| PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 Video Card |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | |
| Written by Olin Coles | |
| Wednesday, 15 December 2010 | |
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Page 2 of 16
PowerColor Radeon 6970 Closer LookAside from a few decals, the PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 video card is identical to the reference design by AMD. While some consumers may want more flash for their cash, the conservative appearance helps maintain an affordable sales price. PowerColor packages their Radeon HD 6970 as model number PowerColor AX6970 2GBD5-M2DH.
AMD's Radeon HD 6900-series video cards already look very similar to the previous generation of 6800 and 5800-series products. In fact, of the few discernable differences only the connection header panel, which can add an additional DisplayPort monitor output (if the vendor implements this feature), and the closed rear section. PowerColor implements dual mini-DisplayPort 1.2 outputs on their 6970, unlike the Sapphire version we recently tested which used a single DP connection. While there are still two digital DVI ports available on the PowerColor Radeon HD 6970, only one of them is dual-link to support AMD HD3D while the other is reduced to single-link. AMD's HD3D technology currently supports only one 3D display, with plans for multi-monitor 3D available in the future.
Identical to AMD's reference design, the PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 measures 10.5" inches long, by 1.25" tall and 3.75" wide. This video card measures slightly shorter than the 11" long Radeon HD 5870, but longer than the 9.75" Radeon HD 6870. Ironically, it measures exactly the same dimensions as its closest competitor: NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 570.
One particular item I've been hoping for is a focused blower fan orientation. This design angles the blower fan slightly downward to improve the forward force of air and creates a small separation between adjacent video cards. CrossFire configurations could benefit by such a design, as the competition has done to tame their much warmer products for several generations now.
The PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 requires an 8-pin and 6-pin PCI-Express power connection for normal operation. AMD suggests the TDP power demands are 190 watts normal use or 250W using PowerTune for the Cayman GPU, although we confirm this with our own power testing discussed later near the end of this article.
With the Radeon HD 6970 cool air is drawn from directly above the blower fan, while exhaust is expelled through the bracket vent and a small side outlet (shown above, far right) that allows a portion of the heated air back inside the computer case. AMD's Radeon HD 6870 lacks any cool air intake vents at the tail end of the video card, behind the blower fan. As a result, gamers with CrossFireX sets must ensure proper cooling inside their computer case for these video cards to receive fresh air.
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Comments
I guess AMD will launch all new products when 32nm becomes available. Any insider clue on when that may occur?
sometimes i'm pissed of by Coles style: involved, passionate, stubborn.
BUT: the alternative are all kind of high priests, gurus (no, it's not an arrow to g3D) who made definitive verdicts, and then, never come down in the crowd, or patronise everyone.
so, i've made my choise.
I respect Olin Coles and bmr, with goods, bads and uglies. I admit there is room for better, but i agree with the path.
Don't bother answer, just think about. and this is not a sugestion for calm and harmony. i like creative flames. but assumed by everyone.
It seems that in some games, this GPU outperforms the GTX 470 and in other games, well, this card has really bad performance. I appreciate the work that you've done, but I suspect that a second review may be needed once the public release version comes out.
Otherwise, it seems that little has changed. Nvidia has the very expensive, very high performance single card GPU, and ATI/AMD has a slower card that is less expensive and comparable to Nvidia's second most potent card - kind of like the GTX 275 vs the 4890 situation, where Nvidia had the 285 that was untouchable for any single-card solution.
Although the HD6970 is a truly capable card, the GTX570 is too, and it also has a few capabilities that the ATI/AMD card does not. (CUDA & Phys-X)
So now I can just go ahead and buy my parts.
Thanks for the comprehensive review.
If you need CUDA, use apps. that take advantage of it, then get an nVidia card and stop thread crapping in AMD reviews.
If you want to play games and you are a fan of the tech then AMD might be your choice. Smaller more efficient designs that take advantage of newer faster RAM and aim to push performance/$, multi-monitor gaming, etc.
benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=582&Itemid=64&limit=1&limitstart=4
As for your last statement, I've got to wonder where you've been. Smaller and more efficient - what product are you talking about here? Newer and faster RAM - both vendors have been using the same GDDR5 for almost a year.
Ik have this setup and al benchmark results of the 6870 in crosfire are better than the 6970 results. So my advice: buy 2 6870 and put them in crossfire mode!!