Fan in regular positionThe Vortex cooler design allows the fan to be raised away from the heatsink, providing cooling over a larger surface area. While this expands the two-slot cooler into the adjacent space, PowerColor claim that this technology will “maximize the efficiency of air convection by increasing the space between fan and heat ”. In theory, this will allow for lower temperatures and/or lower fan speeds, which also means less noise.
Up she goesUnfortunately, there has been no word on how this card will be clocked just yet. However, considering the increased performance of the cooler and the premium that it will inevitably command, we fully expect the Vortex cards to be factory overclocked. PowerColor reports that the Vortex offers similar cooling performance in two-slot mode to the fan on the current 5770 PCS+, which has a 25MHz speed boost for both the core and the RAM. Though it isn’t totally clear from the pictures, the back-plane also looks to be the same as those on the existing PCS+ models, which would imply two DVI-D ports, HDMI and a DisplayPort connection.
From what we can tell, the Vortex cooler is certainly an innovative design, and innovation is always important in differentiating graphics cards. The ability to freely adjust the height of the cooler may also be important to users looking for maximum cooling now but who plan to upgrade to a CrossFire configuration further down the line. There are no details on release date or price as of yet, though reports are suggesting that this model should hit retail within a few weeks. We’ll be sure to post an update as soon as more information becomes available.
