HIS HD6970 CrossFireX Graphics Card Review

The HIS HD6970 is an extremely high performance card which delivers eye-popping levels of performance, even when tasked with powering a 5760×1080 display. While nVidia still has the single chip performance crown with the GTX580 and AMD has the single card crown with the dual-chip 5970, KitGuru believes that price needs to be factored into each verdict. While nVidia is undoubtably ahead in heavy tessellation situations, it's also worth reiterating that AMD cards have a unique selling point with multiple monitor configurations, if this is a feature that appeals to you. It certainly does to us.

At only £280 inc vat, the HD5970 is over £100 less expensive than the GTX580 and generally delivers performance levels not too far behind, depending on the gaming engine, or synthetic benchmark. We will be looking at the GTX570 in an upcoming review and seeing how it fits into the overall performance picture.

As a reference card design, the HIS HD6970 has no exclusive talking points to elaborate upon, but we doubt that any gamer will be unhappy with the overall gaming performance in any of the modern gaming engines. The only game which actually caused a single HD6970 a problem was Metro 2033 at 5760×1080. CrossFireX scaling alleviates the Metro performance challenge, but obviously you are doubling the credit card bill for a single game.

The reference cooler isn't too bad, but we know in the coming weeks that AMD partners like HIS will release new and improved, overclocked, quieter solutions to sate enthusiast desires. The price of those overclocked solutions could be higher, but you generally get what you pay for. Whether you want to wait is another question, because these really are some of the finest products that AMD have delivered to market.

KitGuru says: Performance gaming at a very low price point. The HD6970 eats the HD5870 for breakfast and is priced way lower than its predecessor was at launch.

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