I was pretty intimidated by this card because many reviewers have said that this would be an extremely tight fit in my Antec 900.
when I received it on the 9th, I just had to remove one of the 120 mm fan cages and this fit in easily with 1-2 inches to spare.
It is, however, still a long card and is not to be taken lightly. I doubt these would fit crossfire in my case.
I also have a third party cooler installed on my cpu which is a Cooler Master Hyper N 212 and it doesn't interfere at all with the installation of the card.
There have been no driver issues thus far and I opted to install the online drivers instead of the one given on the CD. I have Windows 7 professional.
People have complained that if you install an aftermarket cooler for this card it voids the warranty, but XFX actually supports the installation of a third party cooler.
Quoted from another website:
"The warranty stickers on the cooler are there because the cards are the same globally and warranty terms differ from region to region. The North American warranty does allow you to remove the cooler to use third party thermal paste and third party cooling. Be extremely careful when anything from a video card and make sure that you keep the original cooler and thermal pads as if the card is every sent to us for servicing it must be back in original condition. If you have any questions feel free to email me or ask our online support staff at xfxforce.com. Thank you.
External Link(s):
XFX Support"
Just make sure to be careful and not to cause any physical damages to the card like nick a resistor because that voids it.
Performance wise this card runs great. I can pretty much throw anything at it at 1920 x 1080p resolution with all of the eye candy turned up. Steam games like TF2, L4D, L4D2 and Dragon Age origins can pretty much have everything at max with great FPS. Same goes for StarCraft II. I have an i5 750 processor though and 8 gigs of g.skill ram so there are no bottleneck issues.
I'm running the card on stock settings and haven't unlocked it yet because I'm too lazy but my temps are:
Idle: 36-38 degrees celsius
Load: 66-68 degrees celsius
What's included in the box:
Card, drivers, manuals, random books, and a crossfire bridge. There are no cables that come with the box so make sure you have your dvi/hdmi cables handy.
Overall this card is a GREAT buy. It has the potential to be unlocked giving you the performance of a 6970 for
the price of a 6950. It also comes with a double lifetime warranty only when you REGISTER. So REGISTER folks. Double lifetime warranty means that you can sell the card
afterwards and the buyer will receive the same lifetime warranty you did.
I also bought this card on the Feb 7 and received it on the 9th and it still comes with the dual bios switch to unlock so there has been no been revision in the construction of this card that prevents it from being unlocked.