The "best" 6970? There are like 20 on newegg!

[arashd]

Tried to do a search on which one of these cards runs the coolest (excluding water cooled and the ones that take up three slots) but I can't find any reliable info. I know all these cards are the same, but anyone have any idea on if the more expensive ones with more fancy shmancy looking fans are actually worth the extra money? I plan on running 4 in one rig so I would be willing to pay a bit more for colder card, but I would rather not waste money if the more expensive cards are just a sham.

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[MiningBuddy]

I don't know specifically about the 6970 cards, but I've always found Sapphire Vapor-X cards to run very cool.

[Mousepotato]

I'd go for a reference board because they dump hot air outside the case.  The other designs just recirculate hot air.  Reference boards have a centrifugal/exducer-type fan at the very end of the board.

[fitty]

I'd go for a reference board because they dump hot air outside the case.  The other designs just recirculate hot air.  Reference boards have a centrifugal/exducer-type fan at the very end of the board.

Have you ever owned a 6950 or 6970? The reference board is garbage. There's a reason every single manufacture went with a completely different cooling design. Also most of the reference boards don't pipe it out the back, they pipe it out the side which still goes right into your case.

I bought a few 6950 ref boards and unlocked them, honestly I wish I would have just purchased non-ref 6970s. They produce so much heat, the design is awful, avoid reference cards as a rule of thumb unless there's some unlocking that makes it worth the trouble. Having a sealed case where air is pumped through the case sounds good, but that sealed case also means if you put a fan on it you're just hitting the plastic shell and not cooling it at all. With the more open dual fan design you can at least help cool the heat sink and pipes with more fans.

Also the reference fan is freaking loud. Way too loud. I can have 3 5870s running, 1 6950 and the 6950 is 3x as loud by itself. I'll never buy another reference board I don't care if I can unlock it for 20% gains or not. They're hot, loud, poorly designed.

As for the best, go by the number of reviews and the % of 4-5 stars. If one card has 200 reviews at 70% I prefer that over a card with 10 reviews at 80%. Get a popular card, with good reviews, and you'll be fine. If noise bothers you, read over the cons looking for complaints about noise. Newegg reviews will pretty much tell you what you need to know if you read enough of more. More reviews the more you can trust the ratings. Less reviews a little more risk.

[deslok]

keep in mind that if you're building a dedicated minig rig you'll get better performance out of 5000 series cards than 6000 series.
i'd consider a few of these if i was building a new rig this week
http://www.mobilepc.com/Electronics/VisionTek-ATI-Radeon-HD-5870-1-GB-GDDR5-PCI-Express

[Detritus]

Have you ever owned a 6950 or 6970? The reference board is garbage. There's a reason every single manufacture went with a completely different cooling design. Also most of the reference boards don't pipe it out the back, they pipe it out the side which still goes right into your case.

All of this is wrong.

I own four 6970's, all reference cards. In fact I have a hard time finding non-reference card version of the 6970's

The ref card design defiently does not dump heat out the side. All of them blow %80-%90 of the exhaust air out the back, and the rest out a small vent on the top of the card. There is no such thing as "most of the reference boards", they are either reference design, or they are not. If they are reference design they have one blower and vent out the back.

Of the few modified cooling systems I've seen, most are complete junk. They dump far too much heat into the case.

Of the eleven versions of the 6970 currently on newegg only two are non-reference designs, and both of those still vent out the back.

[deslok]

on a side note if you are set on 6970s but really do wish for them to be absolutely quiet i'd advise getting the cheapest one that is still a decent card (xfx has a lifetime warentee from what i have heard elsewhere in this forum) and then get a good aftermarket cooler for each card

[fitty]

Have you ever owned a 6950 or 6970? The reference board is garbage. There's a reason every single manufacture went with a completely different cooling design. Also most of the reference boards don't pipe it out the back, they pipe it out the side which still goes right into your case.

All of this is wrong.

I own four 6970's, all reference cards. In fact I have a hard time finding non-reference card version of the 6970's

The ref card design defiently does not dump heat out the side. All of them blow %80-%90 of the exhaust air out the back, and the rest out a small vent on the top of the card. There is no such thing as "most of the reference boards", they are either reference design, or they are not. If they are reference design they have one blower and vent out the back.

Of the few modified cooling systems I've seen, most are complete junk. They dump far too much heat into the case.

Of the eleven versions of the 6970 currently on newegg only two are non-reference designs, and both of those still vent out the back.

Errr no.

Go put your finger behind the card, then next to the side vent. The MAJORITY of the air is coming out the side vent. There are threads all over the internet about people talking about covering that vent in order to actually force the air out the back.

The ref cards are dumping the hot air into the case. That's why you have intake and exhaust fans. The ref boards are garbage for cooling and they're loud.

[Detritus]

[
Errr no.

Go put your finger behind the card, then next to the side vent. The MAJORITY of the air is coming out the side vent. There are threads all over the internet about people talking about covering that vent in order to actually force the air out the back.

The ref cards are dumping the hot air into the case. That's why you have intake and exhaust fans. The ref boards are garbage for cooling and they're loud.

There is no side vent on a 6970 reference card. There are exactly three openings in the air box: one for the blower fan, which is the intake. The external exhaust on the external edge of the card outside the case. And a small one on the top of the card, which moves a small amount of hot air into the case.

The rest of the card is completely enclosed, except for the the opening for the heat-sink tensioner, which passes no air at all.

Show us a picture of this mythical "side vent' of which you speak?

[KKAtan]

I plan on running 4 in one rig so I would be willing to pay a bit more for colder card, but I would rather not waste money if the more expensive cards are just a sham.

I'm afraid this won't be easy. When you sandwich 4 videocards inside a case, it WILL get hot, this is a guarantee sadly... (unless you watercool)



But I think you might be interested in this
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/2140/413307hisradeonhd6970ic.jpg

That's HIS's custom design, and I think this particular design has a great advantage for your situation, as it can draw air above AND below the fan. So the fan gets air from two directions thanks to that opening, this should be very useful when you sandwich 4 cards next to each other, you will need to give the fans as much spacing as possible for optimal cooling and this particular design helps exactly with that.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/44826-his-hd-6970-iceq-turbo-hd-6950-iceq-x-turbo-x-review-15.html
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/4133/his_radeon_hd_6970_iceq_turbo_2gb_video_card_review/index15.html
Here's a couple of reviews that claims the cooler gives lower temperature than reference design. That IceQ cooler is probably your best bet.

(But as I said, it will get hot when you have 4 cards)

The reference board is garbage. There's a reason every single manufacture went with a completely different cooling design.

I think you're wrong on this as well. As Detritus pointed out, only 2 out of 11 actually have custom designs.
If you're talking about the 6950, then you are only doing half of the explanation, some of them went with custom designs to improve the cooling, while some of them went with custom designs to lower the production costs.