Sapphire HD6970 Battlefield 3 Flex Edition Review (Limited Edition)

Today we are using an overclocked Core i7 970 system which is running at 4.33ghz.

Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.33ghz
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Monitors: Dell U2410 x3. LaCie 730.

Comparison cards:
AMD HD6950
AMD HD6870
AMD HD6850

Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Catalyst 10.9
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Nikon D3X with R1C1 kit
Keithley Integra unit
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter

Games:
Total War: Shogun 2
Alien V Predator
Tom Clancy: HAWX 2
Resident Evil 5
Lost Planet 2
F1 2011
Far Cry 2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Battlefield 3

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

Some game descriptions are edited from Wikipedia.

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