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The Asus HD6970 Direct CU II arrives in a large box with another fantasy style warrior riding a battlehorse. Its all very tongue in cheek, but more importantly there is information on the cooler, clearly displayed at the front.
The bundle includes a folder which contains literature and software, including SmartDoctor, which we will use for overclocking later. Asus also bundle a power converter cable, video adapter and a crossfire cable.
On quick inspection, the card looks identical to the GTX580 we reviewed last week, because they are both using the Direct CU II cooler, which is a metal design. This HD6970 has been redesigned from stratch by the Asus engineers and features a dual fan cooling solution. Just like the GTX580, it weighs a ton. The 80mm fans rest over heatpipes and a parallel aluminum fin array, directly cooling the hardware below. Five copper heatpipes transfer heat to either side of the cooler design ensuring wide cooling coverage.
Asus are also using a ‘Super Alloy Power’ system which is a total overhaul and upgrade of all system components on the PCB. Asus claim a 15% performance increase over the reference board with a 2.5 x life span improvement with 35c cooler operation. We will test some of these claims later.
This board supports CrossfireX in 2, 3 and 4 way configurations. While the reference card demands a 6 pin and an 8 pin power feed, this card requires two 8 pin power connectors, hinting at potential high overclocking capabilities.
The output configuration has again been completely overhauled when compared to the reference design. There are two DVI outputs and four full size displayport connectors for up to 6 screen support.
As we mentioned in the introduction, Asus have opted for a very minor clock increase, leaving the memory at reference figures of 1375mhz (5.5 GBps effective). The core clock has seen a tiny 10mhz increase to 890mhz.
I am sporting a semi after reading the overclocking page (first thing I skipped too as the default clocks of this are stupid).
Makes that XFX card look really bad.
Very yummy indeed, but the 3 slot cooler is a little extreme. surely they could have done that in a dual slot design. the heatpipes and heatsink arent that big.
that cooler really is insane looking. very similar to MSI’s frozr, which is also great. I dont understand the low core clock speeds. if t his card can hit 1.1ghz with voltage increase then 1ghz should be easy enough. if they sold it as a 1ghz model I bet they would sell tons more. people dont always know how high a card will OC. now we do !
THey always made good boards, but they can be slow getting them out. all the early adopters miss these cards cause they already have other ones.
Thats a fucking kick ass product. 3 slot cooler is really massive, wouldnt fancy trying to fit three of these in a system for 3 way CFx
id rather have their GTX580, but both are pretty class leading designs whatever way you look at it.
whats next? sapphire with a four slot cooler?
Asus have probably the best engineers in the world, look at their mars and ares cards for instance. we will all never forget em.
I would be more then happy with a card of such calibre running in any of my desktops and I think this card is going to be truly amazing when it comes to staying cool which as we all know opens up lots of over-clocking possibilities
i have bought one 6970 direct Cu 2 and i fails bad
here is forum with the real temps
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=4151379&posted=1#post4151379