WOW . right out of the box . . i bump up the voltage all the way up to the 7970 spec . . and right away i be do 1050 Core and 1450 Mem -lrb- stock 7950 do 800\/1250 -rrb- , that ' a whopping 31 % faster without any effort . i gotta say ... i feel spoil run bf3 in Ultra with 4xaa in 2550x1440 re -lrb- average 45fp -rrb- . only caveat ... the reference cooler do a terrible job at coop with the overclock . at stock speed , it do alright around 65c in bf3 , but at 1050\/1450 , it jump up to low 80 's . the good news be ... the vrm stay relatively cool , even at overclocked speed ... in bf3 it only hover around 85c . which be pretty amazing consider there be no heatsink what so ever cover the Vram , or the VRM chip . one warn tho ... if you run this reference card overclock in Furmark ... you can see up to upper 90c for core and up to 100c on the VRM . i plan on upgrade the cooler to the Zalman VF3000 when they release a compatible heatink for the 7900 series . . i really can not wait . the fan noise can be loud , but i like the sound of a jet plane , make my rig sound like a beast . i use headphone to game . . so do not matter . be sure to setup custom fan profile if you do overclock it . and watch out for the VRM temp as you overclock ... those thing tend to be overlook by most people , but they can fry you card if they get too hot . definitely should invest in a after market cooler when more option become available . i be glad i return my p o s d i a m o n d 6950 and wait a couple week for this awesome 7950 . : d