ASUS HD7970 3GB
Hardware Award
RRP: $559 | Website: http://www.asus.com
Test Machine
• Intel Core i7 3960X @ 4.6GHz
• G.Skill RipJaws Z F3 16GB
2400C11
• Plextor M3 256GB SSD
• ANTEC HCP 1200 PSU
• Windows 7 64-Bit SP1
R
ight then, by now you’ve
probably seen all the
amazing scores delivered
by AMD’s RADEON HD7970
graphics cards. Standard
performance out the box
while impressive has
underwhelmed some who
were expecting GTX590 and
6990 beating performance.
However this was always
an unjustified expectation
because at no point since the
dawn of modern day GPUs
has one generation doubled
the performance of the
previous generation.
Still, a 15% to 20%
performance boost from the
GTX580 is nothing to snivel
24 The OverClocker Issue 18 | 2012
at especially considering that
the GTX 580 is still a very
potent piece of silicon that
has proved capable of 100%
overclocks.
In the results you can
see that we didn’t include
any GTX580 numbers, this
is simply because there’s
no reason to compare it
to a graphics card we are
well and truly familiar
with. Instead you’ll see the
overclocked settings and this
is really where the power of
theHD7970 is. It’s easily the
most overclockable graphics
card we have ever had.
1,2GHz on the core is easily
achievable and the memory
overclocking is nothing short
of spectacular. Our particular
sample was less than average
but we were still able to reach
a 1.6GHz memory clock which
is impressive regardless of
how you look at it.
Percentage wise, one could
argue that GTX580’s cards
overclocked equally well, but
that’s forgetting that we’ve
never seen 1.2GHz and higher
as an average overclock. Our
particular card ultimately
stopped at 1255MHz at 1.254v
on the GPU core using the
standard cooler. With the GPU
clock set to this speed and the
memory at 1.55GHz we were
able to record a 3DMark11
Performance score of P10381
which would need a GPU
clock of at least 1.3GHz on
the GTX580 and a significantly
higher overclock on the CPU.
Having said that we’ve
seen memory clocks as high
as 2000MHz, delivering the
most memory bandwidth
we’ve ever seen on a GPU.
This card is certainly going
to be a favourite with all
kinds of overlockers, from
the amateurs to the pros,
there’s lots of potential in this
card unlike with the 6970 it
replaces. That card was to
say the least disappointing