Introduction

We're getting to that point where's it's been long enough after the launch of a new high-end video card model that we start to see companies mixing it up a bit and while XFX came out the gate early with the custom cooled Black Edition Double Dissipation model, we haven't seen anyone else do anything. Well, that's till today!

Today we're looking at the brand new Sapphire HD 7970 Dual-X 3GB OC which at the time of writing hasn't even shown up on the Sapphire website yet. That gives you an idea of just how new the model is and just how quickly we're able to get ahold of it thanks to being based out of Taiwan now.

Before we get down and dirty with the performance of the new card there's a few things we need to get out the way. The first thing we need to do is check out the package and see what kind of bundle Sapphire is giving us.

Once we've looked at the bundle we'll move onto the card itself and check out the new Dual-X cooling setup that Sapphire has going on before we take a closer look at the specifications of the card and cover the Dual BIOS option in a little more detail.

Once we've done all that it's time to get into the testbed, quickly cover the cards we'll have in our review today and of course get into the performance side of things. First things first, though, we need to see just what's going on with the brand new Sapphire HD 7970 Dual-X 3GB OC bundle.

Package

In typical Sapphire fashion we've got a really nice bundle going on. We've got the normal line up of paperwork and driver CD. Along with that we've got a CrossFire bridge, Molex to 6-pin PCIe power connector, Dual Molex to 8-pin PCIe power connector and DVI to VGA cable.

Along with all that we've also got a HDMI and three other connectors including Mini DP to DP, Mini DP to DVI and a HDMI to DVI one. All in all Sapphire has put together a really nice bundle here with a bunch of cables that should get you up and running straight away.