Nice test. And I just had today a small discussion about it showing up in my county in stores.
It performs very poorly.
I wished you would have tested a GTX 460 too. They are almost no alternatives for it, although Twin Turbo Pro can cool it very well,it's not yet aftermarket compatible.

to bad they fail again, i hope the Scythe designer or someone from the corp read your article. And rethink again on the design table to bring something better out.

Just a side note, in this review and the Thermal Interfaces Roundup the links that reference the "Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME 5870" actually link to a review of the 5970.

Did Xbit ever do a review of the ACAX 5870? I'm looking for a cooler to put on my Radeon 6950, but I'm uncertain what accessory kit I need to fit the 69xx series as Arctic Cooling only lists compatibility with the 68xx series cards.

I've read your test with a lot of interessest, because iwas looking for an alternative cooler for my 6970.
Even if you don't recommend it, i installed the setsugen 2 on my card @stock settings. All i can say : IT'S WONDERFULL.
Idle : More than 10° less (from 44-45° to 32-33°)
Mafia 1920*1200 : from 89-90 to 67-68° WITHOUT POWERDROPS
BULLETSTORM : 67-68° WITHOUT POWERDROPS.
All measures taken with then Fan between 800 and 1000 RPM. It's absolutely quiet in comparision to the stock cooler which sometimes went to 3000 RPM <- absolutely awfull.
I will not take note from your furmark test, because my 6970 even shows powerdrops from 880 Mhz to 600 Mhz WITH the original ATI cooler. With the original cooler i get core temperatures in Furmark between 91-93° in Furmark (with the mentioned powerdrops). Just FYI with the setsugen 2, the core temperature does not go above 70° - so i'm asking myself if the powerdrops are really caused by a temperature protection, or is it simply this "stupid" powerplay which messes arround ?
For my part, i do recommend this cooler to every 6970 user.
And for the CrossfireX users, CrossfireX is still possible with the Setsugen 2 because of it's low profile !