Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 Super Overclock: Now With Windforce 5X

[Cazalan]

Tiny fans usually die faster too.

 

[master_chen]

LOL, looks like DirectCU with intestines ripped out.

 

[SuperAxilla]

Stupid question (I'm full of them): If I already have a Gig 7970 (original), can I use one of these in 2 way SLI or would it be redundant since it's "super overclocked"?

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]SuperAxilla[/nom]Stupid question (I'm full of them): If I already have a Gig 7970 (original), can I use one of these in 2 way SLI or would it be redundant since it's "super overclocked"?[/citation]

SLI is Nvidia, AMD/Ati cards have Crossfire as their mutli-GPU technology. If you Crossfire this 7970 with another, it would probably revert to the fastest clocks running on all 7970 GPUs in the system, so it would be only as fast as the slowest 7970 in the system. Two slower 7970s would still be faster than a single overclocked 7970. In order for this to not be true, it would need to be overclocked by more than 100% over stock and I'm not aware of any current graphics card that can go 100% over stock in performance with overclocking.

 

[SuperAxilla]

Thanks, I forgot ATI was Crossfire X. I've yet to run either a 2 way SLI or Crossfire. Makes sense that it would revert to the slowest card and render the superclocked moot. I guess my best bet would be to pick up a regular 7970.

 

[Guest]

It looks like the ASUS Phoebus or w/e the sound card is called.

 

[Guest]

SO WHO WON THE CARD???????

 

[William Han]

I was lucky enough to have one in my case (without side vent), it runs fine at 1100/1500. Initially I was really concerned about the fan speed and the high pitch noise it will generate, before I bought it. But in my under the desk set up, it runs pleasantly quite, even when gaming (COD BO2 2560x1600 max details). Admittedly, my case has 5mm aluminium panels (Zalman Fatality case), which may reduce the high pitch noise.

My major issue was with the length of the card at 295mm, which was quite a bit longer than my replaced 8800GTX . This card was just 5mm too long to fit properly, without unmount and move the HDD cradle a little. The thin cabling at the end of the card, needed to be pushed it to avoid damage during installation.

Comparing to the 8800GTX, it runs so much cooler, and performance gain was phenomenal. Although I don't do any GPGPU compute on the card, I'm pleased to know the potential is there, should I ever need it.

I believe this cooler design is great for running Crossfire. Cooling was one of the biggest issue with my 8800GTX's. I can see the new design will allow two card to run without worrying too much about the top card going in to heat stroke (this is the reason why one of my 8800GTX died). But I guess this wouldn't matter so much now, when it is difficult to get hands on 2 of this cards ;P Sacrafice two PCIe slots is a big draw back.

Overall I give it a thumbs up for its unique cooling design and good performance/price ratio.