While the marketing gimmick now would be 4K, aka 2160p, there are many out there who still uses the much loved 1080p or Full HD monitor. Heck, some are even using the cheaper, much easier to find 1366x768 resolution. Even yours truly is using one for gaming. So for that, not everyone needs a really high end kick-ass graphic card. A medium one would suffice, especially at resolutions mentioned. There are quite a few number of graphic cards that fit this need, and one of them is the PowerColor TurboDuo R9 270.
The PowerColor TurboDuo R9 270 graphic card comes in a rather small box. At the front, the “TurboDuo” lettering is given the centrepiece. Inside, the graphic card can be found wrapped in an anti-static bag. Further rummaging reveals that you would only get a Driver DVD as well as a DVI to VGA converter inside. We are pretty sure that this is done to keep the price of the card down.
This pitcairn based graphic card is rather heavy. And looking at it you can see why. PowerColor has fixed a large and heavy heatsink on the graphic card. Add to two rather large fan that would cool down the graphic card (hence the TurboDuo name), and you are looking at a card with quite good level of cooling. The large fan shroud and heatsink means that the card would take two PCI slots on your PC.
The PowerColor TurboDuo R9 270 has three graphic outputs, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort respectively. If your monitor is the old kind from years of yore, you can still use the included DVI to VGA adapter. A single 6-pin GPU power connector can be found at the back, as the R9 270 chipset does not draw that much power from your PSU.
PowerColor has overclocked the card a bit from a stock R9 270. The PowerColor TurboDuo is now running at 930Mhz instead of the default 900Mhz, and the boost clock has now been bumped to 955Mhz. Quite a significant gain. 2GB of GDDR5 RAM means that you would likely be able to use this card at Full HD resolution without much problem. The box does say that the card supports 4K, but honestly that would really be pushing it a tad too much, especially if you want constant 60FPS.
The PowerColor TurboDuo Radeon R9 270 is a nice card to have, especially if you’re running only a single Full HD monitor or lower resolution. Games ran nicely at high or medium settings, which in our test includes Battlefield 4, F1 2014, Cities Skyline and DotA 2. If you’re a looking for a card that won’t bring a dent to your wallet, then this card is a good choice.
VERDICT
Making your budget worthwhile.
SPECS
Chipset R9 270
Memory 2GB GDDR5
Clock 930Mhz (955Mhz boost)
Bus 256bit
Direct X version 11.2