XFX R7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation

Manufacturer: XFX Creation, Inc.
Product Name: R7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation
Part Number: FX-797A-TDBC
Suggested Retail Price: $599.99 MSRP

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by XFX.

AMD might have trouble keeping up with the competition in the CPU arena, but their acquisition of ATI allowed them to become a major player in the graphics world. AMD and NVIDIA regularly trade places in the "fastest video card" rankings, and while NVIDIA's been good holding down the title with its current high-end, the Fermi-based GTX 580, it looks as if AMD's new Tahiti-based 7970 will snatch the crown away...especially if it's a hot-rod, factory-overclocked card like today's test subject: the XFX R7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation.

AMD's new Tahiti cards aren't even available at retail as of the time of this writing, but XFX has already got their amped-up version ready. That's impressive, since it generally takes a few months after the introduction of a new video card for the third party vendors to start individualizing their products. XFX offers the Radeon HD 7970 video card in four different versions: the Core Edition, the Black Edition, the Double Dissipation Edition, and the subject of our review, the top-end Black Edition Double Dissipation.

This card comes from the factory with a substantial overclock and an elaborate dual-fan cooling system. I'll compare its performance against NVIDIA and AMD's current top-end cards to see how well it performs.

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