Gigabyte GV-R6970OC2-2GD

Five cards comprise Gigabyte's Radeon HD 6970 portfolio with the GV-R6970OC2-2GD falling under Gigabyte's Ultra Durable VGA series.

Running the card through our benchmark gauntlet, the card impressed us with its strong DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 numbers. The Gigabyte managed Heaven v2.0 figures of 87.9fps, 66.0fps and 58.4fps at 1,024 x 768, 1,680 x 1,050 and 1,920 x 1,200 pixels, which made it the fastest card on test here. The GV-R6970OC2-2GD was also the fastest in our H.A.W.X and World in Conflict tests. The reason the Gigabyte offers such potent performance is because it packs AMD's Radeon HD 6970 GPU. In AMD's GPU line the 6970 is second only to the dual-GPU Radeon HD 6990.

The card, like other Radeon HD 6970 offerings, is quite large from end-to-end, so it's worth studying your chassis before you buy it, so you can make sure it will actually fit. Like most high-end cards, the Gigabyte requires two rear expansion slots. It also needs two PCI-E power cables be connected so it can draw enough juice.

The card features a massive heatsink that's made of aluminium and copper, and sitting on top of this are no less than three cooling fans. While the fans have a small diameter and are shallow (in terms of depth), they spin at low speeds, which meant we never heard them throughout testing.