Rendering Technologies:

The ATI Radeon HD 5970 can support a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1600 on not one, but rather, three monitors. This ability is due to AMD's Eyefinity technology. Although the other 5000 series cards have the same technology available, the 5970 has real potential in this area. In fact, to really test the capacity of the 5970, it has been suggested that you'd have to run it on three 2560 x 1600 resolution monitors. That's some serious power. There are even some dual 5970 CrossFireX systems that can do far greater resolutions across 6 monitors. That's probably overkill for the average consumer, but it's fun knowing that you have that ability.

Additional Features:

This graphics card is really quite large, even when compared to other dual GPU cards. It is over 12 inches long, nearly 4 inches wide and about an inch and a half tall. The size obviously suggests some weight, and sitting at around 3.5 pounds, it's one of the heaviest graphics cards on the market.

Sitting on the GPUs is a large aluminum heat sink made up of 36 fins. It is roughly half the size of the card. The heat sink helps cool not only the GPUs but also the built-in memory. It's designed this way for efficiency, especially with the help of the highly heat-conductive copper plate on the bottom.

The 75x20mm fan draws the heat off the heat sink and pushes it out through the back of the card. The fan operates relatively quietly with a low 42 watt idle consumption rate. While gaming, the fan will pick up the pace and can use up to 294 watts, but even at full rotation, it doesn't put out any kind of intolerable jet-engine sounds. Some other cards have had issues with load noise while under a load, but that shouldn't be a big deal with the 5970.

Concealing the heat sink, fan and the rest of the graphics card is the recognizable Radeon HD 5870 design. AMD probably went with this setup because it helps protect the card very well. It is fairly similar to the housing that Nvidia has been using for a while now.

The 5970 is a beefy graphics card and requires a fair amount of energy. To power it, AMD added a 6-pin and 8-pin pair of PCI Express power connectors. Previous dual-GPU graphics cards have used the same setup. Dual 6-pin connectors have been the most common standard for single GPUs, but it seems the additional GPU requires a little more. It's important to know this so you make sure to get a compatible power supply.

Summary:

Plain and simply the ATI Radeon HD 5970 is a monster in the world of graphics cards. Even paired against Nvidia's GTX 480 it still has a commanding performance edge. The competition between these two parties has a history. They are continuously fighting for that top spot even though it is mostly a niche product that only enthusiasts go after. The battle between these two manufacturers is ongoing but it seems that the tides have turned in favor of AMD for the time being.