I just upgrade from a pair of 6970 to two of these run in Crossfire use a Dell 30 '' monitor -lrb- 2560x1600 -rrb- , so here 's my take . size - the card be basically the same size as the 6970 , which be to say big . if you have a small case look elsewhere -- if you have a midsized case I recommend you make sure these will actually fit before you make a purchase . Performance - one thing to note first be that the driver that ship with this be basically beta driver and AMD have so far only release one update . with that siad the performance be very good . in older game there be not much of a gain over the 6970 as they both play anything older perfectly . as for new game once again the 6970 in Crossfire could basically run almost anything at 60fp or better on a 30 '' screen -- however for those game that do not want to run smoothly the 7970 in Crossfire take care of that . in Crysis 2 with the Ultra high-resolution pack install with everything turn on and all the way up I can get a solid 60fp with the new setup , on the older 6970 crossfire I get about 20fp , so that be a huge jump . I think it be safe to say that the 7970 can handle dx11 game extremely well which should give you some future proofing , or at least as much as you can expect in the field of high end video card . heat - I read some people say these card run hot . this might be the case if you be come over from the peasant class card of the mainstream , but for the highest of high end card these actually run quite cool -- and they be much quieter in game than any other high-end card I have ever have -lrb- gtx8800 , gtx295 , AMD 6790 , etc -rrb- . even in Crossfire I be amaze at how much more tame the sound be come from they . as for heat they 'll still make you foot warm but once again not as badly as any of the other card I have mention . overclock - I have only use the build in AMD tool for overclock and be easily able to push my card to 1000\/1400 by just move the slider . I have have it at 1125\/1490 and it run stable in game , but if I leave my computer on for a few day and forget to turn off overclock I would start to see weird stuff show-up on the screen . turn down the overclock and reboot fix the issue but for the sake of just be lazy I go with the easy 1000\/1400 setting which can run 24\/7 without issue . remember too that this be in a crossfire configuration , my guess would be single card setup would probably overclock better since there be reduce heat and strain on the power supply . conclusion - overall I be quite happy with everything . it will be interesting to see what Nvidia deliver but AMD have a very solid , very well round entry that be , at the moment , easily the fastest single GPU card available . I do consider wait for Nvidia to see what they come up with but I be glad I do not -- plus I could always sell these card and buy what Nvidia come out with if it be truly more impressive . if you be run at 1080p or below you should easily be able to completely max out any game with a single card , if you be run at a higher resolution you will probably still be able to completely max out anything except the most demand game where you might have to help with a extreme setting instead of a ultra setting .