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MSI R7970 Lightning Graphics Card Review (Twin Frozr IV)

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.

Power consumption, considering the overclocked state is very impressive, only a few watts higher when gaming than the reference solution.

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15 comments

  1. Lovely, very nice, and yet again very expensive……… we can only dream!

  2. Wow… so thats £500 for a card with no copper used as a cooling material, and Aluminum used instead,
    thats a less ductile material = an inferior cooling solution, using a cheapr material for more money…

    MSI really know how to impress – or charge more for using cheaper materials!!!

  3. Good point from muppett, copper might have improved on the results by 1-2 c more.

    however, the end result is great as the testing shows.

  4. @muppet:

    Actually the Cooler material is copper, but it’s nickel coated, so it doesn’t corrode (very, VERY easy with copper)
    Only the fin array is made of Aluminium

  5. I take it 12.3 drivers were used for this test and the other custom 7970’s?

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