Radeon HD 6970 Questions

i've asked this question on a few other forums and thought i would get your guys opinion

hi im looking to purchase a 6970 sometime in the near future since the release of the 7000 series might drive the price down.

my question is what brand should i buy there are lot of different choices on new egg and i was hoping to get some input from people who have owned a card from these brands or if people have information based on sources and not hear say?

---------------------------

several people have said HIS is a good brand ive looked and i seen 2 that the specs are almost the same but theres a 80 dollar price difference

HIS IceQ Turbo
HIS IceQ

the turbo has a very marginal clock speed increase over the non turbo. the one thing i did see listed that the non turbo did not was something called Mix eyefinity. i looked at there site for information didn't find anything Google turned up that you can run eyefinity without the need of an active adapter. anyone know if this is the case for the non turbo as well?

--------------------

also i would like to some time in the future buy another 6970 and crossfire them what kind of wattage would i need. believe the AMD min requirement is 550 Watt one 150W 8-pin 75W 6-pin power connector

ive seen plenty of PS with crossfire and SLI certified for 500 - 600 watts, do they downscale there power requirements when in dual mode or would i need 1100 just for the cards?

While brand does have an impact, it's minimal. Basically the differences are how good the QA and support are.
HIS is a good brand. So is msi, asus, gigabyte.
Powercolor, sapphire, xfx (debatable) are more "bargain brands". They make great products but the QA is lacking.
Looking at reviews between models rather than brands would be more helpful for you.

Also, the expensive non-reference ones (like the iceq one there) are for ocing. If you aren't going to oc, get a cheaper one.

Minimum psu for cf 6970s is around 650W. That's if you don't oc anything. Also it has to be a decent quality psu from a major brand. Most people will recommend at least 750W for more head room (PSUs are less efficient at peak wattage).

Expect a stock 6970 to use a max 210W each (source). The rest of your 12v components use 100-150W more. So make sure your 12v rail can handle around 600W, more with ocing.

edit: $400 is way too much for a 6970, btw.