You may have read Zardon's review earlier this week of the reference AMD HD7970 GHZ Edition. While the performance was great, our closing thoughts raised issues with AMD's cooling solution, power consumption and the potential UK price point.

Many of AMD's partners have been releasing high grade HD7970's for a long time now, and we  think immediately of Sapphire – who have such a compelling range of cards right now that it is hard to place value in a reference card with lackluster cooler – even if it is clocked higher. We hope to get a new Sapphire GHZ card in the labs soon, with one of their class leading coolers on board.

It would appear that a leaked bios is available to flash your current HD7970 with. Before we go any further we need to clearly say ‘this is not something we recommend, and if you hose your card don't email us complaining'. AMD don't support this, its not official and there are always risks in modifying your hardware outside manufacturer specifications.

If you want to grab it for yourself and do some testing, then head over to this page and follow the instructions and get the download link. It isn't a complete change however.

Nick Mertes at Icrontic says “We say “almost completely” because there are indeed certain hardware differences between the original and Gigahertz editions. The newer cards have improved sensors for more accurate PowerTune adjustments—but that’s the only physical difference. In all other respects, the upgrade should provide the Gigahertz Edition benefits to the older standard 7970 GPU:

• A higher GPU clockspeed of 1000MHz, up from the 7970′s 925MHz.
• A higher memory clockspeed of 1500MHz, up from the 7970′s 1375MHz.
• And PowerTune’s new “Boost” feature, which allows the graphics to dynamically overclock itself up to 1050MHz if the GPU has thermal headroom.

Of course, there’s always a question about the chances of success. That is, most regular HD 7970s will be able to handle the new speeds, but some 7970s in the market won’t be up to the job for DRAM or ASIC reasons.”

head over here to snag the file. If you unsure about doing this, then don't.

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