Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 Super Overclock: Now With Windforce 5X
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FormatC
August 6, 2012 3:46:12 AM
Gigabyte’s Radeon HD 7970 Super Overclock is huge, heavy, overclocked, and very different-looking. Its Windforce 5X cooler employs five 40 mm fans. We benchmark the card, spend some time tweaking it, and measure the noise those blowers make.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 Super Overclock: Now With Windforce 5X : Read more
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 Super Overclock: Now With Windforce 5X : Read more
More about : gigabyte radeon 7970 super overclock windforce
While the cooler is an interesting concept, and the cards components are solid build quality and attention to detail seem to be severely lacking. The cooler isn't even designed for this board. Loose screws? thermal pads and TIM you have to scrape off/replace and void your warranty? And on a review sample of all things. I can't imagine one off the line would improve that situation...
And while good on Toms for reporting it why isnt the card tested as it comes from the factory so we know what to actually expect...
And while good on Toms for reporting it why isnt the card tested as it comes from the factory so we know what to actually expect...
Score
5
jupiter optimus maximus
August 6, 2012 6:04:14 AM
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jase240
August 6, 2012 6:18:32 AM
I like the idea of this card, but really that thing is LOUD. I have an Asus GTX 670 Direct CUII TOP and its silent even at load its barely audible. Personally I think if someone is going to overclock to the extent that they need a card that keeps the ambient temps to be low, they will probably be liquid cooling their CPU with a radiator at the top of their case(that's what I'm doing).
Honestly though if this card could be a little quieter it would be a great standard considering most people do still overclock with air coolers, and one thing bad for air coolers is a hot GPU blowing air towards the CPU.
Honestly though if this card could be a little quieter it would be a great standard considering most people do still overclock with air coolers, and one thing bad for air coolers is a hot GPU blowing air towards the CPU.
Score
2
JeanLuc
August 6, 2012 8:17:56 AM
Anonymous
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Overclocking
August 6, 2012 8:34:01 AM
gsxrme
August 6, 2012 1:00:24 PM
Water cooling is truly the only option for really overclocking. Those fans are way to noisy. I wish toms had a 1300Mhz GTX680 listed because my factory ASUS reference board even hits 1300Mhz Core / 6750Mhz Ram with no mods or voltage tweaks. I don't see this as a breakthrough and with the cost of 2500 res monitors less than 1% of the market are running that high.
Score
-1
This card isn't meant for the chickens that want cards to mostly silent but is for those who are much more aggressive in overclocking while being more forgiving when it comes to noise. This card isn't that loud compared to some rack mounted servers, I think that you guys could have pushed it further (why not) despite the power consumption. I like the build quality despite the R10 rated inductors that are driving the memory and gpu Q_Q As for the cooler I wonder if the heat pips only make contact with the vapor chamber or actually part of it? It isn't hard to design a good cooler but will cost more to produce.
A lot of noise is a lot cheaper than going liquid cooling and as hot as it gets where I live you Need a really good cooling solution.
A lot of noise is a lot cheaper than going liquid cooling and as hot as it gets where I live you Need a really good cooling solution.
Score
-1
razor512
August 6, 2012 1:20:41 PM
For those complaining about the fans, remember that cooling design is designed around a multi videocard config.
With that design, you can have 2 cards right next to each other and not have any cooling issues such as 1 card blocking the air intake of another card.
these cards run hot when just alone, a standard cooling design with a SLI or crossfire config where the back of one card is very close to the air intake of the other, can cause the second card to overheat, especially when overclocking.
(anyone remember 8800GTX and how it handled overclocking+ SLI)
A better solution will be some kind of duct work to have a single large fan located at the side of the card. Or better yet, a sealed liquid cooling solution. many quality cases will have space for 1 to 2 120mm fans on the side panel as well as 1-2 rear 120mm fans, there is more than enough space to add a few radiators.
With that design, you can have 2 cards right next to each other and not have any cooling issues such as 1 card blocking the air intake of another card.
these cards run hot when just alone, a standard cooling design with a SLI or crossfire config where the back of one card is very close to the air intake of the other, can cause the second card to overheat, especially when overclocking.
(anyone remember 8800GTX and how it handled overclocking+ SLI)
A better solution will be some kind of duct work to have a single large fan located at the side of the card. Or better yet, a sealed liquid cooling solution. many quality cases will have space for 1 to 2 120mm fans on the side panel as well as 1-2 rear 120mm fans, there is more than enough space to add a few radiators.
Score
2
zhuddo
August 6, 2012 1:22:38 PM
45 dBA is way too noisy to enjoy 'quite' gaming -- water cooling is really needed. Also, small fans are too high pitched for 'my' ears, and 2 or 3 larger side fans IMO would be a better option.
Example - Gigabyte's GV-R797TO-3GD Radeon HD 7970 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
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Example - Gigabyte's GV-R797TO-3GD Radeon HD 7970 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Score
1
ojas
August 6, 2012 2:07:17 PM
maxinexus
August 6, 2012 2:12:54 PM
Nice card but...40mm fans will always make noise and you need a case with a side exhaust. Why in the heck they don't use better memory modules? If mems could be pushed to 6k-7k that would def overtake ovrcked 680.
gsxrme the highest resolution is needed to stress these cards to the limit...anything lower is overkill for em
gsxrme the highest resolution is needed to stress these cards to the limit...anything lower is overkill for em
Score
1
Razor512For those complaining about the fans, remember that cooling design is designed around a multi videocard config.
Yes and there are only 200 of these being sold in Europe/Asia so unless you combine it with some other 7970 (one that pollutes the inside of the case with hot air or one that makes a ton of noise blowing all its air out the back I/O) you aren't going to be using two of them in a multi-card setup. So the heat/noise you would have saved is lost to the 2nd card. Couple that for the need for a side panel for this card's exhaust (while most other video cards can use the side panel as an intake) and you'll have turbulent, inefficient and noisy airflow inside the case.
Not very smart to design a card for XFire that won't have enough availability to actually get two of them. For a card whose strength is multi-card setups, they sure didn't send Tom's two to test, you think with 200 cards available someone will manage to land two of them? Only 200 cards total? There's no shortage of 7970 GPUs - It's pretty clear that Gigabyte aborted this one somewhere along the way.
Score
-1
zaxevil
August 6, 2012 5:00:14 PM
jase240
August 6, 2012 5:40:30 PM
ElMoIsEviL
August 6, 2012 6:22:06 PM
Oh boy... why do people always mention the nVIDIA GTX 680. It is a good Gaming card but HORRIBLE for compute. It sucks so much that a GTX 285 can compete with it in that domain.
Try running OpenCL apps like Bitcoin/Litecoin mining apps. Try running OpenCL Raytracing. This card just plain sucks.
Now a Radeon 7970... that's a beast. At 1,300MHz it can produce over 850 Mhash/s using OpenCL/Java AES Decryption software. How does a GTX 680 fare? 90 Mhash/s (no joke).
Try running OpenCL apps like Bitcoin/Litecoin mining apps. Try running OpenCL Raytracing. This card just plain sucks.
Now a Radeon 7970... that's a beast. At 1,300MHz it can produce over 850 Mhash/s using OpenCL/Java AES Decryption software. How does a GTX 680 fare? 90 Mhash/s (no joke).
Score
6
Anonymous
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Overclocking
August 6, 2012 7:13:19 PM
Once again, another heat pipe design where the heat pipes are UPSIDE DOWN! So, all the refrigerant just sits at the end of the heat pipes and doesn't go anywhere. Do companies even think anymore before they design this garbage? I bet if Toms were to turn the case upside down (so the refrigerant actually falls to the correct area), the windforce 5x would cool a lot better than 90 deg. C.
Still waiting for this heatpipe fad to die out and copper coolers to hit the market again. Then we wouldn't have to worry about orientation of the heatsink, and no 90 deg C (194 deg f for us yanks) temps!
just my 2 cents.
Still waiting for this heatpipe fad to die out and copper coolers to hit the market again. Then we wouldn't have to worry about orientation of the heatsink, and no 90 deg C (194 deg f for us yanks) temps!
just my 2 cents.
Score
-1
FormatC
August 6, 2012 7:59:59 PM
falchard
August 6, 2012 9:04:52 PM
pezonator
August 6, 2012 10:52:15 PM
Lol, this card is available in Australia for $519, the OC version is $499 and the Ghz edition is $529. I would have thought this would be more expensive than the Ghz edition, but given the lower clocks, I suppose it makes sense. The cheapest 7970 is a stock reference model from HIS for $469 followed by reference Sapphire at $479. Not sure if my 670 FTW was worth the $529....
Score
2
funguseater
August 6, 2012 10:55:29 PM
falchardI think the fail cooling would be obvious since nearly all of us assemble our own computers. Its very simple, a large low rpm fan cools better then many small high rpm fans.
Ha Ha, haven't used any Deltas eh? 120mm fan with 250CFM and yeah its a little loud... but NOTHING cools a serious OC better.
Score
1
jase240
August 6, 2012 11:02:10 PM
zloginet
August 6, 2012 11:20:29 PM
gsxrmeWater cooling is truly the only option for really overclocking. Those fans are way to noisy. I wish toms had a 1300Mhz GTX680 listed because my factory ASUS reference board even hits 1300Mhz Core / 6750Mhz Ram with no mods or voltage tweaks. I don't see this as a breakthrough and with the cost of 2500 res monitors less than 1% of the market are running that high.
Prove that stable without voltage... I smell major BS
Score
0
zloginet
August 6, 2012 11:24:39 PM
funguseater
August 6, 2012 11:33:11 PM
jase240120mm fan is a good size for a GPU fan, most use smaller fans than that. 250CFM? Does it still hold up that CFM rating when against a radiator/heatsink?
Yeah they are industrial fans, you'll find em on freezers/air conditioners but they draw a lot of current, usually need a custom fan controller and they are LOUD. You can find em at Frozen CPU for WC Loops.
Score
1
funguseater
August 6, 2012 11:34:22 PM
zloginetI only pay attention to static pressure when using radiators and heatsinks...
http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/de12pfexhisp.html Delta Fan 120mmx38mm
252CFM
35.887 mm H2O Static !!!
69 decibal LOUD
Best rad fans there are.... now my trolling is done.
Score
1
jase240
August 6, 2012 11:54:54 PM
zloginetProve that stable without voltage... I smell major BS
My Asus Direct CUII Top GTX 670 hits over 1200+Mhz on factory settings, I'm sure it could easily overclock past 1300Mhz even without a power boost. And at that note I'm sure a 680 could overclock that high too, Nvidia did pretty good with the 600 series.
But I do agree at full load it would probably need more juice to be stable.
Score
0
ElMoIsEviLOh boy... why do people always mention the nVIDIA GTX 680. It is a good Gaming card but HORRIBLE for compute. It sucks so much that a GTX 285 can compete with it in that domain.Try running OpenCL apps like Bitcoin/Litecoin mining apps. Try running OpenCL Raytracing. This card just plain sucks.Now a Radeon 7970... that's a beast. At 1,300MHz it can produce over 850 Mhash/s using OpenCL/Java AES Decryption software. How does a GTX 680 fare? 90 Mhash/s (no joke).
Performance per unit and per clock Kepler truly sucks compared to past generations. One more reason to hang onto older Nvidia cards
Score
-1
pezonatorLol, this card is available in Australia for $519, the OC version is $499 and the Ghz edition is $529. I would have thought this would be more expensive than the Ghz edition, but given the lower clocks, I suppose it makes sense. The cheapest 7970 is a stock reference model from HIS for $469 followed by reference Sapphire at $479. Not sure if my 670 FTW was worth the $529....
You have to keep in mind gigabye is using a 670 cooler that does not contact some of the chips on the 7970, a rediculous thermal pad soloution you need to remove and void your warranty, bad TIM, crappy fans/cooling, and a low clock compared to other cards.
All that with high temps.
Gigabyte made a bad card as usal. "superclocked" is a joke with its very low clocks. Using a cooler not designed for this board, crap pads and TIM you have to void your waranty to fix, and on top of that LOOSE SCREWS is insane. this is a top teir card..... made like crap. At this price these issues should be a joke...but they are not.
Score
1
mrcapncaveman
August 7, 2012 2:45:42 AM
falchard
August 7, 2012 5:59:36 AM
funguseater said:
Ha Ha, haven't used any Deltas eh? 120mm fan with 250CFM and yeah its a little loud... but NOTHING cools a serious OC better.I got 2 deltas. I like how long they last despite having a super high cfm. One of mine just died after 3 years. However, I needed to put in a fan controller because it sounded like I had an airstripe in my room. My neighbors complained. However, what I mentioned was the comparison of a large low rpm fam verse a small high rpm fan. My delta's are 90mm, not on the small side. Ofcourse if you increase the rpm it will bring in more air, but area taken up is also important. The tiny fans on this Gigabyte GPU won't pull in much.
Score
0
GK104 unleashed the true potential of GCN, when it was released it was terribly sandbagged, I guess it was AMD's way of seeing or maybe forcing Nvidia's hand. Catalyst 12.6 and 12.7 have also changed a lot. All in all whether green or red you are getting fantastic cards today, its becoming impossible to recommend Fermi or VLIW4 to anyone now.
Score
0
hegelund
August 7, 2012 8:42:21 AM
horaciopz
August 7, 2012 1:44:56 PM
I love how toms is adding videos to show noise measures... Awesome review and work ! And about this card.. well if someone wants something different, special and weird... thats proves not to be as efective as mainstream cooling solutions from other mayor brands as Direct CU II Top or Vapor X, this is the best choice, sad that it is not available in US....
The lucky winner that get this card will say "OMFG I WON THE ONLY CARD IN THE US WITH THIS COOLING " And probably take a bunch a pictures, then sell it on ebay in a ridiculous price or take the off the heatsink and wattercool it Lol !
The lucky winner that get this card will say "OMFG I WON THE ONLY CARD IN THE US WITH THIS COOLING " And probably take a bunch a pictures, then sell it on ebay in a ridiculous price or take the off the heatsink and wattercool it Lol !
Score
2
draphius
August 7, 2012 6:52:51 PM
IJustwanttoPost25Once again, another heat pipe design where the heat pipes are UPSIDE DOWN! So, all the refrigerant just sits at the end of the heat pipes and doesn't go anywhere. Do companies even think anymore before they design this garbage? I bet if Toms were to turn the case upside down (so the refrigerant actually falls to the correct area), the windforce 5x would cool a lot better than 90 deg. C.Still waiting for this heatpipe fad to die out and copper coolers to hit the market again. Then we wouldn't have to worry about orientation of the heatsink, and no 90 deg C (194 deg f for us yanks) temps!just my 2 cents.
actually the capillary action is plenty strong to work in any orientation. do a quick wiki and it will al become clear. i do agree that this heatpipe fad needs to die, but i also think all air coling needs to die. after watching every single one of this videos i remember exactly why i put full cover blocks on my gpus, 1- they never go above 43c even with the voltage maxed out and heavily overclocked 2- i dont have to listen to a leaf blower all day long
Score
1
nforce4maxThis card isn't meant for the chickens that want cards to mostly silent but is for those who are much more aggressive in overclocking while being more forgiving when it comes to noise.
Buk buk buk! Not all of us live solely for bragging or fragging (that is, bragging rights for highest FPS or killing the most opponents in games). There are other uses for computers.
My personal build is optimized for quiet, so I can work without background noise, or while listening to high-quality music. I may very well have spent as much time in the last year auditioning headphones and other equipment as you have tweaking frame rates. Just a question of different priorities. There are probably people all over the spectrum with you on one end and a studio recording engineer on the other.
Score
0
spaceman123
August 8, 2012 12:31:55 AM
Anonymous
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Overclocking
August 8, 2012 1:47:30 PM
"actually the capillary action is plenty strong to work in any orientation. do a quick wiki and it will al become clear. i do agree that this heatpipe fad needs to die, but i also think all air coling needs to die. after watching every single one of this videos i remember exactly why i put full cover blocks on my gpus, 1- they never go above 43c even with the voltage maxed out and heavily overclocked 2- i dont have to listen to a leaf blower all day long"
From Wiki;
" The liquid then returns to the hot interface through either capillary action or "gravity" action where it evaporates once more and repeats the cycle"
I've worked with heat pipes since they came out, and I know for a fact the "capillary" action does not work very well, and the heatpipe must be horizontal at the very least in order for it to work. The heat pipes in on this heatsink make a 90 deg turn downward, this causes the refrigerant to literally sit at the top (bottom) on the heat pipe inside the fins. Most manufactures place waring labels on heatpipe heatsinks stating that they must remain horizontal, or ideally vertical in order to function properly. Remember there is no pump in a heat pipe to transfer the refrigerant to the thermal contact point so it has to flow back down.
I agree, water cooling is pretty awesome, but a little pricey for my tastes. A simple slab of (1/8, 1/4 inch) copper with lots of fins(transfer area) and a decent 80mm, or 120mm fan will have much better performance than this monstrosity of a heatsink. I even DARE Tom's to turn the case upside down and re-test this beast and see if the results differ. I mean come on, you want to show-up a no-name poster right? Then do it, I dare Tom's to prove me wrong. :-)
From Wiki;
" The liquid then returns to the hot interface through either capillary action or "gravity" action where it evaporates once more and repeats the cycle"
I've worked with heat pipes since they came out, and I know for a fact the "capillary" action does not work very well, and the heatpipe must be horizontal at the very least in order for it to work. The heat pipes in on this heatsink make a 90 deg turn downward, this causes the refrigerant to literally sit at the top (bottom) on the heat pipe inside the fins. Most manufactures place waring labels on heatpipe heatsinks stating that they must remain horizontal, or ideally vertical in order to function properly. Remember there is no pump in a heat pipe to transfer the refrigerant to the thermal contact point so it has to flow back down.
I agree, water cooling is pretty awesome, but a little pricey for my tastes. A simple slab of (1/8, 1/4 inch) copper with lots of fins(transfer area) and a decent 80mm, or 120mm fan will have much better performance than this monstrosity of a heatsink. I even DARE Tom's to turn the case upside down and re-test this beast and see if the results differ. I mean come on, you want to show-up a no-name poster right? Then do it, I dare Tom's to prove me wrong. :-)
Score
1
v3numb
August 8, 2012 2:12:50 PM
mubin
August 8, 2012 3:02:15 PM
tychoblu
August 9, 2012 2:39:21 AM
nforce4maxPerformance per unit and per clock Kepler truly sucks compared to past generations. One more reason to hang onto older Nvidia cards
If by performance per unit you mean performance per core, then that doesn't matter. Performance per clock is subjective o core count among many other things and is not something that you can measure the GPU by very accurately. You complain about things that are very difficult to compare The problem with Kepler in compute is that the cores don't support higher than single-precision (32 bit) floating point math. There is a small number of FP-64 cores that do support it and the fact that there are so few in the GK10x series of GPUs is why they suck so much at dual-precision (64-bit) floating-point math. However, for what they do work well with, single-precision, they are much faster than the older Nvidia cards and the older AMD cards, but still lose to the GCN GPUs in single-precision.
For dual-precision, Nvidia relies on their Tesla/Quadro lines in Kepler. Some of the Kepler Tesla/Quadro cards have GPUs (GK110 being one such example) that are made purely out of Kepler FP-64 cores that can run dual-precision math in a 1:1 performance ratio to what they can run single-precision.
Score
0
hegelundis the radeon 7970 newer than the nvidia gtx 690 ?? sry for off-topic maybe
The 7970 is a few months older. However, they are not really in the same budget. The 690 is a dual-GPU card that goes for upwards of $1K and the 7970 is a single-GPU card that goes for generally under $500. The 7970 can be said to compete with the GTX 670 rather than the GTX 690.
Score
0
This is certainly an interesting cooling concept by Gigabyte but I'm afraid that it's been a mixed bag. While it demonstrates that it can cool just as well as having radial fans, there's a high pitch metallic whine as Igor notes. There's also the issue of side ventilation, which not all cases have.
But, given that Gigabyte properly implements a heatsink that's designed for the board, and applies better TIM, then perhaps this type of cooling can find a niche.
But, given that Gigabyte properly implements a heatsink that's designed for the board, and applies better TIM, then perhaps this type of cooling can find a niche.
Score
1
captaincharisma
August 11, 2012 4:14:55 PM
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