HD5970 first full review!!

More details here:

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...?cid=3&id=3072

Edit!!

Supposedly the voltage of each GPU is lower than in the HD5870 and if raised 1GHZ can be achieved for the core:

http://www.overclock.net/hardware-ne...70-review.html

Several other benchmarks have popped up at places like Bit-tech, PCper, HardOCP and so on. Hexus are sadly the only site to have tested quad crossfire X so far, but to be honest, I'm unsure why these cards are being tested before there has even been a single driver release for them.
It's interesting that the UK stores are almost warring on how high they can get prices for the 5970s since stock is so rare, the RRP for the cards I believe is £479.99 yet Novatech aren't far off £600 since they have the first-day-stock exclusive sales rights.

As far as performance goes, pretty much identical to two HD5850s in crossfire, but on a single card, with better overclocking potential, but with no HDMI port. HardOCP got the card from stock 725/4000 to 800/5000, and then 900/5200 with a voltage change. The core took quite a substantial nudge on the volts, however, and I'd want to see where the long-term 'danger zone' is before risking such an expensive card. Should you garner the extra 175mhz HardOCP pulled off though, that's some severe performance gains, since they got 25% on the memory without any voltage rises, there's no problem of one part of the OC hindering the other. At such clock speeds the HD5970 stands to not just equal HD5870s in crossfire, but surpass them. Now here's just hoping the retail cards clock as well. I typically find that the overclocks achieved by websites like HardOCP, multiplied by 60%, are what the end user normally receives. Of the typical 75mhz core and 80mhz memory overclocks on the 4870X2, my retail card takes 45 and 45.
Unfortunately HardOCP didn't benchmark their overclocked card. That's a big disappointment, as we can only guess at the sort of performance gains it brings.
How about some overclocked quad crossfire testing with the 9.12 betas?

Edit:
Found something useful :)
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews....=885&pageid=16

Only thing holding me back from buying one of these today is the absence of a suitable waterblock to cool it :(. Must...have...water...cooling...

You mean leaky cooling :P

Got bored and a High Street store offered me one in stock for £500 (Sapphire branded) so couldn't resist. Should collect it later today :).

Not too bad, you'll struggle to get one delivered for any less than that.