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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.
I think these are good boards, even though a lot of people will be disappointed with the fact the 580 is still leading the single card attack
@Sam: Not quite. The 5970 is still the fastest card. The GTX580 is definitely the fastest single chip.
The price is the biggest selling point. I dont think they are the performance killers we expected, but the 280 price for the 6970 means its actually only 30 more than the 5850 was at launch. thats quite a good figure for them to achieve. I think they are doing what they do against intel in the CPU sector. drop pricing as low as poss.
CFx is very good with these cards. the drivers must be much better than I last remember
@Faith – thats what I meant, ill be sure to make sure I analyse the text perfectly before posting next time 😉
these arent too shabby. good job from AMD. they hit the sweet spot on the pricing