The big discovery here is a card that was able to clock higher than any 6870 we've had here at OverclockersClub. This led to great performance comparatively to the reference design and the realization that maybe there's a little bit more to be had from the 6870 line. The huge dual-fan cooler no doubt contributed to the rock star performance and successfully kept temperatures more than reasonable with moderate interruption to ambient noise. Sapphire's TriXX utility is one of my favorites throughout the industry competitors. It is very simple to understand and is capable of achieving much higher overclocks than the utility embedded in the Catalyst Control Center.