Product Showcase
Much like the reference 7970 you will need to hook the card up to your power supply with both a 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe PEG connector. We recommend a 550W power supply to start with. 6-pin = 75W the 8-pin is 150W and then another 75W can be delivered though the PCIe slot, so that's 300W to work with.
Connectivity wise the output connectors will vary per brand. But on the reference card we see four connectors supporting all high-resolution monitors. We get two display port connectors (mini), HDMI and a DVI connector. The cards will come with monitor connector dongles and adapters depending on the brand you will buy.
The card certainly does look good. You'll need roughly 27 CM / 11.5" of space for the card to fit. So most chassis can easily fit the card. Power connectors are located at the top side of the card so that will not be hindering you either.Once we open up the card we notice again the cooler used with the reference 7970. That cooler itself already had a small renovation, it has a wider fan with updated blades, the housing is sturdy and the actual heatsink has gotten an update as well. AMD now uses a 6th generation vapour chamber cooler.
Overall the card remains cooled within acceptable limits. But you'll learn all about that over the next few pages.