ATI Radeon HD 5970

AMDs return to high-end competition

ATI’s Radeon HD 5970 is an extreme high-end graphics card which comes equipped with dual GPU thus making it the best performing card in their lineup. The 5970 has a 512-bit bus with a core clock of 725 MHz along with 1 GB of DDR5 memory.

Design-wise, it’s very similar to the shower HD5870 and HD 5850 cards. The card runs on a 6 and 8-pin power connector configuration. It has a single fan cooling system, with two-air flow compartments beside fan. The card was tested on an ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard with a Intel Core i7 975 processor. The card delivered the goods during performance. In general, it is good bit faster than the dual-GPU NVIDIA Ge-Force GTX295.

The only thing that is of concern is the heating up of the card. Due to the closed design, it tends to heat up a lot. It’s also a little cooler that the GTX295 under load through. The cabinet is a key component and has to be chosen to provide enough air-flow to enable quicker cooling of the card, considering this is a high-end product, the price of Rs. 42,000 is quite steep. The DX 11 compatibility is an added advantages even through there are no DX11 compatible games around now.

Specifications

Engine clock: 725 MHz

Memory clock: 1000 MHz