The new HD Toxic 5970... Watercooled?

SO I know this graphics card hasn't been released yet, but sapphire already made the HD Toxic 5970. I was wondering if sapphire used the exact same architecture when making this card, i know its over clocked and has 2 more gigs of ram on it, but I was wondering If I could grab a EK 5970 Nickel Full Cover Waterblock to go with the Toxic 5970. Would that waterblock fit the sapphire Toxic 5970? Because I don't want to buy this graphics card and waterblock and in the end find out that they dont fit together, this graphics card is massive, with 3 huge fans, I can't imagine the noise it produces, I want to connect it to my current watercooling system.

 

It has been released, it's just rare as rocking horse poop. They've only made a few hundred of the cards, and they are of course, astronomically expensive.
The design of the card is totally different to that of a normal 5970 I believe, so I wouldn't expect a waterblock to fit the card. However, the cooler on the 5970 is reviewed as excellent, the three fans on it are very quiet, simply because of how big the cooler is, and how effective it is. The stock 5970 is far noisier.
The cooler on the toxic 5970 uses three 92mm fans, at a maximum speed of 2500rpm, and in games, they're usually running at 2000rpm or less.

As it happenes, I ordered one of these cards (though the 850mhz version, not the 900mhz toxic, otherwise identical) and it turned out to be dead on arrival. When I returned it, they said they probably couldn't get a replacement due to how rare they were, but yesterday I was told I would be getting another arriving on wednesday. If I do get it, and this one works, I will happily upload a video demonstrating the noise of the card etc., it would probably interest plenty of others I know.

 

For reference, the Toxic uses a slightly faster version of this cooler:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrD4QZV5mwU

 

Isnt it better for me to get the original sapphire 5970 and use and ek nickle block on it and overclock it to the same speed as the toxic 5970 without the two gigs?

 

Well, that depends. Firstly, not all 5970s can make the higher speeds used by the 4GB cards. The 4GB cards use a higher core voltage than the 2GB cards in order to reach these speeds. XFX Black Edition 2GB 5970s come with a voltage adjustment tool that will probably get you there, but it's a question of luck with any other models. The extra performance isn't really why you'd buy the 4GB card though, you're doing it for the benefits of having two 5870s in one PCI express slot, and having 2GB per GPU. If you don't need to have two GPUs in one slot, it's cheaper to buy two 2GB 5870s. Hotter and noisier on stock cooling, but you can almost certainly watercool 2GB 5870s. Also, if you don't need 2GB per GPU you may as well either get a normal 5970 or two 5870s, as either of those solutions can definitely be watercooled.

Really comes down to what you need. If you're using a resolution of 1920x1200 or less, 2GB per GPU is of absolutely no use to you. If you're using a 4+ megapixel eyefinity setup, or a 30" monitor like I do, then 2GB per GPU wil prove beneficial, especially with high levels of AA. It's worth pointing out that if you use a resolution like 1920x1200, two 5870's worth of performance may be a little on the overkill side of things.

 

If you can afford one of these beasts, why not use phase change cooling to drop it down to -50C and overclock it to the sky!

 

I have been researching the XFX 5970 black edition, (I used to own their 7950gx2) The price is definitely lower then the 5970 Toxic, I have also seen the voltage tweak tool they also give out in the black edition series. So all I have to do now is, get the XFX 5970 Black Edition, and tweak the voltage to the same setting as the Toxic 5970 with the EK Nickle Full Cover Waterblock, and overclock it to the same speed as the Toxic 5970, and since water cooling is superior to air cooling, I wont have trouble with noise, space, and overheating, Right? If I just do all of that wouldnt that mean I practicaly got a 5970 toxic without the 2 gigs?

 

Phase change is a little bit overkill, I want portability on my computer too, having phase change will require me to drill a large hole and place the phase changer underneath the computer. =(

 

The cooler on the XFX card is no different to the original other than the fan position. That's going to be one noisy card, the 4GB cards put out far more heat than the normal 2GB 5970. You would have to watercool the 4GB XFX somehow if you wanted to get one and it be quiet. I'm not convinced it's possible with the 4GB cards though. Given the margins of heat with WC, you should have no trouble overclocking a 2GB XFX Black 5970 to the 850mhz spec of the standard 4GB 5970. Getting to the 900mhz of the Toxic though could be tricky, even with a voltage increase. Couldn't say if the higher voltage required has any impact on reliability, or if it's the same as what the 4GB cards use.
Question is, do you want to be forced into watercooling the card, and are you fine to make do without the 2GB per GPU? You haven't mentioned which screen setup you're using.
Ultimately if you're not fussed about 2GB per GPU, it'd be better to go for two 5870s, and overclock them, as you could probably easily surpass 900mhz with those.
Bear in mind if you do overvolt the 5970, you're going to need at least 350W of cooling potential from your rad, in addition to whatever heat your current components put out.

 

I only have a 1680x1050 Monitor that can only handle 60 hertz, I want my computer to be capable of playing games at a constant 60 or higher (when i get a better monitor) I also have read that there are 2 different version of the XFX 5970 Black Edition, one is the 2GB, the other one is 4GB, I highly doubt I can cool the 4GB card since it has 2 more gigs on it, since it has more gigs, it has more chips, therefore the toxic 5970 and black edition 5970 4gb will not work with a waterblock, thats my assumption.

I want to be forced into watercooling, im tired of playing games with speakers blasted because my 4870x2 takes off like a jet engine. I can make do with the 2GB one 1 GPU, mainly because I dont have an awesome 3 monitor setup like you do =D.

Well this does it for me, I'll be purchasing the new XFX 5970 Black Edition before it gets sold out, as I was reading I think only 1000 of these were made. And I will put in the EK Nickel Waterblock on it and try to overclock it to similar speed to Toxic, It may not be exact but wow thats getting close, and shaving off 500$ for similar performance is amazing.

Thanks for your help Sammorris!

 

Oh god, 1680x1050. If you can spend more than $1000 on a graphics card, why not get a bigger monitor? 2GB per GPU is completely unnecessary at that res, nothing will ever use more than about 700-800MB for a long time to come.
If the 4870X2 can keep up, why not replace it with a single 5870? They're much quieter than the 4870X2 and don't rely on crossfire technology to get the best of their performance. You could try one, see how you find its noise level, if after a few days you still feel it's too noisy, go with watercooling, but I personally think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the difference.

I don't have a 3-monitor setup, I just have one 2560x1600 monitor, which in my opinion, is the best way to play games. It's expensive, but the bezels in the middle of your view with eyefinity would annoy me way too much for certain games. Strategies it'd be fine, but in FPS and racers, it'd get tiresome. Plus, three monitors wouldn't fit on my desk!

The 2GB 5970 Black Edition has been around for ages and is often in stock, I think they've made a few thousand of those at least. The 4GB 5970 sapphire though (Which is meant to be the most abundant of the three) has been an absolute PITA to get hold of. As I said, the first one of them I got was faulty, and I spent over a week thinking about what to get instead as it didn't look like there were any others to get. I'm told to expect my replacement 4GB 5970 on wednesday, so we'll see what happens.

Seriously though, unless you change your monitor, 2GB per GPU is a waste. You will never notice the difference until the HD5 series is long obsolete.

 

Well thats the thing, I dont want a better monitor, I want to use a 1080p 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 240Hz LED tv. But to do that I first have to complete my setup.

I really dont care about how much RAM the card has, I just care on how many FPS the card can push, thats why I didnt bother getting the 4GB especially since it cant get watercooled. I wanted to get 2 5870 in crossfire, But I really didnt want to buy 2 waterblocks and more fittings and tubing.

 

Well, firstly, 5,000,000:1 contrast is dynamic, which is basically a license to print any number they feel like, it's a meaningless measurement. The contrast on TVs is quite good these days I will admit. However, if the TV's quite big, you will want to sit quite a distance from it, the low pixel density of a TV will make games look pretty poor from up close.

Realistically if you're after the best frame rates and you really want watercooling, you want to use two cards. A normal HD5970 will be two HD5850s, a marked improvement on your 4870X2, but two 5870s will do a fair amount better still.

 

I'm not sure I would want water cooling on a system that is meant to be portable; sounds like a wet mess. If you just want the "portability" to move it from room to room in the same house, that is one thing; but I don't think I would want to drive a water cooled computer to a friend's house without draining it first.

 

My Cosmos S case has handles on the side, the water cooling is sealed and wont leak or anything. I can move it from point A to point B with no problem.

 

Having seen first hand what happens to people who go to LAN parties with even solid watercooling systems, I highly recommend against it.

 

Ill watch myself

 

I'm not sure if you are brave or crazy, but I wish you the best of luck.

 

My replacement 5970 has arrived, and the comments about how quiet it was in reviews really were accurate. Not the most strenous test I know, but running 3dmark, the fan speed only rose above idle (about 850-900rpm) during canyon flight, and even then, can only have become as noisy as a single mid-speed case fan. The acoustic of the card is, unsurpsingly due to the cooler design, a mid-pitched whine from resonation, rather than the high-pitched hiss of the radial design used in stock coolers, but from what I've seen so far, the actual electronics of the card make more noise than the fans, that should say enough! If you manage to get hold of one of these, I highly doubt you will want to bother with water, because I don't think I've seen a pump this quiet.