Released to the world just over a month ago, the HD 6800 series has refined the $200~$250 price/performance point with a refined architecture that allowed AMD to shrink the amount of internal hardware while still maintaining the desired level of performance. To that end we have looked at the reference cards and found that they indeed fit well into this envelope, with performance in most cases above that of the HD 5850 and sometimes higher than the HD 5870. This card from PowerColor is the first non reference sample of the HD 6870 here at OverclockersClub. We have looked at several of the HD 6850 variants, including the PCS+ version by PowerColor, and have found the non reference HD 6850 cards offering excellent performance and overclocking headroom. The PowerColor HD 6870 PCS+ Call of Duty Edition video card is equipped with higher clock speeds on both the memory and the Barts core to the tune of 940MHz and 1100MHz, respectively. Not only do you get the increased clock speeds but the cooling solution is definitely not the reference solution and should run cooler and quieter than what comes stock on the cards directly from AMD. Let's see if the HD 6870 PCS+ can live up to the performance heritage of the PCS+ lineup and see how well it compares to the reference design in gaming performance, overclocking ability, thermal performance and power consumption.