ASUS 7970 DirectCU II available now

So I got my Newegg DCU in today, and its asic is 86%. I cannot get it to even run 3dmark11 without artifacting at max overdrive clocks. Looks like its going back. A real shame. If I try to run it at 1175 voltage, It locks up.

Edit-
Tried to launch skyrim with nothing but overdrive to overclock, set at +20% power and max sliders, and got a black screen. My balls hurt. Same thing happens at any OC over the stock 1000. As far as I can tell, this card can't overclock at all.
 
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Wow. I've been so excited to get this card. Mine arrives today from NewEgg...now I'm worried about all of the hassle. It's a shame, too...because my standard/reference MSI 7970 has been incredible (bought the DCUII to replace dual 570 GTXs in another box)...

Here's hoping I will have good luck. I will post my results later tonight.
 
is anyone using a DCUII at 2560x1600 with the the DVI-D duel link port

both of my DCUII are artifacting in 2d and 3d and system bios, each separate or together in cfx
but it is only very small sparkles and lines in some few colors on screen and not in others :confused:

i have replaced PSU to a
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139034
and still does it
i have tried other dvi cables, cables and monitor are working fine with my HP LP3065 with a 4890 and my two 6970's

the only thing i can think of is the non-standard DVI-D port on these cards is not pushing full 2560x1600
 
P4rD0nM3 said:
Damn. You guys got a bad batch...
Click to expand...

Or maybe you got a good batch. :)

Too many reports of problems with this card to suggest it's just a bad batch. There's something about the design or components Asus is using that's resulting in far worse reliability than reference. Damn shame because it offers the promise of exactly what I want: quiet, 3 screen no tearing gaming.

Asus - please fix whatever is plaguing so many of your cards!!
 
EarlyAdopter said:
Or maybe you got a good batch. :)

Too many reports of problems with this card to suggest it's just a bad batch. There's something about the design or components Asus is using that's resulting in far worse reliability than reference. Damn shame because it offers the promise of exactly what I want: quiet, 3 screen no tearing gaming.

Asus - please fix whatever is plaguing so many of your cards!!
Click to expand...

I've been using my Card for over 50 hours since I've gotten it, zero issues, zero problems, zero glitches

I just tell afterburner to kick up fan too 45% from 53c-62c, scale up to 100% 70c, zero problems
 
ShamisOMally said:
I've been using my Card for over 50 hours since I've gotten it, zero issues, zero problems, zero glitches

I just tell afterburner to kick up fan too 45% from 53c-62c, scale up to 100% 70c, zero problems
Click to expand...

I have to chip in here also - I've had my 7970 DC2T since February 10th and have had no problems either... running 1150/1800 at stock volts in 5760 x 1080 eyefinity. I originally had a reference Asus 7970 and this card beats it up all over!
 
Yes, I'm not saying all Asus DirectCU II 7970s are bad - plenty of reports of good cards. What I'm saying is there is an exceptionally high failure rate on this card, which indicates some underlying problem.
 
Running at stock clocks shes fine. After more fiddling it looks like i can get to 1100 on the core, but altering voltage at all is a no go. Im running 12.2 or whatever the latest is and have tried all the oc utilities. Could it be driver related?
 
So, had a chance to install my new DCIIT today - DoA. No video. Tried two different PCI-E slots, two different monitors...it lights up green at the power connectors but my mobo (ASUS P9X79 PRO) lights up and reports no VGA. Put my old cards back (570 SLI) - worked right away. RMAing...will take a replacement but I am kind of hoping to just get a refund due to no stock. :-/
 
I dunno what to say, I've had zero issues owning mine. Fan at 45% the GPU reaches up to 59c and VRM's reach 85-90c

I've put up a few youtube video's of me recording this with MSI afterburner, bandicam etc without issue, so I dunno what to say about this card
 
ShamisOMally said:
I dunno what to say, I've had zero issues owning mine. Fan at 45% the GPU reaches up to 59c and VRM's reach 85-90c

I've put up a few youtube video's of me recording this with MSI afterburner, bandicam etc without issue, so I dunno what to say about this card
Click to expand...

Flip a coin. Looks like 50/50 on this card. Yours came up heads.
 
bill_d said:
is anyone using a DCUII at 2560x1600 with the the DVI-D duel link port

both of my DCUII are artifacting in 2d and 3d and system bios, each separate or together in cfx
but it is only very small sparkles and lines in some few colors on screen and not in others :confused:

i have replaced PSU to a
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139034
and still does it
i have tried other dvi cables, cables and monitor are working fine with my HP LP3065 with a 4890 and my two 6970's

the only thing i can think of is the non-standard DVI-D port on these cards is not pushing full 2560x1600
Click to expand...

update on this, the new PSU did not help
i hook them up to my tv at 1080p and they work fine at 1080p no artifacting at all

so it look like these cards just do not like 2560x1600 from the dvi-d anyway :(
 
The newest problem is an immediate black screen and hard lock up whenever I try to load BF3 levels, requiring at minimum a reset, and at worst I have to hold the power. Wondering if the low stock voltage on 86% ASIC quality means this card cannot even handle its own stock overclock.
 
I'm not sure if it's been posted here, but a short story about ASIC's might shed some light.

ASIC basically tells you how much current is leaking away inside the chip. The more current leakage, the higher the ASIC (guessing C stands for current). All the cards are designed to use the same amount of power i.e. same effectiveness of the cooling solution. So where you would think that a lower voltage means it must be a really efficient chip, it is actually leaking away more current inside the chip and so they lower the operating voltage to equalize power draw for the chip across the product line (if the card will run at the lowered voltage at all).
If the chip is less leaky then they might increase the operating voltage to more than needed, also to equalize power draw across the product line. Higher voltage chips, since they already run at a higher voltage than needed, probably will overclock better at that voltage with the standard cooling solution. If that same higher voltage would be applied to 'leaky' chips, it might overheat more easily, hence it is said in GPU-Z that higher ASIC chips benefit from water cooling.

This doesn't mean however that leaky chips are bad chips. You could have a really good leaky chip or just a so-so eh.. Leakless chip... It's still all about testing... and luck...
 
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bill_d said:
is anyone using a DCUII at 2560x1600 with the the DVI-D duel link port

both of my DCUII are artifacting in 2d and 3d and system bios, each separate or together in cfx
but it is only very small sparkles and lines in some few colors on screen and not in others :confused:

i have replaced PSU to a
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139034
and still does it
i have tried other dvi cables, cables and monitor are working fine with my HP LP3065 with a 4890 and my two 6970's

the only thing i can think of is the non-standard DVI-D port on these cards is not pushing full 2560x1600
Click to expand...

Those DVI ports look very standard to me. They should be standard dual link DVI ports and should support up to 2,560 × 1,600 with the appropriate dual link DVI cables.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface
 
bill_d said:
update on this, the new PSU did not help
i hook them up to my tv at 1080p and they work fine at 1080p no artifacting at all

so it look like these cards just do not like 2560x1600 from the dvi-d anyway :(
Click to expand...

Mine works fine at 2560x1440 with the DVI port. I had sparkles at the beginning, but that turned out to be a bum DVI cable, once I replaced that cable, everything was good to go.
 
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sathorael said:
The newest problem is an immediate black screen and hard lock up whenever I try to load BF3 levels, requiring at minimum a reset, and at worst I have to hold the power. Wondering if the low stock voltage on 86% ASIC quality means this card cannot even handle its own stock overclock.
Click to expand...

Mine's 86% also, Ive oc'd to 1125, no problems
 
Eluder79 said:
Mine works fine at 2560x1400 with the DVI port. I had sparkles at the beginning, but that turned out to be a bum DVI cable, once I replaced that cable, everything was good to go.
Click to expand...

hmm i have tried two different cables that both work fine with a 6970 and 4890
 
Can anyone confirm if that Single/Dual link switch just switches a few lanes around, or if it switches between two different bioses where one bios has Dual link enabled and the other, not?
 
P4rD0nM3 said:
Damn. You guys got a bad batch...
Click to expand...

Actually, my third card just crashed my system in windows, so now I'm wondering if there's some other problem with my system. Thing is, I tried this third card for at least 4 straight days with zero issues, then I install afterburner and a couple days later start getting windows crashing. Weird thing is, with the previous cards, after it started crashing, it would crash whether AB was installed or not.

I'm pulling my hair out at this point. I'm gonna do a full system reformat this weekend I think.
 
I cannot get bf3 to run unless I downclock mine to reference clocks - it cannot handle its own factory overclock. Iv tried wiping drivers, different drivers, i switched the bios; nothing but downclocking keeps it from hard locking my system. I wonder if its from futching with the voltage, and it not resettig properly in afterburner. Can anyone advise me on how to be sure the voltage is set at the stock level?
 
Unlock voltage control and see what the default voltage is set at, and also make sure you set the right leakage in the AB settings.
 
sathorael said:
I cannot get bf3 to run unless I downclock mine to reference clocks - it cannot handle its own factory overclock. Iv tried wiping drivers, different drivers, i switched the bios; nothing but downclocking keeps it from hard locking my system. I wonder if its from futching with the voltage, and it not resettig properly in afterburner. Can anyone advise me on how to be sure the voltage is set at the stock level?
Click to expand...

I think I read that you have an ASIC 85ish in another post, right? Usually those are associated with a really low default voltage - mine was 1020mV. One thing I've been curious about is the effect of the AB setting for default voltage. It's in the general settings window, and it's a drop down box that lets you select what default voltage should be. I recall seeing mine default to 1175, because I believe that's the "baseline", but it probably needs to be set to the correct 1020 (or 1112) setting on yours. Again, I'm not sure if this really has any effect on performance at all - it might be just a tool to correct the voltage reporting or something, but it's worth a shot.

Also, are you aversed to OVing your card slightly? Might try just bumping it to the standard 1175 or so to see if that stabilizes. When the 7970s came out I read some info that said that the lower VID cards like yours overclock very well even at "stock" (meaning 1175mV) voltage, but that they really needed this bump to OC. On the other hand, the standard 1175 cards also needed more voltage to OC, but responded very well (with OCing) to that slight voltage bump.
 
Mines a 73.6 ASIC chip and my voltage is 1.125V under load, but 1.164V when idling at desktop, I get this with afterburner turned on or off, and I am overclocked to 1125/1575 without touching voltage
 
Has anyone here tried setting this up in crossfire with a non-Asus reference 7970? I have a pair of Sapphire 7970 reference cards, and I really could use the extra DP ports as I am currently unable to enable HD3D + Eyefinity without them. I'm thinking of eBaying one of the cards if I could somehow turn on Crossfire with this guy and one of my existing cards.

Would this be possible?
 
22 in stock when I looked. If only the guy I was selling my computer to was more on the ball I would have the money to order one.
 
the dvi-d ports on this thing just can not handle 2560x1600 :mad:
i found that i could not shift to a resolution lower than 1080p
3dmark11 on performance would go to a black screen with flashes of what looked like running a 30" screen on a single link

this adapter
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158198

did fix it i'm now getting no artifacting and can switch to a lower resolution

stock
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2960779


my ASIC on top card is 68.0% and second card is 83.4%
 
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bill_d said:
the dvi-d ports on this thing just can not handle 2560x1600 :mad:
i found that i could not shift to a resolution lower than 1080p
3dmark11 on performance would go to a black screen with flashes of what looked like running a 30" screen on a single link
Click to expand...

I had problems running DVI-D too HDMI with my DVI -> HDMI cable, I tried a DVI-D ->HDMI dongle and a HDMI cable, but the graphics were all weird, tried a second dongle, the second one refused to work period

Opened up the box, found a DVI-D -> HDMI Dongle in the Asus Box, hooked that one up and it worked. I guess this card uses a non-standard DVI/DVI-D slot if my old dongles won't work with it
 
Duh, so I'm an idiot. Apparently it looks like my problems with crashing stemmed from a bad display out arrangement (I had both DVI and DP hooked into the last two outputs without switching the mode). Switched my DP to the other side and everything seems to be working fine.

Guess I'm gonna have to put one of my cards up for sale, as Newegg won't take it back without a restock fee. If anyone is interested, I'll be posting in the FS section soon.
 
5 in stock at CompSource.com for $582 w/ free shipping, plus $5 off with coupon googmap

5 also in stock at ElectronicsShowplace.com for $583.99 w/ free shipping

Haven't personally done business with either of them, but they get good reviews on resellerratings and google checkout. I almost ordered one from compsource but newegg got some stock before they did and was able snag one so I cancelled.
 
Neon01 said:
Duh, so I'm an idiot. Apparently it looks like my problems with crashing stemmed from a bad display out arrangement (I had both DVI and DP hooked into the last two outputs without switching the mode). Switched my DP to the other side and everything seems to be working fine.

Guess I'm gonna have to put one of my cards up for sale, as Newegg won't take it back without a restock fee. If anyone is interested, I'll be posting in the FS section soon.
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uhhh what's the correct way??? I just plugged in randomly, but I guess I did it right since mine doesn't crash lol
 
QwaarJet said:
uhhh what's the correct way??? I just plugged in randomly, but I guess I did it right since mine doesn't crash lol
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I had a DVI plugged into the slot that's shared with the first DP. Since I switched it to the other side, it's been rock solid. What surprises me is that it didn't just disable the DP port altogether, but it seems that it was trying to use it anyway. If I had flipped the switch to the secondary mode to enable all of the DPs, I would have been fine, since what I was using on the DVI would have been fine on a SL-DVI, but I didn't think to do it.

What ticks me off is that this is that is seems to be documented absolutely nowhere. Not on Asus' site, not in the packaging, not on the box, not anywhere. The only reason I even thought of it was after I recalled seeing the post about it in this thread, and there's a uninformative outline around the two ports on the rear of the card (most of which is hidden when it's installed).
 
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