Club3D HD7970 RoyalAce Graphics Card Review

1. Introduction2. Club3D HD7970 RoyalAce Graphics Card3. Club3D HD7970 RoyalAce Graphics Card (Super High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology5. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark6. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage7. Synthetic: 3DMark 118. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.09. Gaming: Alien V Predator (1080p)10. Gaming: Tom Clancy HAWX 2 (1080p)11. Gaming: Resident Evil 5 (1080p)12. Gaming: Far Cry 2 (1200p)13. Gaming: Total War Shogun 2 (1080p)14. Gaming: Dirt ShowDown (5760x1080)15. Gaming: Battlefield 3 (5760x1080)16. Gaming: Max Payne 3 (5760x1080) DX1117. Technical: Thermal Dynamics18. Technical: Acoustics Performance19. Technical: Power Consumption20. Technical: Overclocking21. Closing Thoughts22. View All Pages

With so many manufacturers scrambling for sales it is difficult for a graphics card to get noticed in such an overcrowded market. Sapphire had the correct approach with their HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition. It held the highest core overclocked speeds at 1,200mhz, it had a memorable catch phrase with ‘Lethal Boost' and they doubled the memory count from 3GB to 6GB.

All talking points to raise awareness, and as a marketing exercise alone it was a success for the company. That said, availability was limited and the price was high.

Club3D could find their HD7970 RoyalAce may struggle for attention, however it really is a very impressive graphics card that deserves more than a passing footnote in history.

The cooler is not the most attractive design, but the company have intentionally designed it not to overhang the PCB. The dual slot cooler also forces hot air outside the chassis. Both may seem like minor points when contemplating a purchase, but they are actually important considerations.

The proprietary two fan cooler is capable, and can hold its own against the leading solutions on the market today. Our tests show that it held an excellent thermal curve, peaking in the mid 60c zone under gaming load. It isn't the quietest cooler on the market, but it doesn't emit a noise level that is likely to annoy many gamers. Our equipment measured an output very close to the Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition.

The Club3D HD7970 RoyalAce ships with additional available headroom, even if we factor in that all cards will be slightly different. Our sample had almost 90mhz available on the core before artifacting would occur, and the memory could be pushed to almost 1,600mhz. It is unlikely you will need to overclock this card further, although with a high resolution three screen Eyefinity setup, it can nudge the frame rates up a little.

On a completely unrelated point, we always like to see a high end solution shipping with noteable headroom, as the core is not running close to breaking point.

In the United Kingdom, you can pick this card up for around £330 inc vat. With such a high core clock speed and such a competitive price we highly recommend the Club3D HD7970 RoyalAce. It isn't the best HD7970 on the market, but it does offer a very heady combination of competitive pricing, excellent performance and stellar cooling capabilities.

Pros:

• Good price
• Strong bundle.
• Great cooling performance.
• headroom for manual overclocking.
• cooler exhausts hot air outside the case.
• neat cooler design, linked tightly to the PCB size.

Cons:

• Not the quietest HD7970 cooler we have tested.

Kitguru says: An excellent HD7970, and one that should not be overlooked.

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