GIGABYTE Radeon HD 7970 OC Exclusive First Look @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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GIGABYTE Radeon HD 7970 OC Exclusive First Look - An early first look at a custom built Radeon HD 7970 based video card. The GIGABYT E GV-R7970C-3GD sports a custom design, custom heatsink, and a custom fan all with an out-of-box 1GHz GPU frequency. The future of Radeon HD 7970 based video cards is looking good.
 
That's one good looking card. Since I missed out on the newegg stock thinking amazon wouldn't overcharge, I might as well wait for this beauty!
 
9 degrees drop at a difference of probably 10-15 CFM's is decent
 
I really like the look of that card. If I hadn't purchased the XFX Black I'd definitely jump on this card.
 
can't wait. kinda glad i missed the boat on newegg as it seems custom cards aren't far off.
 
Today is the "official launch" of the 7970. Should see more retail availability this week.
 
Oh wow... this could replace the jet engine duo of my Galaxy 470 GTXs .... Those 470's dump sooo much heat....
 
Any idea what the MSRP is on this Gigabyte card?

I just looked at some of the picturses of the card and I'm amazed how low of a profile it has.
 
Increase the overlock on that bitch. Anand was showing another 10% (1.2GHz core) on top of the XFX OC'd model (1.1 GHz). Effing' amazing.
 
Haste266 said:
Any idea what the MSRP is on this Gigabyte card?

I just looked at some of the picturses of the card and I'm amazed how low profile it is...almost 1 slot.
Click to expand...

Dunno, Google does not even have the model number yet....
 
Did Gigabyte say when these would be available?

Kyle, are the machines are the FX gaming event will be powered by 7970s?
 
Igg said:
Did Gigabyte say when these would be available?

Kyle, are the machines are the FX gaming event will be powered by 7970s?
Click to expand...

These are drool-worthy... but I don't want to be waiting forever either.
 
Looks like it's more efficient at taking the heat away but its also dumping it into your case.
 
Igg said:
Did Gigabyte say when these would be available?

Kyle, are the machines are the FX gaming event will be powered by 7970s?
Click to expand...

I seriously doubt it. There will be some there, but we are going to have a LOT of gaming stations....

ImperfectLink said:
Looks like it's more efficient at taking the heat away but its also dumping it into your case.
Click to expand...

Uh yeah.....
 
The early GTX 580's with custom cooling tended to have a ~$40-$50 premium. The XFX DD Black has, generally, a $50 premium.

With that information in mind, the gigabyte card will probably sell for one million dollars! Or, it will carry an approximately $50 premium... whichever.
 
As an owner of a Gigabyte 6970OC which is basically the same cooler I wouldn't recommend this over an XFX BE. The build quality on Gigabyte cooler is cheap crap and so flimsy and I'm not sure it's built to last. XFX BE looks solid to me.
 
ImperfectLink said:
Looks like it's more efficient at taking the heat away but its also dumping it into your case.
Click to expand...

I'm with you there. I'm not a fan of how it dumps the heat from the card onto the motherboard. It doesn't look like there is a very reliable way to exhaust the heat from this card...

Maybe if you could reverse the fan spin to suck instead of push air, but I doubt you'd be able to get these fans to do that with the way it's set up. :(
 
Look forward to seeing how it can overclock with this cooler! :)

I'm a little disappointed - though - that all 7970's thus far have two mini-DP's, one DVI and one HDMI.

IMHO, I'd rather have two DVI's and one full sized DP.

Right now in my PLP setup my center monitor (Dell U3011) has VGA, DVI, HDMI and DP connectors.

My two side monitors each only have DVI and VGA.

I currently have all of them hooked up to the same card using the two DVI's for the side monitors and the displayport for the center.

To get this to work with one of these 7970's I'd need two adapters, a mini DP to DP and an HDMI to DVI (provided the DVI and HDMI work at the same time, otherwise I'd have to use active DP converters which would really suck)

Either way, it's going to force me to invest in more cabling/adapters I don't want or need.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038241052 said:
Look forward to seeing how it can overclock with this cooler! :)

I'm a little disappointed - though - that all 7970's thus far have two mini-DP's, one DVI and one HDMI.

IMHO, I'd rather have two DVI's and one full sized DP.

Right now in my PLP setup my center monitor (Dell U3011) has VGA, DVI, HDMI and DP connectors.

My two side monitors each only have DVI and VGA.

I currently have all of them hooked up to the same card using the two DVI's for the side monitors and the displayport for the center.

To get this to work with one of these 7970's I'd need two adapters, a mini DP to DP and an HDMI to DVI (provided the DVI and HDMI work at the same time, otherwise I'd have to use active DP converters which would really suck)

Either way, it's going to force me to invest in more cabling/adapters I don't want or need.
Click to expand...

I believe these actually come with all the adapters you'll need. At least if I recall correctly :)
 
I don't know why bench-markers always put everything to max. Those numbers are unplayable.
 
MMAOmegaRED said:
As an owner of a Gigabyte 6970OC which is basically the same cooler I wouldn't recommend this over an XFX BE. The build quality on Gigabyte cooler is cheap crap and so flimsy and I'm not sure it's built to last. XFX BE looks solid to me.
Click to expand...

+1 As an owner of a dual fan Gigabyte UD5870, which has been sent in for RMA once for a loud fan. Then it came back fine and developed the same problem again.
I would be weary of components they use for these cards. Hopefully they step it up to give the 7970 some legs, but no way am I buying a aftermarket cooled Gigabyte 7970. Asus, XFX, maybe sapphire for me.
 
Just hope this card won't crash on gaming, I've owned two Gigabyte GTX 580's with the windforce cooler overclocked and it crashed during gaming. The temps and noise were low during load but the crashing really pissed me off.
 
never had any problems with gigabyte before. I just don't like their color scheme.

Think about it, all their new high end motherboards are usually black pcb now. While all their high end gpu's are usually blue pcb. its odd!

gigabyte uses all sorts of colors, so its hard to stay loyal to the brand, if you want a color themed computer.
 
I had a Gigabyte 5870 Ultra Durable for exactly 2 weeks then it started crashing at stock clocks and had to RMA it, was a nice looking card though.
 
there wouldn't happen to be any chance you could stick this card in a Raven or FT02 to see if the heatpipes work when vertical?
 
Sojuuk said:
there wouldn't happen to be any chance you could stick this card in a Raven or FT02 to see if the heatpipes work when vertical?
Click to expand...

the rule of thumb is that if the heatpipes run the length of the card, it won't work optimally

however, if the heatpipes run the width (eg, MSI lightning) the difference between vertical and non-vertical is negligible
 
There's a typo at the bottom of the first page referring to the temperatures of the card.

" There is a ignificant thermal improvement with the..."

Should be "significant." :) Great article!
 
I wonder what the ASIC quality of the chips used on these is.

I still long for a TF3 MSI lightning 7970 :( MSI hasn't confirmed it.
 
As long as the VRM's are compatible with popular overclocking programs ( *cough* Afterburner *cough* I bet it will overclock really well with all that air it pushes.

I too really want the MSI Lightning (or at least Twin Frozr) but since they seem tobe taking their sweet ass time on coming out with anything, I may have to settle for this.
 
Well, I decided to bite the bullet on this board.

Here's hoping that:

1.) It can be flashed with an unlocked bios so voltages can be modified.

2.) Voltage tweaking is supported in MSI Afterburner.
 
I wouldn't hold my breath on VRM/software hopes. I have the same-branded version of this card (5850) and there is absolutely zero voltage control available. The only way to affect voltage is flashing the BIOS of the 5870 model (same PCB).
 
roedtogsvart said:
I wouldn't hold my breath on VRM/software hopes. I have the same-branded version of this card (5850) and there is absolutely zero voltage control available. The only way to affect voltage is flashing the BIOS of the 5870 model (same PCB).
Click to expand...

Yeah, the review over at hexus stated that the voltage was locked, but that it could be overridden by flashing it with an unlocked bios.

I believe that all of the current 7970's use the reference PCB from AMD, the non-reference designs just adding a non-reference cooler to the reference board.

If this is the case one ought to be able to flash it with the bios from any reference board, and unlock the voltage. Can anyone confirm this?

I'd hate to try it and wind up with a $600 brick.

Do these boards have bios switches like some boards in the past? That way I could flash it relatively risk free.


Edit:

re-read the article as it was not fresh in my memory.

This picture confirms the bios switch.

13261057943JEn6DNJhW_1_4_l.gif


Now, where does one get an alternate unlocked bios, and how does one flash it... hmm...
 
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MMAOmegaRED said:
As an owner of a Gigabyte 6970OC which is basically the same cooler I wouldn't recommend this over an XFX BE. The build quality on Gigabyte cooler is cheap crap and so flimsy and I'm not sure it's built to last. XFX BE looks solid to me.
Click to expand...

I put a two fan GTX460 version of this cooler in a system for my stepson about a year and a half ago.

It looks a little flimsy, but it seems to be lasting very well, and the cooler is both very effective and quiet.

After all, its a video card that sits still in your computer case, not a dune buggy. it doesn't need to be particularly sturdy, as its not going to impact anything over its life, unless you do your computing very differently than I do :p
 
The fan connector below appears to be standard for all of the initial 7970 boards.

13261057943JEn6DNJhW_1_13_l.jpg


Does anyone know if the pinout and signals are the same as for a 4 pin PWM CPU fan?

The color of the wires suggest it is, in which case you could tap into this and do some really cool custom cooling stuff! :D
 
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