The ATI vs Nvidia or Red vs Green battle has been played out for over a decade with many tech enthusiasts strongly camped in one corner or the other. Over past years, the graphics giants have traded blows with the pendulum swinging back and forth but the DirectX 11 skirmish would seem to signal a victory for the red corner.

At its launch, ATI's flagship 5 series card -- the Radeon HD 5870 -- was duly praised but could never definitely be hailed a success until Nvidia's response was analysed. Some six months later, the green camp finally had a product fit for launch. The GTX 480 was just that. Unfortunately, whilst performance levels were reasonable, high power consumption, high temperatures, high pricing and a noisy stock cooler ultimately cost Fermi and Nvidia.

So the HD 5870, endorsed by Fermi's poor showing, is many enthusiasts graphics card of choice and as expected, the ATI vendors are quick to respond releasing factory overclocked and tweaked versions of the flagship card to heighten performance and lower noise levels and running temperatures. Enter the XFX Radeon HD 5870 Black Edition...