I think on your board you'd be able CrossFire the ASUS ones, but there wouldn't be any space between the 2 so the top card will run quite warm due to a lack of fresh air. I'd probably go the MSI, but there don't seem to be any on Amazon. Where are you based?
Im based in the UK man, Northern Ireland... you think 2 msi cards would look good with a black and red colour scheme? ps, whats this like? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zotac-ZT-50...1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1319147966&sr=1-2 well.. he would be lonely alone so 2 of them
Two of those will outperform the 6970s by a fair margin. And you'll have more VRAM to play with for super high resolutiuons and settings. Zotac stuff always seems pretty decent so I'd say if you can afford it, get them. But they are reference designs so you may find temperatures a bit on the high side in SLI. And I think 2 MSIs would look good in that colour scheme
are the MSI's a dark grey or light grey? most of the reviews I checked from i posted that comment, the 6970's came out on top? :O also are there any non-reference cards the same spec for around the same price? Or maybe I should wait for the Powercolor Hd 6970 Devil 13? Looks abso brilliant!
Pass on the first question, I've never seen them in person so I'd be guessing, at best. And 6970s....beating 580s......at what resolution? And there's a Gigabyte one on Scan at £443. I think the cooler on it is pretty decent. Not sure on noise levels though. There's also a Gainward one which has the Phantom cooler which is really good, but it's £466 so quite a bit more. And I'm personally not a fan of PowerColor stuff, I'd much prefer MSI, ASUS or something like that.
for my 6970, I bought the reference sapphire since originally I was looking at the one from powercolor (the cheapest at the time) but the store gave me a discount
can you link me to some good comparisons? i thought 580's were slower than 6970's also? and how come are they not that good? is there warrenty no good?
580 Sli would seem to win out on BFBC2 against the an unlocked 6990 (which is 6970 crossfire on a card). But some things may run faster on the AMD option. However 580 SLI will win at most things. And it's just my personal preference, I'd much prefer a really well known and trusted brand. PowerColor have been around ages I know, and I know people who do use their stuff so they aren't bad.
@ OP Personally I would go for the Hawks. But as your in the UK have you tried Scan or Aria? Both of them are extremely reliable and well stocked websites that I cannot recommend enough
also...think youll find the 580 as being quite a bit faster in most games than the 6970 (according to anandtech anyway) http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=305
