ASUS Radeon HD 6970 DirectCU II Graphics Card Review

Any word on a street date? I'm picking up an ASUS 6970 soon, but if this is out in the near future.
 
I'm really liking the way this site benchmarks their games. They're actually going into gameplay to do it.
 
addictedto60fps said:
I'm really liking the way this site benchmarks their games. They're actually going into gameplay to do it.
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The one thing that really bothers me about that site's benchmarks is that the max fps is too prominent. In my view, max FPS is completely irrelevant, yet this site makes it one of the most conspicuous items in their graphs.
 
jbz7890 said:
The one thing that really bothers me about that site's benchmarks is that the max fps is too prominent. In my view, max FPS is completely irrelevant, yet this site makes it one of the most conspicuous items in their graphs.
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Hmm, I'm not seeing this. Unless I'm looking at the wrong graphs, they display minimum, average, and maximum? What I especially like is the line graph of the minimum fps. That is huge for me and what I pay attention to when I look at benchmarks.
 
Wish it was dual slot like the GTX 560 Ti and I would've been all over a pair of these.

exlink
 
Just buy a normal 6970 that is dual-slot. Three slots was excusable for the enormous Palit HD4870X2, as it was meant to be quieter than the default card, which put out a lot of heat. The 6970 does not put out a lot of heat, so it's a completely pointless endeavour on Asus' part.
 
The 6970 DOES put out a lot of heat, if you raise the GPU voltage. And the 6970 even at stock volts is hotter than the 5xxx or 4xxx cards. The only thing topping that card in heat output is the X1950, which was a furnace...
 
samuelmorris said:
Just buy a normal 6970 that is dual-slot. Three slots was excusable for the enormous Palit HD4870X2, as it was meant to be quieter than the default card, which put out a lot of heat. The 6970 does not put out a lot of heat, so it's a completely pointless endeavour on Asus' part.
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The 6970 puts out a ton of heat and also gets incredibly loud in games. I don't know how you stand crossfired 6970s. I'm actually looking at an aftermarket cooler that is quieter just for one. If noise weren't a concern I'd jump on crossfire but can barely stand it when the fan ramps up to 50% in dragon age (haven't tried many games so many dragon age pushes the card harder than most would).
 
heat and noise is why i jumped back to nvidia because i have to get a sli setup and crossfiring 6970s would of made me insane.
 
Jared701 said:
The 6970 puts out a ton of heat and also gets incredibly loud in games. I don't know how you stand crossfired 6970s. I'm actually looking at an aftermarket cooler that is quieter just for one. If noise weren't a concern I'd jump on crossfire but can barely stand it when the fan ramps up to 50% in dragon age (haven't tried many games so many dragon age pushes the card harder than most would).
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I can stand it because that statement is not true. The highest fan speed I ever reach is 40% (43 in furmark, but thats not a real game), usually it's 36-38% at most, which is very tolerable.

Maximum GPU temps I see are the mid 80s in games, I topped 91 in furmark briefly, but usually ran around 90. This has been the working load figure for all radeons since at least the X1 series days. Why people make such a big deal of it now when they didn't before is beyond me. Two HD6970s are quieter than one X1900 ever was, quieter than an 8800GT, and I imagine quieter than most of the 1st generation fermi crowd.
People saying HD6970s are loud under load are obviously part of the silent PC revolution. I'm one of them, yet they don't even annoy me!
A gentle broadband background hiss at load (and they're silent at idle) is perfectly liveable for me. Most of the power supplies I owned in the past were noisier than the 6970s are even running furmark, let alone in game.
I'd probably guess their noise output to be about the 30-35dB mark at heavy load. That is not 'incredibly loud', not when a single GTX480 is at least 45dB.
 
Jared701 said:
The 6970 puts out a ton of heat and also gets incredibly loud in games. I don't know how you stand crossfired 6970s. I'm actually looking at an aftermarket cooler that is quieter just for one. If noise weren't a concern I'd jump on crossfire but can barely stand it when the fan ramps up to 50% in dragon age (haven't tried many games so many dragon age pushes the card harder than most would).
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I find this hard to believe. Even furmark won't break 43% on my 6970, and that's with the power slider @ +20% (90-92c). Compared to my 4870's, these cards are downright quiet...
They do put out LOTS of heat though, but the vapor chamber cooler is much more efficient at evacuating it from the card.

Only exception is Crossfire scenarios where the cards aren't spaced properly. Due to the lack of a recess in the cooler, when spaced right next to each other, there isn't much room for airflow.
 
I guess I dont like seeing my hardware run at 90 degrees. I had to torque the fan up manually to 40-45% to get a decent temperature. I know that 90 degrees is "fine" for this card but to me that's too hot.
 
Bad ConNecTioN said:
I find this hard to believe. Even furmark won't break 43% on my 6970, and that's with the power slider @ +20% (90-92c). Compared to my 4870's, these cards are downright quiet...
They do put out LOTS of heat though, but the vapor chamber cooler is much more efficient at evacuating it from the card.

Only exception is Crossfire scenarios where the cards aren't spaced properly. Due to the lack of a recess in the cooler, when spaced right next to each other, there isn't much room for airflow.
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I'm glad someone else has the same results as me. If you think they put out lots of heat, you should have tried a pair of 4870X2s :p

90C is fine for radeons, always has been, I've not had a card fail on me (excluding DOAs) yet, and all the cards I've owned ran at 90C or so load. It's only geforces (8000/9000 series at least, unproven for newer cards) that have trouble with it.
 
Bad ConNecTioN said:
I find this hard to believe. Even furmark won't break 43% on my 6970, and that's with the power slider @ +20% (90-92c). Compared to my 4870's, these cards are downright quiet...
They do put out LOTS of heat though, but the vapor chamber cooler is much more efficient at evacuating it from the card.

Only exception is Crossfire scenarios where the cards aren't spaced properly. Due to the lack of a recess in the cooler, when spaced right next to each other, there isn't much room for airflow.
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Have you tried running dragon age in eyefinity? I know for normal windows work multimonitor configurations cause the card to run hotter than normal. In dragon age I am sitting at 90C basically all the time. The card doesn't stay at 50% speed but will ramp up to that every 3 minutes or so for a period of 5 seconds or so. I've alt tabbed to see what speed the fan got up to when it was that loud and it has gone over 50%. It's possible that the card I chose doesn't have perfect contact between cooler and gpu or that the maker has a nonreference cooling design but from what I've read all of the original 6970s on the market were reference design.

I'm coming from a nearly silent pc and had a 260 before this (really old for a graphics card I realize) I'm slightly concerned about my power supply since it has started making a lot more noise during/for like 10 minutes after gaming. My power supply is on the bottom of my case so the video card blows air towards it. With the 260 the power supply was NEVER audible. I've also started having more and more random crashes in dragon age. It is possible that some of the sound I attribute to the graphics card is the increased sound of the power supply, however the ramp up in speed for a couple of seconds every now and then I know is coming from the videocard.

My computer is not in a very hot room and has 3 intake fans and 3 exhaust fans so heat should not be much of an issue.

Edit: Under normal windows use my fan stays between 30-33% and is not noticable over my other fans so is definately an acceptable level.
 
Jared701 said:
Have you tried running dragon age in eyefinity? I know for normal windows work multimonitor configurations cause the card to run hotter than normal. In dragon age I am sitting at 90C basically all the time. The card doesn't stay at 50% speed but will ramp up to that every 3 minutes or so for a period of 5 seconds or so. I've alt tabbed to see what speed the fan got up to when it was that loud and it has gone over 50%. It's possible that the card I chose doesn't have perfect contact between cooler and gpu or that the maker has a nonreference cooling design but from what I've read all of the original 6970s on the market were reference design.

I'm coming from a nearly silent pc and had a 260 before this (really old for a graphics card I realize) I'm slightly concerned about my power supply since it has started making a lot more noise during/for like 10 minutes after gaming. My power supply is on the bottom of my case so the video card blows air towards it. With the 260 the power supply was NEVER audible. I've also started having more and more random crashes in dragon age. It is possible that some of the sound I attribute to the graphics card is the increased sound of the power supply, however the ramp up in speed for a couple of seconds every now and then I know is coming from the videocard.

My computer is not in a very hot room and has 3 intake fans and 3 exhaust fans so heat should not be much of an issue.

Edit: Under normal windows use my fan stays between 30-33% and is not noticable over my other fans so is definately an acceptable level.
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I have 3 24" screens, and run BF:BC2 in eyefinity daily. Still, my card doesn't break 43% fan speed, even overclocked. Its usually 35-38%. I use several profiles, so my desktop profile locks the fan speed to 25%, resulting in a 62c idle with 3 screens (multi-monitor setups prevent the card from downlocking as much in 2d mode).
I have inadvertently started gaming in my desktop profile with the locked fan speed, and it only got to about 100c. Above 100c the fan ramps up well above 50% as a fail safe...and thats the only way I ever know I've started gaming in my desktop profile.
In my gaming profiles the fan speed in auto, and it rarely lets the card get much over 70c. I don't think I've ever broken 80c while gaming with the fan on auto. Only furmark can get the card over 90c.

So ya, there is something wrong with your card. Might be RMA time. Really quick question. Do you have a real 6970, or a flashed 6950? I know flashed 6950's run hotter sometimes.
 
Bad ConNecTioN said:
I have 3 24" screens, and run BF:BC2 in eyefinity daily. Still, my card doesn't break 43% fan speed, even overclocked. Its usually 35-38%. I use several profiles, so my desktop profile locks the fan speed to 25%, resulting in a 62c idle with 3 screens (multi-monitor setups prevent the card from downlocking as much in 2d mode).
I have inadvertently started gaming in my desktop profile with the locked fan speed, and it only got to about 100c. Above 100c the fan ramps up well above 50% as a fail safe...and thats the only way I ever know I've started gaming in my desktop profile.
In my gaming profiles the fan speed in auto, and it rarely lets the card get much over 70c. I don't think I've ever broken 80c while gaming with the fan on auto. Only furmark can get the card over 90c.

So ya, there is something wrong with your card. Might be RMA time. Really quick question. Do you have a real 6970, or a flashed 6950? I know flashed 6950's run hotter sometimes.
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6970, I got the Sapphire model http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102915

It seems weird that you don't break 80 and mine is always at 90 in dragon age. I should test some other games out to see if I have similar results in them. It would be nice if my card would run as cool as yours is because then it would definately be quieter.
 
Looking great, Asus. I picked up their original 6970 because of its alloy cover instead of plastic like every reference design. I'm looking for a card to pair it with in CrossfireX and I'm strongly considering this DirectCU2 model, but I'm still wondering if they will make a RoG version like they did with the 5870 that goes above and beyond even this DirectCU2 variant!
 
Xaeos said:
Looking great, Asus. I picked up their original 6970 because of its alloy cover instead of plastic like every reference design. I'm looking for a card to pair it with in CrossfireX and I'm strongly considering this DirectCU2 model, but I'm still wondering if they will make a RoG version like they did with the 5870 that goes above and beyond even this DirectCU2 variant!
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You think that aluminum sticker on top will help you anything?:p
 
shansoft said:
You think that aluminum sticker on top will help you anything?:p
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Haha, I'm not referring to a sticker. There is actually no typical "Hot woman or badass monster" sticker on this Asus model. The entire cooler/shield/fan assembly etc.. is metal on Asus model, where it is plastic on many others (for instance, the VisionTek 4870x2 my 6970 replaced had a plastic assembly). If the thermal pictures on their website are to be believed, the metal helps to diffuse heat more efficiently. Though I've not gone into an in-depth examination personally, there are many good reviews of the product in terms of heat, reliability and performance. It seems they've kept up this design and took it to another level with the DirectCU 2 offering.
 
Its actually an aluminum sticker on the top...roughly 1mm thick. The shroud is plastic. If you remove the sticker, you'll find the same plastic shroud that is on any other reference card.
 
I'm definitely interested in this card as the cheapest/quickest way to get 3 DP monitors working in portrait mode w/o tearing. If it retails under $400 then returning my 6950 and getting this is a lot cheaper than my current options of waiting for a ~$150 MST hub to go with my 6950 or a waiting for a significantly more expensive 6990. Knowing my luck so far though its prob gonna be ~$450-500.
 
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gawd the video of f1 2010 playing on eyefinity looks horribly fisheyed!
 
Westernesse said:
I'm definitely interested in this card as the cheapest/quickest way to get 3 DP monitors working in portrait mode w/o tearing. If it retails under $400 then returning my 6950 and getting this is a lot cheaper than my current options of waiting for a ~$150 MST hub to go with my 6950 or a waiting for a significantly more expensive 6990. Knowing my luck so far though its prob gonna be ~$450-500.
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Asus released their GTX 580 Direct Cu II. It's priced $5 more than the lowest GTX 580. Hopefully they'll price it competitively on AMD side.
 
When will Newegg carry these cards...? I thought they were released February 7th.
 
Bad ConNecTioN said:
Its actually an aluminum sticker on the top...roughly 1mm thick. The shroud is plastic. If you remove the sticker, you'll find the same plastic shroud that is on any other reference card.
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Gotta love the advertise..... False leading from industry these days...
 
exlink said:
Me too...but I'm very intrigued by MSI's Twin Frozr III 6970...but we haven't heard much about them in a long time.
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It would be interesting, but it looks like the 6970 lightning features a pair of DVI-I ports, an HDMI port and two mini DisplayPort like the reference cards. So its gonna tear on one monitor in eyefinity 3x1 portrait mode running a combo of DVI/DP. 6970 DirectCU II can connect with 3 DP cables so it should run portrait without tearring. Asus also has a 6950 DirectCU II coming out.
 
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Westernesse said:
Its out on Newegg for $384 + shipping/tax.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121430

Been thinking about getting one for an hour.
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So tempted. It's a waiting game. I've been waiting for the release of this card since I'm only gonna use one card.

exlink said:
Me too...but I'm very intrigued by MSI's Twin Frozr III 6970...but we haven't heard much about them in a long time.
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MSI's Twin Frozr III 6970 looks sick. Besides its initial announcement I haven't ran across any reviews yet.

Westernesse said:
It would be interesting, but it looks like the 6970 lightning features a pair of DVI-I ports, an HDMI port and two mini DisplayPort like the reference cards. So its gonna tear one one monitor in eyefinity 3x1 portrait mode running a combo of DVI/HDMI. 6970 DirectCU II can connect with 3 DP cables so it should run portrait without tearring. Asus also has a 6950 DirectCU II coming out.
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I've been so stuck on getting the DirectCu II 6970 that I overlooked this. If it has the ability to unlock shaders, I might reconsider getting this instead.
 
nxcess said:
I've been so stuck on getting the DirectCu II 6970 that I overlooked this. If it has the ability to unlock shaders, I might reconsider getting this instead.
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I've heard that nearly all non-reference HD 6950's do not unlock now and not only that, but many of them do not even have the dual BIOS switch anymore (MSI).
 
According to this review, looks like the Asus DirectCu II 6950 will come with a dual bios switch. Whether it'll unlock is another thing.
 
That's a hell of an overclock they got on air - talk about a golden sample :cool:.
 
nxcess said:
According to this review, looks like the Asus DirectCu II 6950 will come with a dual bios switch. Whether it'll unlock is another thing.
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Newegg has the DirectCu II 6950 in stock. Right on time as I just upgrade my psu to the 850HX. Too bad the price is more expensive than an MSI 6970 after MIR.
 
Well I should be getting my card tomorrow, I'll post some thoughts in a few days.

I'm hoping to get a good overclocking card as getting this to run stable at ~1050 to 1100 mhz core speed like some of the reviews have suggested would be awesome. I'll be running eyefinity 3x1080x1920 portrait mode.
 
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