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Very few manufacturers can compete with Sapphire when it comes to creating a flagship video card. Over the last year they have consistently released some of the finest graphics cards to market. Today we are looking at their latest high end HD7970 Overclock Edition which is supplied with twin bios overclock configurations and proprietary twin fan cooling solution.
There is no doubt that AMD's HD7970 is a powerful video card which is currently leading the performance charts, but when we reviewed the reference card a few months ago we weren't that impressed with the cooling solution. It was certainly a step up from the previous generation, but there is only so much you can do with a solitary, tiny, high spinning fan.
Since then we have analysed the XFX DD HD7970 and VTX3D's overclocked HD7970 X Edition, both of which significantly improved on the reference cooling solution.
This HD7970 Overclock Edition from Sapphire ships with a menacing, black Dual X cooler and offers not one, but two pre-overclocked settings.
| Product | Sapphire HD7970 Overclock Edition | AMD HD7950 | AMD HD7870 | AMD HD7850 |
| Core Clock speed | 925mhz bios1: (950mhz) bios2: (1000mhz) |
800mhz | 1000mhz | 860mhz |
| Transistors | 4.31 billion | 4.31 billion | 2.8 billion | 2.8 billion |
| Stream Processors | 2,048 | 1,792 | 1,280 | 1,024 |
| Compute Performance | 3.79 TFLOPS | 2.87 TFLOPS | 2.56 TFLOPS | 1.76 TFLOPS |
| Texture Units | 128 | 112 | 80 | 64 |
| Texture Fillrate | 118.4 GT/s | 89.6 GT/s | 80 GT/s | 55.0 GT/s |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| Pixel Fillrate | 29.6 GP/s | 25.6 GP/s | 32.0 GP/s | 27.52 GP/s |
| Z/Stencil | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| Memory Type | 3GB GDDR5 | 3GB GDDR5 | 2GB GDDR5 | 2GB GDDR5 |
| Memory Clock | 1,375mhz bios1: (1,425mhz) bios2: (1,450mhz) |
1,250mhz | 1,200mhz | 1,200mhz |
| Memory Data Rate | 5.5 GBps bios1: (5.7Gbps) bios2: (5.8Gbps) |
5.0 Gbps | 4.8 Gbps | 4.8 Gbps |
| Memory Bandwidth | 264 GB/s | 240 GB/s | 153.6 GB/s | 153.6 GB/s |
Above we can see the two bios configurations that Sapphire have pre-configured. The default ‘first' setting offers a very modest 25mhz overclock on the core, while the memory is overclocked from 1,375mhz to 1,425 mhz. The ‘second' setting offers additional overclock speeds with a more aggressive fan profile, increasing the core speed to 1ghz, and the memory to 1,450mhz.
awesome. im sure the price is nice too :p
They have been releasing good cards for a while now, those new coolers and fans are great.
Much as we would expect from Sapphire. dont see any stock anywhere yet sadly.
OMG, this card is a MONSTER, I cant believe it slaps the nvidia GTX590 around like its nothing, OMG – OMG, nvidia is in big trouble if this card is coming around nvidia`s release, i feel sorry for all the nvidiot fan boy that gonna get butt hurt… why sapphire, why?
Great card, but I prefer the appearance of the XFX cards. they just look better with that metal cooler.
that overclock is f&*king wicked.
How do you switch between the two bios settings? Is it complicated? Thanks!!
Hi Ryan. Next to the crossfire connectors is a little switch. Power the system down, flip the switch. reboot.
Done.
wonder what’s the vrm temp after overclocking with added core voltage? thanks…