Good review, $700 is pretty steep even though this card churns out impressive frame rates across the board. Now we wait for Nvidia's answer to see who will claim the performance crown this time around.

That's one big graphics card ! How does one even install a foot long graphics card in a regular ATX case ? Put two of these monsters in Quad Crossfire configuration and you'll probably need to run a dual PSU setup as well.

I don't even think it'll fit in my antec 900 two. That's definitely a monster card.

There is no problem of space in my case but price and power consuption is extremely high.
I will wait for next hd 7000 series using 28 nm process and will be much more efficient.

The power efficiency and the fact that you dont need an extremely bulky case or a crossfire-able mobo, meaning you can set it up as you please for me at least are $100 well spent (And considering you have the money to spend on this it is not a crazy buy).

I love how my graphic card is not even on the comparison tests lol! Yea $700.... I do not care for that price, you could almost buy a whole new machine. Especial with how video cards turn over as fast as cell phones. What surprises me the most is how Inefficient the hardware still is since they still have to put massive heatsinks on them. Overclocked hardware I understand but it is just a thought.

I can only imagine PowerJack - http://www.powercolor.com/Global/products_Accessories_features.asp?id=1 - sales are going to go through the roof with those physical specifications! It'll be interesting to see what other manufactures can do to reduce that massive size and weight.


Impressive though?

I kind of regret buying my gtx 570 sli after looking at this monster

@Guest

I hope you're joking

If nVidia are able to come close to matching this price, I'm sure their performance will blow this one away... Look how high the 580 is!

This card, as well as Crossfired HD6970/6950 or SLI'ed GTX580/570 aren't aimed at 2560x1600 res. They are aimed at two specific groups.
1. Multi-monitor gamers. 5040x1050 and up (People who would buy the card)
2. Marketing hype and fanboy-fodder (People who won't buy this card).

Pretty simple strategy really. Top the benchmarks with the übercard and watch the masses gobble up the entry and mainstream versions -the illusion of performance by association.

"Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday" -Bob Tasca

@herpaderp
I think you'll find that "Guest" is a fully paid up member of the local Flamebait union- trust me I've studied them in petri dishes when I was doing my dissertation as a Trollatrician.

One thing the card has going for it is that it must be built like a tank. Tweaktown managed to clock the core to 1000MHz...the only downside (apart from increased power draw) seems that the card's fan needs to ramp to 100%....and 90.2dB. Vendor non-reference cooling might be advantageous in this case.

I'd like to see a benchmark of two of these in Xfire on the new 1155 platform just to see if the x8 bandwidth of the PCI-E lanes cause a performance hit.

If I had that kinda money, I'd buy 2 twin frozr III 6950's, flash to 6970 than xfire. Or just spring for the 6970 editions. 6990 and 590 will be beasts, but I dunno where the usage is practical outside of extreme benchmarking.....

Regenweald.

What happened to the 'overclock switch' ?

You are leaving out one very important part of the equation Omni. The power usage/cooling/PCIE spec/warranty are all acting as the great equalizer here. .you can damn well bet that AMD would have ramped up two full and complete 6970's if they could simply ignore these issues (they did to an extent). The same goes for Nvidia. Two full blown 580's is pushing 500w, they will have some limiting factors at work as well.

STOP HATING TECHSPOT U KNOW THESE ARE COOL.
But yeah, its performance is what it should be and I think the price is justfiable - for now.

Well, to be completely honest the performance is mindblowing, but I have to say it's still overpriced. I'd rather buy two 6970's or just buy two 6950's and flash them, saves money and squeezes out more performance. Also, the noise factor seems to pull me back too.

However, I did find the power consumption and heat temperatures to not be half bad for its performance, but still not enough to make me buy it. I mean $700? Really? Did AMD forget it had the 6970 or something? $650 or $600 is more realistic, and would make this card completely worth it. I'm eager to see nVidia's GTX 590, if they can pull off around the same performance with a cheaper price tag I'll be incredibly impressed, if not, I'll just stick to the two 6970's.

This card is really only appealing to people with only one PCI-E x 16 slot open, (And if they can have this card without bottlenecking it I don't see how they only have one slot open in the first place...) or to people who want to say "1 h4ve t3h m0sT l337 c4rd".

....Or to people who like big numbers....

I can't think of any boards that can use a cpu that won't bottleneck this card that only have one slot. Almost every board can do x8 x8 so this product is really just so AMD can claim the fastest card crown(until Nvidia releases)