Product Showcase
Make note of two CrossfireX connectors, this card can be set up in 2/3/4-way multi-GPU mode, though 4-way. A clean PCB design following reference standards. Nothing out of the usual is found, missing is a second BIOS, which the reference board do have.
A closer look at the cooling design. It follows the traditional HIS ICEQ cooler design, but I'm really not sure anno 2011 if people still really dig it.
Located at the top side of the card we spot power connectors. The R6970 will actually require one 6 and one 8-pin PCIe PEG power connector. A bit hard to see, but as the VRM zone is cooled by little heatsinks, we definitely can appreciate that.
Last photo before we jump into initial GPU heat, TDP and cooling tests. Here you can observe the heatpipe design, two 6 and two 8mm pipes are used. In theory that should be very sufficient, the radiating fins coverage surface area is not rather big or huge though.