Monday, December 13th 2010
PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 Pictured
With its launch not too far, AMD partners are busy sending their Radeon HD 6970 samples to reviews. It is inevitable then, that some would actually post pictures of those on the web ahead of launch. Some such pictures made it to HardwareLuxx.de, which shows PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 in fresh out of its retail box. The card, and the box itself, reveal quite a bit about the HD 6970. To begin with, Radeon HD 6970 (and HD 6950), are high-end single GPU graphics cards based on AMD's new "Cayman" high-end GPU. The HD 6970 is about as long as a Radeon HD 5870 (which it's intended to replace), and retains product design carried forward from the HD 6800 series graphics cards.
The HD 6970 from PowerColor sports 2 GB of GDDR5 memory, perhaps some of the memory chips are located on the reverse side of the PCB, which is why a back-plate is used to cool them. The top side of the card reveals the power connectors: one 8-pin, and a 6-pin PCI-E power; two CrossFire bridge fingers, and a tiny switch. It is rumored that this switch lets users select between two BIOS ROM chips present on the cards; one chip is programmable, and partners can store an overclocked profile, while the other is not programmable, and stores the AMD reference profile. It gives users a nice fallback in case they brick the card with a bad BIOS.
Another revelation is that HD 6970 supports an updated AMD Eyefinity feature set that lets users connect four displays to the card (instead of three on the previous generation non-Eyefinity6 cards). Display connectivity includes two DVI, one HDMI 1.4a, and two DisplayPort 1.2. PowerColor's HD 6970 should be out by mid-December (in this week).
Source:
HardwareLuxx.de
The HD 6970 from PowerColor sports 2 GB of GDDR5 memory, perhaps some of the memory chips are located on the reverse side of the PCB, which is why a back-plate is used to cool them. The top side of the card reveals the power connectors: one 8-pin, and a 6-pin PCI-E power; two CrossFire bridge fingers, and a tiny switch. It is rumored that this switch lets users select between two BIOS ROM chips present on the cards; one chip is programmable, and partners can store an overclocked profile, while the other is not programmable, and stores the AMD reference profile. It gives users a nice fallback in case they brick the card with a bad BIOS.
125 Comments on PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 Pictured
Btw is this 4D ? if so don't that only make it 384 shaders ?. Sounds kinda low i know they are not every thing but they do help a lot even more so in games like Arma..
it is single GPU, however - the _970 threw mew off for a sec there. that said, leaked performance reviews always suck... early/beta drivers.
Don't forget too that the 6970, while likely being at least on par with a GTX480, it isn't the end of the line for AMD. There's still the good possibility of a dual GPU card, a la 6990 being released. NVIDIA may have the GTX580, but it won't hold up against the 6990. And considering that the 6970 will be far cheaper, and that the 6990 will likely be only a tad more expensive (but obviously far more powerful than a 580), AMD still has the upper hand.
Quite a performance disappointment, but there's a good low price potential now.
That being said, it's unconfirmed for the moment so I wouldn't jump to complain just yet.
The side of the card maybe a bit more of a concern for chassis window lovers like myself... but IMHO what you want to look good is the result not so much the tools, ie, the graphics, not really the graphics card.
But then again ... every generation is always a stop-gap for the next one. :rockout:
Need benchmarks now!!
If it is indeed slower than a 580, AND more expensive, maybe the AMD fanboys will give the war a rest for a change. But then again, I imagine they'll start up again once the 6990 is released. They won't have a leg to stand on, however, as a single GPU card can't compete with a dual-GPU card and their arguments will be irrelevant.