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AMD's HD6970 has been a favourite with the high end enthusiast user since it was released. The reference design card is a powerful discrete solution but it was never equipped with the greatest cooling solution. Sapphire have decided to replace their reference card with a new Dual fan, heatpipe cooler. At no extra cost.
That isn't a typo … we don't often hear ‘at no extra cost', but Sapphire plan to use this new design to phase out their older reference model, which retails for around £285 inc vat in the UK. This means you won't be paying a premium for the card and this model should run cooler and quieter.
Features:-
– Core Clock: 880MHz
– Memory: 2048MB GDDR5
– Memory Clock: 5500MHz (Effective)
– Memory Bandwidth: 176GB/sec
– Processing Cores: 1536
– Texture Units: 96
– ROPS: 32
– Bus Type: PCI-Express 2.1
– Display Connectors: 1 Dual Link DVI-I and 1 single link DVI-D, 1 HDMI & 2x Mini-DisplayPort
– HDCP Capable
– DirectX 11 Support
– Shader Model 5.0 Support
– OpenGL 4.0 Support
– ATI CrossFire Ready
– ATI Eyefinity Technology
– ATI Avivo HD
– ATI Stream Technology
– ATI HD3D Technology
– Maximum Power Consumption: 250W (Typical 190W)
– 1x 8pin and 1x 6pin PCI-E power connectors required (Power Adapters Supplied)
– 500W minimum PSU recommended
– Warranty: 2 Years
Sweet deal, hopefully see these for £270 at christmas in UK
The cooler looks as good as their vapor X,. they might cause damage to their other, more expensive cards with this. not that im complaining, nice to see a company taking the cost of the cooler themselves. they are making enough profit anyway on these higher end boards.
What voltage did you set to get 954MHz core? Thanks.
@ Jon.
1243, its in the picture on the overclocking page.
Looks great, nice to see it being classed as a reference board too. normally that would be over £300
@Davis
Thanks. That voltage look a little high? My 6970 does 945/1495 on 1185 with a Accelero XTREME Plus II cooler. Might push it a bit higher if thats a fairly safe voltage bump.
Hi, nice review and I have been reading reviews for 3 6970 cards but still cannot decide on which to buy. Which one would you pick between these 3:
MSI Radeon 6970 lightning edition
Sapphire Radeon 6970 dual fan edition
Sapphire Radeon 6970 Flex Battlefield 3 edition?
Depends on your specific needs. do you overclock? have you three non displayport screens? is noise a primary factor?
will not be overclocking, will only have 1 lcd tv connected using hdmi and yes noise is a primary factor. Basically Im after a stable and quiet setup.
They are all great cards, so your shortlist is very good. If you arent overclocking, using a single screen, then save some money and get the dual fan sapphire board as the pricing should be the lowest.
Can this card run Battlefield 3 on ultra settings?
What resolution?