For our review today we are using the latest Catalyst 13.11 and Forceware 331.40 drivers. These drivers have the latest performance enhancements and bug fixes.
We are using one of our brand new test rigs supplied by PCSPECIALIST and built to our specifications. If you want to read more about this, or are interested in buying the same Kitguru Test Rig, check out our article with links on this page.
We are using a Dell 3011 monitor for this review. We test at both 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 resolutions.
Comparison cards:
eVGA GTX760 SC (1072mhz core / 1502mhz memory)
Palit GTX770 (1046mhz core / 1753mhz memory)
MSI GTX780 (863mhz core / 1502mhz memory)
Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (lethal boost enabled) (1200mhz core / 1600mhz memory)
Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
Games:
Sleeping Dogs
Total War: Rome 2
Dirt Showdown
Tomb Raider
Metro Last Light
GRID 2
Alien V Predator
Splinter Cell Blacklist
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.
a 3 slot cooler seems insane for basically what is a 7970. I like the card overall, but in crossfire I would have no motherboard visible and the cards would be butting against each other.
I would have bought this one if the price was £280 and it has a two slot cooler. three slot coolers just take up too much room
Zardon, any chance you can throw up the 7970 Matrix Platinum (http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/asus-matrix-hd7970-platinum-graphics-card-review) up there in tests? Probably the best apples-to-apples comparison over ASUS’ flagship model between these two generations.
Isnt Vapor-X running @ 950 Mhz while the Matrix Platinum running 1100 Mhz. Wouldnt that give a fair bump in the degrees? (enough to justify the 11c higher in gaming)
My bad i see the site ive been looking at only displays base clock at 950, the boost clock is 1070. Nevermind then 🙂