ASUS ROG MATRIX 5870 P/2DIS/2GD5 Radeon HD 5870 Platinum 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Pros: super fast

Cons: it is deactivated!

Other Thoughts: i really really want this come on newegg reactivate it!!!

Pros: Very powerful. Very powerful fan and top notch cooling power. A very beautiful design. Very overclockable.

Cons: It can be loud at times, but that's expected. I have had a lot of issues with bios/drivers.. and setting fan speeds.. but Asus got it right a couple months ago finally. Sometimes the fan kicks up a notch or goes full speed and scares the bejeezus out of me. It takes a lot of power connections.

Other Thoughts: I would suggest this for anyone looking to spend about $500 on a high end AMD card. It's very overclockable with 2gb of memory and a very effective cooling system. Out of the box, it isn't perfect.. so take your time and update the bios on a solid machine before you jump in head first.

This item has been out of stock for a while now.. I really want to get a second one.. What's up with that Newegg? Is it Asus? Is the card discontinued? I've been waiting for months on auto-notify.

Pros: Another killer piece of Asus hardware. I'm neither an ATI or Nvidia fanboy so I just look for outright performance and if you can afford it, in CrossFire these fly... What the top end GPU speeds might miss the doubled down memory more than makes up for!

Cons: None yet, drivers can be sketchy but that's what forums are for, read up on the latest and stay away from ones that others have issues with.

Pros: Customizable fan speeds are great -- running at 30% when i dont hit 65-70 degrees is nice.. keeps the chips cooler, i can run starcraft 2 on highest settings without the fan speed kicking up, and 30% is fairly inaudible above other ambient noises in the room.

Cons: Itracker2 sometimes acts strange

Other Thoughts: havent messed with overclocking much yet, and ill probably get a second here soonish.

Pros: Plays almost everygame I have on high @ 1920 x 1200 RES with avg 35Fps But that is the same with any 5870 clocked @ 900mhz and that is not why I bought this card. It overclocks with CCC to 935Mhz with no voltage change.

Cons: The software side of this card really needs an update or something. BSOD For every little thing I change in the Asus ITracker. Do not update to bios AS11 if you have Win 7 64bit. Bios AS11 requires ver 1.6 ITracker and there is not that ver for win 7 64bit so this is a wast of money. I had better luck with the ref 5870, and you can not change voltage with any other overclocking utility the voltage regulators are not supported by anything other then ITracker.

Other Thoughts: Truly not worth the $100+ premium.

Pros: - Overclocked at 894 mhz (900 mhz for gaming).

- Bigger and more efficient fan.

- Exhaust hot air at the back.

- Cool and original multicolor Matrix logo that change color following load charge.

- Fan not too much noisy unless you ask 100% load.

- 2 Gigs of memory.

Cons: - It's not a 2 GPU card like the 5970 but you already knew that, right?

Other Thoughts: By far the best 5870 card with single GPU you can find out there. I must admit Asus did a good job on that one.

Pros: This card has all the gimmicks and you paid for it in premium price! For me, I've always love Asus brand. It's know for very OC friendly and high quality parts. The Matrix light on the card changes with GPU load which is a very cool feature.

Cons: The first card I've received is a lemon. It made my PC behave erratically. The computer failed to wake up from standby. Other times, PC boot but there was no video signal. The power led on my LCD screen flashed like its still in standby; pressing the power button off and on a couple times eventually will give me video feed and everything work like they should. I ran Furmark with stability check and what do you know, artifacts all over while temp remained below 85C! RMA requested! NE approved!

5 days later the second card received and the different is night and day! PC boots right everytime. It goes to sleep and wake up with no problem. It shrugs at Furmark, the temp never goes above 85C! This card is a cooling beast! I was looking for a waterblock for this card but after some playing around with iTracker fan settings I have stop looking since the card at full load never goes above 72C! I am going to CF this baby when the price drops a little.

Other Thoughts: Test your card throughly the first 30 days for a lemon.

Pros: * Supremely fast.
* A pair of these is cooler and quieter than my old 4870x2.
* Glowing "Matrix" activity lights are kinda neat.

Cons: * Price, I suppose. That's not so much of a "CON" as a fact of life, though. Top performance costs money, period.

* Size, I suppose. Again, this is just a fact of life. If you want to keep something like this cool and quiet, you need a large cooling solution.

Other Thoughts: * The stock memory speed is actually 1200 MHz - not 1225. That's not a serious problem, though; I overclocked mine to 1225 MHz with no issues. So if you just can't live without that extra 25MHz, you may be able to get it by overclocking. Still, the specs and product should match.

* You *cannot* install two of these cards side-by-side without blocking airflow into the "top" card. However, the included CrossFire bridge cable is not long enough to do anything else. The package should really include a longer CrossFire bridge cable.

Pros: This card runs like a dream; solid construction, powerful cooling fan that forces air like flames from a dragon's mouth, slick design for enthusiasts who appreciate their machine from the inside.

Great option for those who don't have motherboard real estate to CrossFire, this is the most powerful single 5870 in existance (factory spec) and will do more than it's share of 24x edge-detect AA polygon destruction without having to invest $1000+ on a 5970 or ARES.

Devours whatever you throw at it, I've ran Crysis (DX10) on full screen 1080p with advanced settings at their max "very high" and AA x8 (at stock 900MHz clock)pulling on avg. 34 - 46 fps (core i7 980x and 6GB Corsair Dominator may help that too) but this card was worth it just to experience that level of gorgeous. For one ATI card at this price range to produce those results on a game that is optimized for NVidia SLI is outstanding.

Cons: I'm amazed to see so many guys complain about length. At 13" the only thing to get down on is what this bad boy does to your self-esteem. If you're looking for a power card for your beast rig and you're concerned about your work horse heart-and-soul component being too big and menacing than you simply don't deserve this card. Yes this thing is big, but it's full of raw angry power so get over it.

So, is thing really noisy? Not if you're using it right. While running Win7 and day-to-day city driving you'd swear it was a Prius. Idles very efficiently for OS and 2D apps. If you take her out for a spin on the freeway though and open it up like a Lambo from a bank robbery and you're gonna make some noise - but make no mistake if you're playing games quiet enough to hear your system fans again you're missing the point of this card. The fan is not that loud, what makes the noise is the amount of air it pushes out, emphasized by the fact the entire card is enclosed to contain the flow.

Other Thoughts: If you like spending a little bit more on quality, this card will reward you with a lot more in performance. It's fun, it's powerful, it doesn't quit, what more can you expect?

Just remember to treat it with respect by updating the drivers and don't use application settings on non-ATI optimized games, use the included ATI catalyst control settings for 3D settings to max out performance on Nvidia games and you'll be laughing at all the comparison benchmarks that don't take this into account.

Pros: Gorgeous external design
Great performance
iTracker 2 Software is great (see below though)
High end components/construction
Bios Flashback in-case you get carried away in over-clocking
Overclocks to +1000MHz easily
Better cooling with larger fan
Fan exhausts ALL hot air OUT of your case.

The iTracker 2 software is absolutely awesome.. It doesn't completely replace the Catalyst Control Center that comes with all ATI/AMD video cards now, but it allows you to do more overclocking tweaks than any other video card I know of right now.. Voltages, memory timing, fan speed based on temperature thresholds, memory & GPU frequency (obviously), separate profiles... It actually works and works WELL...

Cons: Can Idle hot (see below)

When open/active (minimized or not) iTracker 2 software does not let your video card to underclock itself down to 15MHz/300MHz.. Instead only under-clocking the card to 400/750 at idle.. This causes the card to idle at +50c easily.. Not enough to knock the card a full egg.. But something you should be aware of.

When Im not using it, I just close the software & re-open it as needed.. No known way at the moment to keep it from opening at boot-up.

Other Thoughts: "Matrix" LED can get annoying at times If it doesn't really light up to match your case.. and No way to turn it off that I know of.