first of i recieved 2 xfx hd6970 from dabs... both had been opened and pretty much ruined :/ marker on the sides, brackets bent, cards warped etc.. so they are going back.. Therefore I would like to ask everyone what brand of hd6970 would you go for? dont worry about cash... they will be air cooled on an asus maximus extreme-z if that helps many thanks, Luke
msi twin frozr 3 is the best out there.. I run a gigabyte oc2 winforce3x but I had to mill some custom sinks (some reason they left the vrm's open on the back) it's really nice though when fixed, ocs to 950/1475 stable on stock volts and best thing is I got it for cheap (gigabyte had a really hard time with rma I think - because of the vrm issue).. the twin frozr I hear clocks to 975 stock volts and comes running at 940..
I haven't really looked at video card prices lately.. sounds high in £- bought that oc2 for $350 shipped and it came with a couple games had to go in search and look up the thread- but here's the sinks talking about http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=2739671&postcount=53 it does almost 95k in pyrit btw =] I was thinking 80k tops
Could you link to this Sapphire card please? Most expensive Sapphire one I found was £280. I found an ASUS one on Dabs for £350 though. It appears to be a reference model so probably costs more as reference cards (used mainly by watercoolers) are harder to come by when the cards get older. Oh and on topic, +1 to the Twin Frozr III
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-HD...ZE6K/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1318977856&sr=8-4 theres a link to it man, and ill check the twin frozr III out what would the noise level be like in crossfire?
also why is the HIS IceQ so expensive?, im looking for a black and red build tbh, but i guess the stickers on the bottom
Two in CrossFire shouldn't be that loud, they are awesome coolers so should stay pretty quiet And I reckon that Sapphire is so expensive because it looks like a reference card again.
IMO the twin frozr 3 looks brilliant! I cant find it on amazon tho and why are reference cards so expensive? surely they don't perform as good as an aftermarket cooled card? Also any other reccomendations? thanks for the help guys!
The ASUS DirectCUII one should be about as good as the MSI. Amazon linky. It is triple slot though so CrossFire isn't possible on some boards. And I can't find any MSI 6970s at all on Amazon. Any particular reason you want Amazon? Edit: oh and reference ones should perform identically to any other stock clocked 6970, probably run hotter thoguh. However, if you want to watercool reference cards are pretty much a necessity as most waterblocks only fit reference cards. Obviously only so many reference ones are made before board aprtners move onto their own PCB designs so it makes reference models difficult to source later on in the card's life. At least, that's my explanation of the gargantuan price tags
yeh man recently had a REALLY bad experience with Dabs so i am actually better of getting a non-reference card? :O and that asus card has been on my mind for ages, was going to crossfire it, but wasnt sure if it would be good on the mobo? surely it couldnt be good two cards at that sort of weight?
The weight shouldn't be an issue, the PCB is strong enough to hold it, as are the PCI-E slots So as long as the board has enough space between PCI-E slots which I'm pretty sure the one you're looking at does. And yeah, non reference ones (like the ASUS DirectCUII one) have upgraded PCBs morepower phases to feed the GPU and memory and generally have better quality components as well as better cooling.
Its not? Its £270 this week at overclockers and that includes two free games. It looks like one of the best 6970's, it got a glowing review in the magazine last month