Introduction

We mentioned in our last video card review that the industry is a bit quiet at the moment and while we've got a few video cards come in lately, it's funny to note that all of them seem to be of the AMD variety. I suppose the fact that most of the time at launch we don't see AMD cards mixed up too much means that a little later down the track we really start to see companies doing more with them.

Today the particular card we're looking at is the ASUS HD 6970 DirectCU II one. I've quickly become a fan of the DirectCU II cooler for the simple fact it's proven to do an extremely good job when it comes to giving us low temperatures at low noise levels. The biggest gripe people have with the model is that it's of course a triple slot card.

If you're someone who find themselves happy with the onboard equipment like networking and audio, then the HD 6970 DirectCU II taking up an extra slot might not be all that much of a problem to you.

So with that said, let's look at what's going on with this card today by starting with the package. Once that's done we'll look at the card and see just what the DirectCU II cooler looks like before checking out the specifications of the card and then get into the performance side of things.

Package

Checking out the front and back of the box, you don't see anything too out of the ordinary with the back of the box giving us a run down on some of the major features that are present on the card.

Checking out the package, there's not much going on with the quick setup guide, driver CD, CrossFire cable and dual 6-Pin PCI-E to 8 Pin PCI-E connector.