Possible custom HD 7970 on (or near) release?

[Gikaseixas]

An AX1200 should be able to handle 3 7970's overclocked to 1300 core right?

VR-Zone used a 1200 watts PS for their quadfirex setup, so it should handle 3 of those beasts easily.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rad...x-the-stock-air-cooling-champion/14444-2.html

 

[Quantos]

Why settle? Why not have one that does everything? Cooler, quieter, and exhausts outside the case? Heat shortens the lifespan of electronics and adversely effects stability. There have been a couple of examples. His IceQ turbo and EVGA's 580 Classified come to mind. More work should be done in this direction, IMO.

True, that would be better, but something tells me it's much harder, because the air needs to go in a specific direction. It does seem only logical to push the air out, but if it was problem free, it would probably be the only design used, and of course it's not.

That said, it's not that critical to have the air pushed out by the GPU itself. With proper case cooling, the air pushed around can be blown away easily. At most, the temperature inside the case will increase by a few Cs, which really is no big deal. Also, heat does indeed affect the life span of electronics, but I don't see this being a huge problem for most hardware, especially if we're only talking about a few degrees more.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Dont the 7970 have liquid chamber something cooling technology?

 

[Madcatatlas]

Asus and Sapphire toxic cards are without a doubt quality products, MSI has also been good for me in the past. Im looking forward to the Toxic or Atomic at 1325 core and ofcourse the Lightning from MSI.

 

[railven]

MSI HD 7970 Lightning should be interesting

:thumbsup:

This is the card I am waiting for.

Sign me up. I went with a reference cooler on my HD 5870 2GB and regretted it ever since.

 

[thilanliyan]

I like the reference cards for their voltage tweaks (although some cards from MSI and Asus have that) and easy waterblock usage.

 

[kami]

MSI's non-reference designs and customer coolers are always the best of the bunch, with both nvidia and AMD. Have had nothing but good experiences with them. On a gtx570/580, the difference between a reference cooler and the twin frozr III is ludicrous, not to mention better overclocking with the custom design. Unless you just gotta have the 6970 now I would wait for custom cards.

 

[3DVagabond]

MSI's non-reference designs and customer coolers are always the best of the bunch, with both nvidia and AMD. Have had nothing but good experiences with them. On a gtx570/580, the difference between a reference cooler and the twin frozr III is ludicrous, not to mention better overclocking with the custom design. Unless you just gotta have the 6970 now I would wait for custom cards.

[H] already has a custom cooled card in house (XFX Black Edition). I'm hoping this indicates that custom cards will be available from day one. We had heard that the HD 7950 would be this way (actually not even have a reference model). Until now though there was no indication that HD 7970's would also be available so soon. (How awesome would those leaked Sapphire cards be if they turn out to be true and available right off?) The stock coolers from both companies are barely adequate IMO.

 

[ddarko]

Gigabyte 7970 Windforce, overclocked to 1Ghz with an availability of mid to late January, according to the article:

http://pccomputerparts.net/2012/01/gigabyte-to-introduce-hd-7970-windforce-3x-clocked-to-1ghz/

Story was originally posted on Hardware Canucks but it seems to have been pulled. It still exists at the link above with lots of pics.

[imglink]http://pccomputerparts.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/gigabyte-to-introduce-hd-7970-windforce-3x-clocked-to-1ghz.jpg[/imglink]

 

[Ares1214]

Who generally makes the highest quality overclocked cards, MSI, ASUS, Sapphire, Gigabyte, etc?

I really love all MSI products, but their video cards are probably their best. The Twin Frozr cooler is one of the best, and MSI cards very generally OC the highest, use the least power, or are the coolest, and sometimes all 3 at the same time :thumbsup: Asus DCII is also quite nice, I'd say the 2 are comparable to each other all things considered. Never had good success with Gigabyte, XFX, Sapphire, HIS, Powercolor, and so on.

 

[Lonyo]

Overclockers.co.uk are listing an "own brand" HD7970 which shippes with pre-fitted water block on their website.
No pictures, and I'm not sure whether it will be a HD7970 with water block fitted by them, or a pre-fitted one that they sell.

Stock estimate is 1 week after launch (16th Jan).

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=56&subcat=938

 

[Panopticon]

XFX seems to already have a "black edition" in the works price is listed as $580 so about a 30 price bump over reference. I just ordered a reference card so I will see how tolerable to noise of the unit is before I decide to go h2o or not.

 

[3DVagabond]

XFX seems to already have a "black edition" in the works price is listed as $580 so about a 30 price bump over reference. I just ordered a reference card so I will see how tolerable to noise of the unit is before I decide to go h2o or not.

That's the one that [H] said was on the way to them for evaluation. Hopefully it's as impressive as we all want them to be. Still waiting for 1300MHz core on air from someone. Other reference cards have gotten close, 1278MHz. So, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch for some high binned chip to reach it.

 

[blackened23]

Gigabyte 7970 Windforce, overclocked to 1Ghz with an availability of mid to late January, according to the article:

http://pccomputerparts.net/2012/01/gigabyte-to-introduce-hd-7970-windforce-3x-clocked-to-1ghz/

Story was originally posted on Hardware Canucks but it seems to have been pulled. It still exists at the link above with lots of pics.

This card looks like the one to get for me -- unless MSI / asus releases before them. I was pretty impressed by the Gigabyte GTX 580 SOC aftermarket cooled cards.

 

[blackened23]

I really love all MSI products, but their video cards are probably their best. The Twin Frozr cooler is one of the best, and MSI cards very generally OC the highest, use the least power, or are the coolest, and sometimes all 3 at the same time :thumbsup: Asus DCII is also quite nice, I'd say the 2 are comparable to each other all things considered. Never had good success with Gigabyte, XFX, Sapphire, HIS, Powercolor, and so on.

Agreed. MSI Twin Frozr 3 boards have consistently been the best air cooled overclockers by far. I love my MSI lightnings That said, gigabyte/asus are very good as well (for an aftermarket cooled card)

 

[ddarko]

XFX 7970 Black Edition pic. Like the Gigabyte, also clocked to 1Ghz:

http://videocardz.com/30183/xfx-releases-radeon-hd-7970-black-edition

[imglink]http://i.imgur.com/r9f0R.jpg[/imglink]

 

[Panopticon]

When I was looking at the specs of the Gigabyte non ref cooler the temps weren't overly impressive but it does look to be a lot quieter which is the main concern I have with the ref card I'm getting. If this thing really likes cold the way it looks to I might be going water anyway which is something I have no experience with.

 

[Grooveriding]

Gigabyte 7970 Windforce, overclocked to 1Ghz with an availability of mid to late January, according to the article:

http://pccomputerparts.net/2012/01/gigabyte-to-introduce-hd-7970-windforce-3x-clocked-to-1ghz/

Story was originally posted on Hardware Canucks but it seems to have been pulled. It still exists at the link above with lots of pics.

[imglink]http://pccomputerparts.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/gigabyte-to-introduce-hd-7970-windforce-3x-clocked-to-1ghz.jpg[/imglink]

While that looks nice, I tend to avoid Gigabyte video cards because their RMA service runs on turtle time and lacks any quality of communication.

MSI Lightning 7970 pics, please.

 

[3DVagabond]

They did release the 7970 black Edition on day 1. I Hope to see others as this just appears to be a reference card (less bios switch?) with a custom cooler. Where's the Sapphires?

 

[lavaheadache]

Call me crazy but I prefer the reference blower fans. The extra noise is moot when you are wearing headphones. Also, I like the thought of exhausting hot air out the back of the case keeping my toes warm these winter nights

 

[3DVagabond]

Call me crazy but I prefer the reference blower fans. The extra noise is moot when you are wearing headphones. Also, I like the thought of exhausting hot air out the back of the case keeping my toes warm these winter nights

I prefer to have the heat exhausted out of the case. AMD's reference coolers seem to be fairly marginal though. I want both, higher performance and heat exhausted from the case.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Call me crazy but I prefer the reference blower fans. The extra noise is moot when you are wearing headphones. Also, I like the thought of exhausting hot air out the back of the case keeping my toes warm these winter nights

Right now I have a house fan blowing into the side of my case to keep my card cool with my window open about an 2 inches. Currently it's 28F out side.

To be fair I'm mining bitcoins on my gaming rig when I'm not gaming.

So this time around I am going after market. I'm also eyeing a MountainMod case if I can come up with the money.

 

[Quantos]

Here's a couple of reviews of the XFX custom 7970.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...0-double-dissipation-graphics-card-review/21/ : This one pushes the core to 1200MHz which they say is the highest 100% artifact free they could achieve.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=858&Itemid=72 : This is another review, but here the OC done is in Overdrive, up to the application's limit (1125, 1575).

I'm not convinced, if it starts getting artifacts after 1200MHz, I must say. How are Sapphire going to get 1335MHz out of the thing then? :|

 

[3DVagabond]

Here's a couple of reviews of the XFX custom 7970.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...0-double-dissipation-graphics-card-review/21/ : This one pushes the core to 1200MHz which they say is the highest 100% artifact free they could achieve.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=858&Itemid=72 : This is another review, but here the OC done is in Overdrive, up to the application's limit (1125, 1575).

I'm not convinced, if it starts getting artifacts after 1200MHz, I must say. How are Sapphire going to get 1335MHz out of the thing then? :|

Remember that O/C'ing is variable from sample to sample.

Those O/C'd Sapphires have never been confirmed. Possibly could have been planned but the chips, maybe just the early ones, don't clock that high? There's also those cards with higher shader counts.

Of course it could all be FUD as well. Although it looks legit from the pics.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Here's a couple of reviews of the XFX custom 7970.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/g...0-double-dissipation-graphics-card-review/21/ : This one pushes the core to 1200MHz which they say is the highest 100% artifact free they could achieve.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=858&Itemid=72 : This is another review, but here the OC done is in Overdrive, up to the application's limit (1125, 1575).

I'm not convinced, if it starts getting artifacts after 1200MHz, I must say. How are Sapphire going to get 1335MHz out of the thing then? :|

I'm sure they are binning their chips to find those gems that will run at 1335mhz. Also, Sapphire's got better custom heat sinks than most other companies.