Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 SOC Reviews

[Final8ty]

Techsport: http://www.techspot.com/review/555-gigabyte-radeon-hd-7970-soc/

Tomshardware.de: http://translate.google.co.uk/trans...a=X&ei=r4IVUOiAJ6WX0QXwmYCwAQ&ved=0CCsQ7gEwAA

 

[thilanliyan]

I thought those tiny fans were going to be really loud.

TBH, they could have probably got the same temps with their Windforce 3x cooler, while being quieter.

 

[MrK6]

Great performance (as expected), but what an absolutely stupid heatsink/fan design. Most freshman engineer students could have done better and yet these people are still employed. Amazing.

 

[RussianSensation]

TechPowerUp just posted a review.

Gigabyte used top of the line components, bringing the power consumption down 35W from reference HD7970 GE edition despite 1080mhz GPU clock.

The noise levels are decent for 5 fans:

At 2560x1600, the card opens up almost a 10% lead over the 680:

Default voltage overclocking. Look at that memory overclock:

The card didn't do well with voltage overclocking though and the fans ramped up to 8000 rpm trying to deal with all the access power heat!

Looks like the build quality of the card/PCB/VRM/power circuitry is great but the cooler design is a let down.

 

[3DVagabond]

W1zzard said he put 1.4v through it! No popping VRM's. :thumbsup:

 

[RussianSensation]

W1zzard said he put 1.4v through it! No popping VRM's. :thumbsup:

Very high quality PCB/components, but lackluster overclocking in that sample. Power consumption increased almost 100W going from 1080mhz to 1180mhz with voltage bump from stock to 1.35V. There are plenty of cards that do much much better on air than that. I think this card is pure gold for water and LN2 cooling but a flop for air cooling. They have picked low ASICs % for this card which means it's really not great for air cooling at all.

 

[3DVagabond]

Very high quality PCB/components, but lackluster overclocking in that sample. Power consumption increased almost 100W going from 1080mhz to 1180mhz with voltage bump from stock to 1.35V. There are plenty of cards that do much much better on air than that. I think this card is pure gold for water and LN2 cooling but a flop for air cooling. They have picked low ASICs % for this card which means it's really not great for air cooling at all.

W1zzard is one of those reviewers that simply cranks the voltage slider and sees how high it will go. He certainly isn't big on optimizing the O/C. Also, the cooler is retarded. Look at the HIS cooler. 2 slots, 2 fans, and it works brilliantly.

I'm just impressed with the ability to handle that voltage.

 

[lopri]

This has got to be a joke, right?

 

[Silverforce11]

I'm trying to understand where they (Gigabyte guys are usually pretty clever) are coming from... who would think its a good idea to include a lot of tiny fans that spin at 8000 rpm and annoy the shit out of users with all that noise?? Junk product for extreme prices.. hmm, i guess its the 28nm trend.

 

[AnandThenMan]

They must have had a truckload of 40mm fans they needed to get rid of. What an odd design.