xfx 5970's difference (Volt Tool?)
 

Anybody know what the difference between the 700 dollar and the regularly prices xfx 5970 GPU's are?

I know the Black Edition has a promis of 30% more overclocking headroom with the voltage tool but does this mean the vanila cards don't have the voltera chip?

Anybody with more info?

All cards right now should be the reference design; aka with volterra chip. I think what XFX is doing is sort of "promising" the potential since they can't exceed the 300w tdp limit of whatever industry standard it is called. PCI-E 2.0 spec I think. Therefore you SHOULDN'T see any cards with a large factory overclock in the 5970's. Only 6w to play with before hitting the limit.

theres ways around taht john.... not to mention many are looking a dual 8 pins as a possability, plus pulling a lil extra juice from the slot never killed anyone..... except maybe a board :Pt

Well that's what I figured but with the $100 price hike for voltage tuning capabilities, I had to wonder.

I had read somewhere about possible 2x8-pin versions coming out. Still, I thought the spec is related to PCI-E 2.0 guidelines (slot) rather then connectors. If that was the case it seems ATI would have just matched the clocks of the 5870's and call it a day.

Well, it seems it doesn't matter cuz they make just 1000 units a day and 2 meet production specs.