would almost be drowned out by several performance oriented chassis fans when gaming. At idle it is barely audible at all. We certainly have no points to raise about a lack of performance, especially in turbo mode. It is one of the fastest HD6970's you can buy today.

The biggest issue we have with the Devil 13, is the pricing and availability. Currently one of the few places you can buy Powercolor hardware in the UK is at Ebuyer. Today, they are selling the reference clocked Powercolor HD6970 for £253 inc vat. This low cost card however is also supplied with a dual fan cooler, so you are buying a very price effective solution which should overclock to around 930mhz (or more) without a problem.

While the Devil 13 is still not available in the United Kingdom at time of publication we were informed that the price will be around £350. This means it will cost £100 more than the current dual fan Powercolor HD6970 card. Of course there is a possibility it might cost a little less, but the pricing information we received came direct from Powercolor.

Is it worth the cost? We would factor in around £40 for the screwdriver set, but this is only worth the money, if you actually need it. In my own case I already have all the screwdrivers I need, and I would assume that many other enthusiast users feel the same. The box is certainly a beautiful design and the other extras make for a fine ‘collectors' edition, but for £100 extra it seems rather expensive, especially when the Arctic Cooling based KFA GTX580 Anarchy Edition is only £30 more.

It is a fantastic card and worth buying, but we do feel that a £100 price hike will put it in direct competition with the higher performing, custom cooled GTX580 solutions.

Pros:

• Capable cooling solution.
• Highly overclocked out of the box.
• Love the Wiha screwdriver kit.
• Low power demand under load.
• Dual BIOS is handy.
• Dirt 3.

Cons:

• Very expensive.
• Not the quietest 3rd party cooling solution.
• Not much headroom left for manual overclocking.
• New AMD range will be released soon.
• Most dual fan HD6970's cards can overclock to 930mhz with a little effort.

Kitguru says: A beautiful ‘collectors edition', but we don't think it offers wonderful value for money at £350. It also arrives a little ‘late' to the party, especially with new hardware waiting in the wings.

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