With the updated Catalyst 9.11 drivers, our results were a lot better than before. Previously, using Flash 10.0 we were unable to view either of the Hulu videos (720p or 480p) in full screen mode without severe stuttering. YouTube HD on the other hand worked fine with 0 dropped frames. Moving to Flash 10.1 with DXVA GPU acceleration, we now see smooth frame rates on all Hulu content and lower CPU usage for both Hulu and YouTube videos. YouTube CPU usage on the Prince of Persia trailer drops 31%, Hulu's Legend of the Seeker drops CPU use 20% while nearly doubling the frame rate (i.e. from dropping half the frames to showing everything), and 480p Hulu drops CPU usage 10% with frame rates almost tripling (from ~13 FPS to over 30 FPS for what appears to be 30 FPS video content).

In addition to reference clocked versions, Sapphire and XFX are apparently first AIB partners that are going to do factory overclocked HD 5970 cards. We already told you that HD 5970 might be an overclocking beast and there might be a lot of room for additional overclocking. It looks like the chip can take it easily and AMD could have dropped it in order to maintain the 294W TDP.

Also from them is news on Powercolor announcing a 5970.

Powercolor is one of many AMD AIB partners that will launch its HD 5970 graphics cards, and as you might have guessed, every card is pretty much the same and there is no word on factory overclocks or non-reference coolers, at least not yet.

If you want one, sorry, Fudo also says they sold out in a day.

ATI partners have told Fudzilla that they received decent quantities of dual-chip Radeon HD 5970 cards, but due to heavy pre-orders and huge interest, they sold out all they had in matter of hours.

A quiet before a coming storm, the third quarter proved to be a virtual stalemate in the Nvidia vs. AMD war, with the latter managing just a one point gain in unit share. By contrast, Q4’09 promises to be anything but quiet. AMD’s got a brand new set of graphics cards ready for the holiday (and Windows 7) season. Its launch of the Evergreen (Radeon HD 5000 series) generation has equipped the company with strong offerings for the Enthusiast and Performance segments, ready to entice somewhat-more-optimistic consumers.

"The design is sound. It's just a matter of trying to get TSMC to a point where they can yield. They're feeling the manufacturing crunch," said Davis. "We're a little bitter under yield but we're working back into a manufacturing schedule we want for these parts. TSMC can only kick them out so fast at this point."