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To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. We measure results while gaming in Crysis Warhead and record the results.
In such an energy aware climate, AMD are making a big deal out of their new ‘ZeroCore Power’ technology. Many solutions today use power gating, clock gating and memory compression to reduce idle power requirements, but ZeroCore power technology can completely power down the core GPU while the rest of the system remains active.
Each card demands approximately the same as other HD7970's we have tested, which isn't a surprise as these are reference based cards.
We attached the system to a power meter, to get a reading of the power drain under load when running 3DMark 11. These results are actually very impressive, considering we have three HD7970's running inside a liquid overclocked Core i7 system.
£1,500 just for the graphics cards, lol. Any chance you could offer that system up for a competition? 🙂
Thank you so much for the comprehensive comparison with other cards. You may choose a body part for me to kiss. I love having a lot of references in reviews.
lol, who is this article for, the rich and famous? one card is too much for most people I would imagine
Good article, shows that two is the best performance option really, unless you are chasing synthetic figures like in 3dmark11. thanks.
hard core ! wow
I really would have liked to have seen this trifire setup vs 6970 Trifire and 6990+6970 Trifire since that’s what many of us enthusiasts are rocking and we need to know how much needs to be spent to beat this performance.
I would have loved to have had time to test all that too, but unfortunately not this time.
Good review, I would wait for the custom asus card too, probably be £50 more, but if you are spending £500 its not a big deal. Asus made some great modded GTX580’s. they will do the s ame with the 7970, might be march though.
Great review. I always like reviews from KitGuru, particularly written by Zardon, many aspects and comparisons reviewed in detail.
If possible, please review the Asus HD 7970 DirectCU II (as single card), focus for game resolution 1200p or 1080p, please consider also Civilization V (with latest Catalyst, WHQL and Beta version), also compare performance of DirectCU II vs Accelero Xtreme 7970 (if it can be used on the Asus HD 7970 DirectCU II).
Not nit picking but the XFX DD uses a custom dual fan cooler slapped on a reference PCB, not a custom PCB as you said in the opening of your conclusion. Not saying a custom PCB would be better as some companies make their custom PCBs using cheaper materials (such as Power Color) than in the reference model to cut costs, but readers and potential buyers need to get the full picture.
Absolutely correct. My bad.