Sapphire HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 Dual Fan Pro Reviews

When taken at face value Sapphire’s Dual Fan edition is just another reference clocked HD 6970 with a fancy looking cooler that was released very late in the Cayman’s marketable life. And yet, after testing we believe this is one of the best options around for anyone looking at new graphics card, regardless of the long shadow cast by the HD 7970. The reasoning behind our affection for this card stems from its impressive mix of high performance, an amazing cooling system and a good amount of overclocking headroom. Normally, we wouldn’t be as vocal about a card whose features can be distilled down to nothing more than a souped up reference design but Sapphire has priced the Dual Fan in line with other manufacturer’s basic models. That means you can find it for $350 or less depending on where you look and once paired up with the numerous rebates being offered on Cayman-based cards, Sapphire’s version is priced to move. The clock speeds being offered here will likely come as a disappointment for many but what defines the Dual Fan from the competition is its heatsink design. While the excellent vapor chamber technology pioneered by Sapphire hasn’t been included, It allows this HD 6970 to post some of the best cooling and acoustical results we’ve seen while still offering enough overhead for some eye opening feats of overclocking. Even when clock speeds are pushed, this heatsink is still able to maintain relatively quiet and well mannered.

There are no new GPUs on the immediate horizon, but can Sapphire's Radeon HD 6970 Dual Fan edition make up for that? If you're into some freakish overclocking numbers then maybe it can.