Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 2GB OC Edition Review

A Closer Look at the Sapphire HD 5970 2GB OC

The HD 5970 2GB is one heck of an imposing card but ATI has designed it in such a way that it closely resembles the rest the HD 5000-series cards. Its full length, all-black heatsink shroud covers both cores and is covered in Sapphire’s unique branding sticker.


Much like the HD 5870, HD 5850 and HD 5770, this card uses just the right amount of red highlights to remind users of its ATI lineage. However, unlike other 5-series products, the HD 5970 carries slots along the entire side of the heatsink shroud. These do dump some hot air back into the card’s immediate vicinity but there isn’t enough heat buildup for you to worry about.

We should also mention the HD 5970 has a single Crossfire connector due to the fact that you are able to link no more than two of these cards together for quad Crossfire.


Once again we see the oddball red-fringed vents at the back of an ATI 5-series heatsink. These are in place to help with ventilation over the VRMs and other components at the rearmost portion of the PCB while airing air intake.


The HD 5970 also comes with a full coverage backplate in order to disperse the immense heat generated by the GDDR5 memory modules placed on the card’s back. While it may help with heat issues, we are going to recommend that you let the card stand idle for at least 5 minutes after turning off the system before you handle it. This backplate gets insanely hot and you WILL burn yourself if you are not careful.

The back also incorporates a pair of LEDs which indicate the status of the card.


Considering this card uses about 300W and can supposedly overclock like no-one’s business, ATI thought it prudent to include a single 8-pin PCI-E connector alongside a 6-pin. Since most good power supplies now carry 8-pin connectors, this shouldn’t be an issue for any of you.

The backplate shows us a departure from previous 5000-series cards we have looked at since there is a full-length exhaust grille above the connectors. This is to supposedly facilitate the movement of the additional airflow needed to cool the two cores.

Directly below the exhaust grille are the two DVI connectors as well as a mini DisplayPort output.


There is no denying that the HD 5970 is the longest card in the history of modern GPUs. It dwarfs even the 11.5” HD 5870 by measuring about 12.25” (31cm) which will make it a tight fit into anything but the largest of EATX cases. It used to be that upgrading your graphics card meant perhaps upgrading your power supply but with this card, you may need to upgrade your case as well.