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FRONTPAGE HIS HD 7970 Graphics Card Review

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Nov 1, 1998
Reference card and architecture reviews hit the internet a few days before Christmas, which armed us with the knowledge that the HD 7970 was capable of some heavy lifting. So heavy in fact, the HIS HD 7970, up for review today, comes with its own "Weight Lifter." First, the strength of the recently crowned single GPU king will be put to test. Then, we will explore the possibilities once the shackles of CCC's clock limitations are removed and a little extra voltage is added to the mix.

... Return to article to continue reading.
 
Awesome review! I wanna grab one of these when they come out. I currently have no graphics card and everything looks like garbage on my 27 inch monitor but I can't help but wanna wait for Kepler to see how it all pans out.
 
Dang it! that card is smokin! I love the article and the graphs. I think the color scheme on the graphs look much better than the vanilla blue of the older write ups. Thanks a lot hokie,:p your article has just fueled my insatiable video card addiction, I WANT MOAR~! :thup:
 
Thanks, but this one was mdcomp's. Mine was the initial review on AMD's reference card. This is our first partner card review, which he did a great job with!

These things are killer clockers krag. If you've got some scratch, buy one and sell those 6970s just to play with it. It was a pleasant surprise to see Newegg listing several models at MSRP of $550 for sure.
 
I'll be getting one once the manufacturers release ones with their own coolers.

XFX already has one (the only one currently AFAIK). While we don't yet have a relationship with XFX (though it's being worked on), Anandtech reviewed one and published today. Heh, it was sold out before they were allowed to publish per the NDA. :D

The XFX cooler looks pretty awesome actually. Was reading that this morning. It is already overclocked out of the box, so should be able to get a bit past some of the reference cards assuming the cooler is as good as they say it is. Honestly, the stock cooler wasn't terrible, I ran out of MHz headroom before I got to a point where I felt the card was too hot. After a few weeks hopefully there will be software that allows the cards to go past 1.3v, if that's the case, then a better cooler may definitely be a good purchase.


Also, thanks everyone for the kind words!
:thup:
 
550 is great for you guys.. Here in Aus.. First prices are 700-750.. Nearing HD 6990/GTX 590 prices. (For reference; a stock standard GTX 580 reference is around 500. Asus Direct CU II is 550. MSI Lightning 3GB Extreme is 699 though.)

If it was 550 it'd be a no brainer here.. Replace my GTX 580, resell it on ebay before it got too cheap :p. (hopefully get 400+ off it). Then 150 bucks difference. I'd be willing to spend that lol. The XFX Black Edition looks sweet too! ><. Sigh. It's stupid because our Dollar is still higher than yours too >.>.

Though I'd probably only OC it as far as CCC allows. I probably wouldn't bother with voltage changes til later down the track. (2560x1440 res btw. Single monitor only). Would be perfect.
 
Nice review. I can't wait to get one...someday. lol.

Is the fan just as loud as on a 6970 w/reference cooler?

My XFX 6970 gets pretty loud when fan is turned up high.

I'd really like to water cool it/cpu, although it wouldn't be worth it on my 6970...if I was going to water cool my GPU i'd want it to be a 7970.
 
What is that weight lifter all about, isnt it enough when you screw in the bolts? It should be fixed at that point.

And how big is the PCB compared to a 6950? The 6950 was like 27 cm when i remember right.
 
On my SFF i have screws in order to stabilize the card, once its inside, so its pretty much immovable. So thats why i wonder whats the weight lifter actually used for because makes not so much sense to me, unless you do not use any screws. But it also depends if the card is mounted horizontally or vertically. When mounted vertically and when screws used, i truly see no use for a weight lifter, its pretty much foolproof. The slot can easely handle the weight in term its pushing right into the ground. But it can become a issue when it is pushing sidewards and not toward the boards horizon.
 
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i think its there so you leave it to support the card in the case (guess ). well i didnt have one in my sapphire model
 
Just so you know what i mean because some got issue to understand stuff.

 
The end part of the PCB will slightly lower over a period of time, it's just psychics. It's not hard to see. Grab a small level and you'll see what I mean.

The instructions of the HIS weight lifter basically states it's just basically a small stud device to further hold your graphics card when moving your PC as a whole. It'll be very handy though once I put a chunk of metal on it. My watercooled 9800GX2...I put a small PVC pipe to hold it up and get rid of it's slant lol.
 
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