AMD's new Radeon HD 6900 series is a disappointment to users who expected HD 5970 or GTX 580 performance levels from the new series. The new VLIW4 shader design can not make a huge performance impact as some have guessed, but it opens up a lot of room for die size and transistor optimization which effectively makes the GPU cheaper to produce, the cards cheaper to buy - more performance for your hard earned Dollar. Unfortunately AMD's Radeon HD 6970 can not meet that price target. With performance comparable to GeForce GTX 570, but a price that is $50 higher it is difficult to justify the investment. While I applaud AMD for making the bold move to 2 GB video memory, I have my doubts if the price/performance gain is worth it. Some people may see benefits from this when using Eyefinity, but the majority of users will game at 1920x1200, even 2560x1600 is just a niche resolution. I do have my hopes high for the future though, when AIBs will take a good look at the card and strip it down to achieve more competitive price levels - competitive being $329 in my opinion.
It seems that GPU manufacturers are now shifting to using advanced power containment systems to optimize their cards more toward intended applications. Whether this is a good move and the community will accept it is up to the end users. It is nice to see control options in Catalyst Control Center for AMD's PowerTune Technology - something NVIDIA should add in the future too. While AMD has been leading in power consumption for quite a while, that seems to have shifted slightly with the use of the new faster GDDR5 memory chips. The added power draw is quite significant, especially in Blu-ray playback we see an enormous 73 W power draw for the graphics card alone, hopefully AMD can address this shortcoming.
Overall the Radeon HD 6970 shows some evolutionary progress in AMD's GPU technology but is missing out on the price point mostly. Once the affordability improves, the card will definitely be more interesting.

Also make sure to check out our HD 6950 CrossFire Review