goonersrule

Honorable
Mar 9, 2012
3
0
10,510
Hello,
I will be purchasing a radeon 7970 very soon, although i dunno which one to buy.. i want a pre overclocked one with good cooling.. i was looking at the saphhire, gigabyte and xfx 7970 black edition DD.. can someone please tell me which is the best among them?
 

goonersrule

Honorable
Mar 9, 2012
3
0
10,510
Budget isn't an issue!! i was thinking about the black edition but then i saw some very positive reviews for the gigabyte version of the card! Haven't yet found a review for the directCU model.. very confused :(
 

I google'd for the 7970 DCU and didn't find anything(seems like a new card) but usually,ASUS DCU cards get high scores because of their design/cooling/OC'ng capabilities.
 

Not sure,but I think it's a reference PCB
 

take1337ship

Honorable
Sep 5, 2012
1
0
10,510


I built out with the Asus DCUII (ROG V Gene & i7-3770) just two weeks back. Under furmark's 15m 1080p burn-in test, my temps flatline at 71 C (27 C ambient) with the fan duty @ 70%. That translates to roughly 50~55 decibels. The sounds lounder than it is though, there's no character to the fans, so it's more like having a room fan on & close by. Under normal gaming load it's rare for the card to push up to 60% and <50db, but I usually game at 900p. For my purposes, noise and heat in more important. And of course the longer Asus warranty.

If you go the same route as me though, be warned: the DCU is a massive triple slot beast. It looks awesome, but I've got bar stock & rubber pads on order to stretch off my HDD cage and take some of the card weight.