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The AMD HD6970 is a fantastic card and one that we have raved about since it was released. The newest high end AMD product combines killer gaming performance with a modest asking price of around £280 inc vat in the United Kingdom. It may seem like a lot of cash, but it's worth remembering that the last end high AMD product (HD5870) sold for over £350 inc vat when it was released.
This HIS HD6970 Turbo Edition is slightly disappointing as it is basically a reference card with a modified bios and clock speed improvements. There is no custom cooling solution or PCB design and with a minor core clock increase of only 20mhz, it doesn't really translate into anything very noticeable under real world conditions.
We were extremely impressed with the highly modified PowerColor HD6970 PCS+ which offered a custom PCB, in house designed cooler and a substantial clock increase. We don't think this rather bland Turbo Edition card from HIS will capture the hearts and minds of the high end enthusiast audience. Cooling performance is no better than the reference edition and it emits just as much noise when pushed hard.
We know that Sapphire and XFX hand pick their overclocked cards from specific high performing batches, but we aren't sure if HIS have the same procedure. Having had access to only one sample means it is hard to comment on the overclockability of the card, but we did manage to push this particular one to 990mhz which is extremely impressive. It could very well be that we got lucky, but still it is an indication of potential headroom.
Our recommendation to buy this card is based around the price you can get it for. HIS told us that it will cost around £20 more than the reference board, therefore in the region of £300 inc vat. We aren't sure at this price that it is a fantastic value for money proposition, especially as all the work has been put into the bios.
KitGuru says: A very good card, but HIS haven't really put much effort into this ‘Turbo Edition'. If it offered a custom, enhanced cooler and cost a little extra, it would be a much stronger proposition.
