MSI R5970-P2D2G Radeon HD 5970 (Hemlock) 2GB 512 (256 x 2)-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Dual GPU Onboard CrossFire Video Card w/ Eyefinity

Pros: It's a beast. OC's very nicely, had it at 850/1200 on air with slight bump in voltage.

I've had it over 900/1200 on water cooling and seemed very stable. Leave it at 850/1200 for everyday gaming.

Using MSI AB which is one of the best OC'ing utilities out there. Very simple to use.

Cons: Very long. ATI drivers are the worst, can't seem to get crossfire to work correctly past 10.5a drivers. Many other reporting same issue.

Other Thoughts: Nvidia seems to have a better handle on SLI the ATI has with Crossfire. I bought this because it was the fastest at the time and I wanted to play BC2 maxed out at 1920x1200 resolution.

Overall, I'm very happy but wish they'd get their act together in regard to their drivers.

Pros: None - it's a broken card that MSI refuses to RMA

Cons: My card will cause a system lockup consistently after initially launching a game (while in the game menu). If you are lucky enough to find a time when it doesn't die then, and actually get the '3D' part of the game going, then it runs fine for as long as you desire to play.

Also, on 95% of the boards I've tested the card will have a endless driver crash when viewing the Catalyst AI tab in the CCC (Catalyst Control Center).

This has happened with all drivers from v9 to 10.5 - stock timings, voltages, frequencies on all parts (motherboard/cpu/ram/gpu) - no matter how up-to-date your drivers/firmware/bios/OS is, it's all the same.

Other Thoughts: As someone has already stated: "MSI customer service is sub standard as well, overall a poor company to do business with.". This is completely true, after trying to RMA my borked card I am nothing short of frustrated with the incompetence that MSI has displayed. They have put litteraly zero effort in troubleshooting and are not willing to admit that there could be an issue with this card despite it being tested on several different known-good systems (motherboards) and despite multiple other 5XXXX working great when tested on my board.

Shame on you MSI!
Your customer support is an embarrassment.

Pros: Runs everything I've thrown at it, no slow downs, no choppies, just smooth video playback of any game I have. Also I can use MSI afterburner to bump up clocks to simulate 5870s in xfire, but I haven't had to. It downclocks when video power isn't needed & isn't that loud when you want the POWER!!!

Cons: none so far

Other Thoughts: It's a Long video card. You need room in your case or it won't fit 13". Bought it from the Egg, everything was eggcelent as usu-all. Sorry I got carried away in the pros, but it an excellent card. get 1

Pros: Runs

Cons: MSI had a lot of issues stick with ASUS or XFX, MSI likes to tout their cards ability to overclock and overvolt but for the most part their cards do not overvolt and overclock poorly, MSI customer service is sub standard as well, overall a poor company to do business with.

Pros: The 5970 itself is a great card.

Cons: I ordered two of these to put in Crossfire on a Rampage III Extreme. Machine refused to boot and the indicator light on the motherboard kept saying there was a VGA error. Turns out, one of the cards was just burning up. Turned out to be the fan was not spinning. I kept the one, but I'll be weary of it.

Pros: The card's specifications and benchmarks indicated superior performance. Well-packaged and presented, but that should be a given considering the card's price.

Cons: I was not able to experience the cards performance due to either ATI drivers or a defective product, or both.

Other Thoughts: I already own a GTX 295 and ordered this card because it offered better performance and was well received by the experts. I have owned Nvidia cards since I began gaming and have had only a few minimal and minor problems; none driver related. After I ordered this card I looked in-depth at ATI forums and saw numerous issues with the 5000 series cards, many of them due to poor driver support, and as it turns out, I am one of those experiencing these issues. There was one particular thread about problems similar to mine, and no one knew what was causing it, but bad drivers were suspected. I am RMAing this card and getting 470s in SLI. I wanted to be impressed with this card and maybe go with ATI for my future gaming needs, but sadly I'm left disappointed with the amount of work some ATI customers must go through just to get their products to work as advertised.

Pros: This is a great video card with lower power consumption then my 4870 x2 and runs much cooler it also overclocks really well over all a great card.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: This card is verry large but it wasnt a problem for my Full tower Thermaltake armor plus case.

Pros: Are you using a motherboard giving the PCI-e x16 lane enough power? This thing requires the full power from then PCI-e x16 lane and the 2 6-pin connectors.

Cons: You can try under volting it.

Pros: Afterburner OC utility is basically re-skinned R1vatuner OC'ing utility. Also very similar to EVGA's Precision utility which I was familiar with already. Works great with my G15, feature I really wanted to keep. Get the latest version from their website as the one on the cd is outdated.

Played around with OC'ing and was able to match the 5870's (850/1200) clock speeds without issue on air, temps were not an issue.

I'm reading that folks are getting stable results at 900/1300. I don't need those kinds of speeds right now.

Finally able to play Stalker Clear Sky with DX10 and most of the bells and whistles turned on. Game looks really good!

Cons: I see ATI still bundles their drivers with a bunch of useless utilities. At least they let you uninstall them after the fact. I didn't know what did what so I installed the whole suite.

I removed just about everything after I figure out what everything was.

Size, might be a tight for some smaller cases. Availability, why such the backlog? I've never seen anything like it, their barely trickling in. Not Neweggs or MSI fault.

Other Thoughts: It is a big mother, it does fit in a Antec 900 case without having to modify the case. I did have to move things around a little and re route some cables, not an issue for me.

I think I'm just gonna install the ATI drivers only and use MSI Afterburner to manage my OC/fan settings.

Can't wait test this thing out on BF:BC2!

Pros: Ordered on Wednesday arrived on Thursday, Real speedy shipping. Great packaging of the product. Also my computer just got a fresh install of Windows 7 & I was ready for some gaming that night.

Cons: First thing this is not Newegg's fault in any way, Most likely MSI's or AMD's quality control is at fault here. Installed it and the fan was not spinning, Card was not getting warm at all, Red LED's were lit by the top of the power connectors, are those suppose to be green? I don't know. I have a 1200 watt Thermaltake PS & there is no way I not feeding it enough power. I am sooo bummed that this is dead because I have no idea if they will even be able to replace this with another due to the fact that these 5970's are just hard as hell to get at this time. I also want to add that the MSI packaging did not have the tape that seals the box on both ends, Makes me wonder. And no Dirt 2 coupon is included with the MSI card, at $650+ They should be giving this game away with every 5970 card as this game showcases DX11.

Other Thoughts: After using Nvidia for about 5 years, I just got soo sick of issues on certain games with my SLI setup. So moving to an ATI set up seem like a good idea at the time, This was certainly not a good first impression. But i'm willing to give it a try again with a replacement.