XFX HD 7970 3GB Black Edition Double Dissipation Review

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Taking Image Quality to the Next Level

Taking Image Quality to the Next Level

In this section we take a number of games we have tested previously in this review and bring things to the next level by pushing the in-game settings to the highest possible level. All other methodologies remain the same.

Crysis 2

Dirt 3

Metro 2033

Shogun 2: Total War

The Witcher 2

 

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Temperatures & Acoustics / Power Consumption

Temperature Analysis

For all temperature testing, the cards were placed on an open test bench with a single 120mm 1200RPM fan placed ~8” away from the heatsink. The ambient temperature was kept at a constant 22°C (+/- 0.5°C). If the ambient temperatures rose above 23°C at any time throughout the test, all benchmarking was stopped. For this test we use the 3DMark Batch Size test at its highest triangle count with 4xAA and 16xAF enabled and looped it for one hour to determine the peak load temperature as measured by GPU-Z.

For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 15 minutes and recorded the peak temperature.

The first stop in this section leads us towards some hit and miss results. On one hand, the load temperatures granted by XFX’s Double Dissipation design aren’t in any way improved over those of the reference design. However, the idle numbers are quite good and we also can’t forget that this card’s core is overclocked by a good 75MHz which does increase the amount of heat any cooler has to deal with.

Acoustical Testing

Yes, we have finally added decibel testing to our repertoire and this section will expand in future reviews. What you see below are the baseline idle dB(A) results attained for a relatively quiet open-case system (specs are in the Methodology section) sans GPU along with the attained results for each individual card in idle and load scenarios. The meter we use has been calibrated and is placed at seated ear-level exactly 12” away from the GPU’s fan. For the load scenarios, a loop of Unigine Heave 2.5 is used in order to generate a constant load on the GPU(s) over the course of 20 minutes.

While the Double Dissipation’s temperatures may not be up to some people’s expectations, the tradeoff is a very low acoustical profile. This card is noticeably quieter than the reference design and if need be, the fans’ rotational speed can be manually increased for lower temperatures and slightly higher noise output.

System Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well.

Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.

This should come as no surprise since higher clock speeds nearly always results in increased power consumption unless temperatures are significantly lower than the reference design.

 

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Overclocking Results

Overclocking Results

From the day it launched, overclocking AMD’s HD 7970 has been a dream come true. It easily bursts past the 1GHz mark and with a minor of voltage tuning, can hit the 1.35GHz mark. For the purposes of this review, we left the voltages at their reference specification but the XFX Black Edition still surpassed our expectations by attaining some incredible core and memory clocks. These frequencies were 24/7 stable and resulted in some truly eye opening framerates.

Final Clock Speeds:

Core: 1156MHz
Memory: 6288MHz (QDR)

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

The HD 7970 has proven itself to be one of the post popular graphics cards in the post holiday buying season and with good reason. It is efficient, soundly beats NVIDIA’s incumbent flagship and While availability is still touch and go, AMD’s board partners have stepped up to the plate with some unique designs and as usual XFX wants to lead the pack. Their Black Edition Double Dissipation does what all other custom cards should do: improve upon nearly every aspect of the reference design.

Last week, we looked at the HD 7950 version of this card and came away reasonably impressed with its performance, overclocking abilities and heatsink design. The HD 7970 Black Edition DD meanwhile takes all of its sibling’s high points and turns them up to eleven. By increasing both the memory and core frequencies, XFX has been able to push framerates to within spitting distance of the previous generation’s most power graphics card; the HD 6990. This is a worthy achievement in and of itself but with a bit of massaging, the Black Edition easily hit the 1.15GHz mark, resulting in mind blowing performance for a single GPU product.

XFX’s performance may be impressive but we’re on the fence about their Double Dissipation heatsink design. On one hand its acoustical footprint is significantly smaller than that of the reference cooler but its temperatures were also a bit higher. Normally, we’d like to see across the board improvements from a custom heatsink like this one but considering the higher clock speeds, a small discrepancy can be easily forgiven. We just wish that XFX had given their Double Dissipation the thermal mass necessary to offer the best of both worlds.

There are very few cards on the market that can be considered as unique but XFX’s Black Edition DD has what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Not only is it one of the highest clocked HD 7970 cards on the market, it is one of the few that can boast an included lifetime warranty. In our opinion, it is well worth the $50 premium over most reference cards which is probably the reason why it is nearly impossible to find right now.