ASUS MATRIX HD 7970 Platinum Video Card Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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ASUS MATRIX HD 7970 Platinum Video Card Review - ASUS is launching its highest-end ASUS MATRIX HD 7970 Platinum video card today, poised to give you the best experience possible out of a Radeon HD 7970. This highly customized video card is geared toward the hardware and gamer enthusiast at heart. Come see the highest overclock we've ever achieved on a 7970 GHz Edition based video card.
 
I'd like to see this on a waterblock.

It would have been nice if they offered a version of this that came with a block or at least provided an upgrade path for one. Maybe partner with someone to provide a water "kit" and give the ability to switch to a firmware designed for watercooling.
 
That review got me excited enough to consider upgrading my 7950 to one of these. I know what brand I'm going to search for in the future regardless. Thx for the great review again guys and to Asus for delivering the product!
 
Great review.
As always.
Have you guys considered doing a review that has a GPU under a water?
 
The Matrix series are Very nice cards, and this one looks like it continues the series very well.

Review could have used some multi-monitor goodness. At last it (finally) got gold.

Noticed small typo on bf3 chart under the 680gtx resolution reads "2560x160", missing a zero.
 
I wish more cards were released with a built in watercooling plate. This would be an ideal candidate.
 
Looks very nice. My only concern is it seems when the super card from current gen comes out, about a month later another generation of video cards release making you wish you held off. Doesn't make the current one bad though. Decisions, decisions...

As always, nice review.
 
fullvietFX said:
I wish they would release the high-end cards earlier.
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it takes time to perfect a process and also collecting enough GPU's for be able to put something on the retail market. but the fact that asus is pricing this at 480 bucks they understand how late they are with releasing this card. if this card was releasted say 4 months ago they could of easily stuck a 600+ dollar price tag on it and no one would of said it was over priced.
 
Great review and a nice price for a beast of a card.
This card appeals to the overclocker in me. I'm happy with my Kepler but sadly, the voltage lock and the built in boost has taken much of the fun out of being an enthusiast.
 
Like some of the other Asus cards this appears to be a 3 slot card, does anyone know if it would fit on a asus crosshair formula iv and allow a second video card to run as well? Looking at pics of the motherboard (I am at work and not at home) It appears I wouldnt be able to run 2 of these? Does any else have any ideas or experience in this?

Thanks!

And on a side note, WOW I have been registered here for almost 8 and a half years, how time flies from doing duron pencil hacks to today haha
 
Kyle: were you able to increase the card's voltage via gpu tweak? I've been screwing around with my 7970-dc2 for over a month, trying to figure out what Asus has been telling me is possible: to tweak the voltage via gpu tweak. The solution I finally came across (without help from asus ) was to use an older version of gpu tweak 2.2.1.4 combined with cat 12.8 to do this. This specific version of gpu tweak is not available from Asus and the only way I was able to attain a copy was from another hardware website which had a copy.
 
Great looking card. Hope somebody makes a full cover water block for it.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
it takes time to perfect a process and also collecting enough GPU's for be able to put something on the retail market. but the fact that asus is pricing this at 480 bucks they understand how late they are with releasing this card. if this card was releasted say 4 months ago they could of easily stuck a 600+ dollar price tag on it and no one would of said it was over priced.
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I would of easily paid $600 for this instead of my GTX680.
 
Dammit. Do I wanna wait a few more months for GK110 or pray I find one of these at MSRP and bite the bullet?
 
the performance scaling in sleeping dogs with overclocking is brilliant. have never seen linear performance scaling in a game with overclocks. the bandwidth on the HD 7970 Ghz is one of the reasons the perf scaling is perfect.

2560 x 1600 High AA

HD 7970 Ghz (1.05 Ghz) - 37.3 ASUS HD 7970 Ghz (1.31 Ghz) - 46.4

37.3 x 1.31 / 1.05 = 46.53 . the actual performance is 46.4 fps. Wow. thats amazing.
 
raghu78 said:
the performance scaling in sleeping dogs with overclocking is brilliant. have never seen linear performance scaling in a game with overclocks. the bandwidth on the HD 7970 Ghz is one of the reasons the perf scaling is perfect.

2560 x 1600 High AA

HD 7970 Ghz (1.05 Ghz) - 37.3 ASUS HD 7970 Ghz (1.31 Ghz) - 46.4

37.3 x 1.31 / 1.05 = 46.53 . the actual performance is 46.4 fps. Wow. thats amazing.
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I think right now, Sleeping Dogs is the most shader intensive, and most GPU utilized, game there is right now. Turn on that SSAA, even to Medium, and scaling is perfectly linear with the game, I absolutely love it.
 
wonder if the card works stable overclocked in eyefinity... oh wait [H] never test anything in eyefinity anymore.:(
 
long time since they awarded a gold medal to an AMD product, nice job!
 
Brent_Justice said:
I think right now, Sleeping Dogs is the most shader intensive, and most GPU utilized, game there is right now. Turn on that SSAA, even to Medium, and scaling is perfectly linear with the game, I absolutely love it.
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correct. This is a game which pushes the high end GPUs. this is what we really want to see in a PC game. also a fantastic game. finished playing it. one of the candidates for game of the year. :)
 
Great review and wow that's an awesome card... I've never seen an OC above 1300 MHz on air!

What voltage did it take to get that overclock stable?

If this were a dual slot cooler, I might be looking to trade in my Lightnings, but sadly I can't imagine putting a pair of triple-slot cards in CF.
 
§·H·ï·Z·N·ï·L·T·ï;1039234991 said:
I'd love to get my hands on one to do some testing.

I love my current Asus Matrix gtx580 platinum... been running at 1000mhz for 1 year now with no issues and average 2hrs of gaming per day...

http://www.pictureshack.us/images/5201settings.png
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Ditto. My previous 580 matrixes both did 1ghz on air and it maxed at 80c. They really are great cards whose competition is only the lightning. It does crazy extreme overclocks and all you need to do is max the voltage slider and press some buttons on the sides.

I would love to see a matrix 680 if nvidia hadn't imposed that voltage restriction... I wouldn't be surprise if it went up to 1.5ghz on air with software and physical buttons maxed on a golden chip.
 
Seiuchi said:
wonder if the card works stable overclocked in eyefinity... oh wait [H] never test anything in eyefinity anymore.:(
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This was a single-GPU card, I thought about Eyefinity, but when it came down to it it already struggles at 2560 with high AA in some games, and is not able to maximize every game at 1600p just cause it's only a single-GPU. Multi-GPU is better suited for Eyefinity resolutions, you just aren't going to get the kind of performance you need out of a single-GPU, even overclocked, for Eyefinity resolutions. I have 2 upcoming reviews in the queue right now that Eyefinity/NV Surround will be used in.
 
commodore said:
..and pat comes the reply from the resident dick. :rolleyes:

I've been folowing [H] for almost 14 years now and i know for a fact what i'm talking about. What's you excuse??
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I don't really understand your comment but whatever.

In case you didn't notice, HardOCP doesn't exist just to shit all over AMD like you seem to think. :rolleyes:
 
As much as I like the performance of this card, I couldn't even replace my two MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II's with two of these since they wouldn't fit to my P6X58D PREMIUM (LGA1366) MB/Antec Twelve Hundred case. Great Card but Big!!!
 
The name calling posts have been deleted. Continue and get banned.
 
Any idea when these should be available for purchase in the US? I've been checking Newegg daily and since stock levels probably won't be very high for these it would be great to have a more definitive time frame.
 
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