Introduction

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AMD's Radeon HD 6970 is considered a mature graphics card design now with future GPUs coming out in the next months. PowerColor has taken the opportunity to create some waves before the holidays with a new premium-class HD 6970 called Devil 13.

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The PowerColor Devil 13 is using a completely revamped PCB design and cooling solution with overclockers and gamers in mind. Compared to other HD 6970 models, the Devil 13 comes with the highest clock speeds of any HD 6970 on the market today - when it's turbo mode is enabled. Without turbo, the card will run at reference design clocks, and is more focused on a quieter gaming experience according to PowerColor.

<table class="tputbl hilight" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<caption>
PowerColor Devil 13 Market Segment Analysis
</caption>
<tr>
<th scope="col"> </th>
<th scope="col">GeForce <br>
GTX 560 Ti</th>
<th scope="col">Radeon <br>
HD 6950</th>
<th scope="col">GeForce <br>
GTX 570</th>
<th scope="col">Radeon <br />
HD 6970</th>
<th scope="col"><strong>PowerColor <br />
HD 6970<br />
Devil 13</strong></th>
<th scope="col">GeForce <br />
GTX 580</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Shader Units</th>
<td align="right">384</td>
<td align="right">1408</td>
<td align="right">480</td>
<td align="right">1536</td>
<td align="right"><strong>1536</strong></td>
<td align="right">512</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">ROPs</th>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right">40</td>
<td align="right">32</td>
<td align="right"><strong>32</strong></td>
<td align="right">48</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Graphics Processor</th>
<td align="right">GF114</td>
<td align="right">Cayman</td>
<td align="right">GF110</td>
<td align="right">Cayman</td>
<td align="right"><strong>Cayman</strong></td>
<td align="right">GF110</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Transistors</th>
<td align="right">1950M</td>
<td align="right">2640M</td>
<td align="right">3000M</td>
<td align="right">2640M</td>
<td align="right"><strong>2640M</strong></td>
<td align="right">3000M</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory Size</th>
<td align="right">1024 MB</td>
<td align="right">2048 MB</td>
<td align="right">1280 MB</td>
<td align="right">2048 MB</td>
<td align="right"><strong>2048 MB</strong></td>
<td align="right">1536 MB</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Memory Bus Width</th>
<td align="right">256 bit</td>
<td align="right">256 bit</td>
<td align="right">320 bit</td>
<td align="right">256 bit</td>
<td align="right"><strong>256 bit</strong></td>
<td align="right">384 bit</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Core Clock</th>
<td align="right">823 MHz</td>
<td align="right">800 MHz</td>
<td align="right">732 MHz</td>
<td align="right">880 MHz</td>
<td align="right"><strong>880/960 MHz</strong></td>
<td align="right">772 MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Memory Clock</th>
<td align="right">1002 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1250 MHz</td>
<td align="right">950 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1375 MHz</td>
<td align="right"><strong>1375/1425 MHz</strong></td>
<td align="right">1002 MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Price</th>
<td align="right">$230</td>
<td align="right">$275</td>
<td align="right">$330</td>
<td align="right">$370</td>
<td align="right"><strong>$549</strong></td>
<td align="right">$490</td>
</tr>
</table>

Packaging

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You will receive:

Graphics card
Driver CD + Documentation + 3 Year Warranty Certificate
Devil 13 Sticker
2x 6-pin to 8-pin Power Adapter
DVI Adapter + mini-DP to DP Adapter
DiRT 3 Coupon
Wiha screwdriver set

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The included Wiha screwdriver set is an impressive toolkit. Wiha is one of the leading companies when it comes to tools and screwdrivers. Their tools are used by professionals all over the world, including myself. Stubborn screws on graphics cards are no match for these screwdrivers - I love them. The screwdriver kit pictured above has a retail value of about 60 Euros/USD.

The Card

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PowerColor's card uses a menacing design with a large cooler and a black backplate on the other side. The color theme reminds me a bit of cards like the ASUS MARS II.

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The card requires two slots in your system.

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Display connectivity is two DVI ports, one full size HDMI port and two mini-DisplayPorts. Adapters for analog VGA and full-size DisplayPort are included in the package.

An HDMI sound device is included in the GPU, too. It is HDMI 1.4a compatible which includes HD audio and support for Blu-ray 3D movies. The DisplayPort interface is DisplayPort 1.2 compliant which allows the use of a DisplayPort hub to connect multiple monitors, or daisy chain them together.

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You may combine up to four HD 6970 cards from any vendor in a multi-GPU CrossFire configuration for higher framerater or better image quality settings.

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Pictured above are photos of the front and back, showing the disassembled board. High-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

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The large cooler uses four heatpipe the keep the card cool. Please note the thermal pad for one row of memory chips, the other chips are cooled using the airflow generated by the fans.

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The backplate is made from metal and serves purely cosmetic purposes as there are no major components on this side of the PCB. A backplate also helps to protect against damage from installing or handling the card.

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This red turbo button is used to switch between two BIOSes. The normal BIOS comes with the reference clocks and the turbo BIOS with 960 / 1425 MHz. Essentially this is the existing dual BIOS feature from the reference design HD 6970, but instead of a recovery BIOS the turbo BIOS is used.

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On the back of the card enthusiast overclockers will find a measurement area for four voltages: GPU voltage VDDC, 12 V from the PSU, 3.3 V from the PSU, Memory Voltage MVDD, 1.8 V DP and VDDCI.

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Near the power connectors two LEDs have been placed, that indicate power present via white LED and card running in 3D load with red LED.

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The card requires two 8-pin PCI-Express power cables connected. This power configuration is good for up to 375 W of power draw.

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The voltage regulator used by PowerColor is a CHiL CHL8228, which is well supported in overclocking and monitoring tools.

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The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Hynix, and carry the model number H5GQ2H24MFR-R0C. They are specified to run at 1500 MHz (6000 MHz GDDR5 effective).

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AMD's new Cayman graphics processor is made on a 40 nm process at TSMC Taiwan. It uses approximately 2.64 billion transistors on a die area of 389 mm².

Test System

<table class="tputbl">
<thead>
<tr>
<th colspan="2">Test System - VGA Rev. 15</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tr>
<th width="120" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td align="center">Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz<br />(Bloomfield, 8192 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td align="center">Gigabyte X58 Extreme<br />
Intel X58 & ICH10R</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td align="center">3x 2048 MB Mushkin Redline XP3-12800 DDR3 <br>
@ 1520 MHz 8-7-7-16</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td align="center">WD Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td align="center">Antec HCP-1200 1200W</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Software:</th>
<td align="center">Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" align="center">NVIDIA: 270.61<br />ATI: Catalyst 11.8</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Display:</th>
<td valign="top" align="center">
LG Flatron W3000H 30" 2560x1600<br /><img src="http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_6970_Devil_13/images/zotac.jpg" width="120" height="40"></td>
</tr>
</table>
Benchmark scores in other reviews are only comparable when this exact same configuration is used.

All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
All games were set to their highest quality setting

Each benchmark was tested at the following settings and resolution:

1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing. Common resolution for most smaller flatscreens today (17" - 19"). A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
1680 x 1050, 4x Anti-aliasing. Most common widescreen resolution on larger displays (19" - 22"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
1920 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing. Typical widescreen resolution for large displays (22" - 26"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
2560 x 1600, 4x Anti-aliasing. Highest possible resolution for commonly available displays (30"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.

Aliens vs. Predator

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Aliens vs. Predator is based on a merger of the Aliens and the Predators franchise: two legendary alien species that are in conflict with each other, fighting to the death with human marines caught in between. The first person shooter game was developed by Rebellion Studios, who also developed the first AVP PC title and released in February 2010. It is one of the first DirectX 11 games with support for new features like tesselation, which is why AMD heavily promoted it at the time of their DX 11 card launches. We use the AVP benchmark utility with tesselation and advanced DX11 shadows enabled.

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Battlefield: Bad Company 2

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Battlefield: Bad Company 2, released in March 2010 by Electronics Arts, is the most successful DirectX 11 title so far. Even though it contains a full single-player campaign during which the player has to work with a squad to secure a secret weapon, the game is most well known for its fast paced, exciting multiplayer squad action. Thanks to a CPU-based Havok physics engine and skillful use of scripting, the game has destroyable objects, vegetation and terrain without requiring NVIDIA PhysX.
Our testing uses the truck chase scene of the second single-player mission at maximum settings with DirectX 11 enabled.

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BattleForge

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BattleForge, a card based RTS, is developed by the German EA Phenomic Studio. A few months after launch the game was transformed into a Play 4 Free branded game. That move and the fact that it was included as game bundle with a large number of ATI cards made it one of the more well known RTS games of 2009. You as a player assemble your deck before game to select the units that will be available. Elemental force choices can be from forces of Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow to complement each other.
The BattleForge engine has full support for DX 9, DX 10 and DX 10.1, we use the internal benchmark tool in DirectX 11 mode with highest settings to acquire our results.

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Call of Duty 4

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Call of Duty 4 is a first-person shooter that is built on the award winning Call of Duty Series. It is the first version to play in modern times. In a near-future conflict between the United States, Europe and Russia you get to play as a United States Marine and a British SAS operative. The engine is Infinity Ward's own creation and has true dynamic lighting, depth of field, dynamic shadows and HDR. Even though the game plot is scripted you will find yourself in intense battles, often working together with computer controlled team mates. Later installments of the Call of Duty Series use the same game engine, so this test is also representative of Call of Duty: Black Ops performance.

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Civilization 5

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Sid Meier's Civilization V (or Civ 5 in common jargon), is the latest addition to the franchise of masterfully-crafted realtime strategy games that let you play God to a nascent civilization of your choice all the way up to the space-age. Civilization V uses large 3D worlds that are procedurally-generated, and takes advantage of hardware tessellation features offered by DirectX 11 to exponentially step up complexity of cities, models, terrains, and objects. It is also expected of this generation of GPUs to handle the larger texture loads that come with the eye-candy.

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Crysis

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After the tremendous success of Far Cry, the German game studio Crytek released their latest shooter Crysis in 2007. The game was by far the most hyped and anticipated game in 2007, and forums were full of "Can my system run Crysis?" threads because of the high hardware requirements of this game. Just like in Far Cry the plot evolves on a small island with a thick and richly detailed jungle world. A lot of attention has been given to small details like accurate physics. For example when you fire on a tree trunk, it will shatter and the tree will fall over leaving a stump behind. Enemies in a car can be stopped by shooting the tire of the car. The game graphics are top notch, even today, yet the game still runs well on most computers.

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Crysis 2

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Crysis 2 takes the player into an alien-infested New York City. The game adds a tactical options mode that allows several approaches to attack a heavily infested enemy location. The new Nanosuit 2.0 that the player uses offers more freedom in ability use, for example multiple abilities can be used at the same time. To better accomodate a given play style weapons can be customized with silencers, laser sights or even a sniping scope.
For rendering Crytek's CryEngine 3 is used which comes with reduced system requirements compared to the first Crysis game. Since Crysis 2 is a multi-platform game, with major development focus on console, so the graphics are only DirectX 9, yet look beautiful using complex shadow and lighting effects. Unlike the original Crysis, which allowed the user to change various graphical settings Crysis 2 provides fewer and more limited options.

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Dragon Age II

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Dragon Age II is the second game in BioWare's Dragon Age franchise and was released in March 2011. As player, named Hawke, you will be able to pick your hero from several classes and grow him over the course of the adventure. Gameplay takes you through a linear narrated story of Hawke's rise to become the legendary "Champion of Kirkwall".
BioWare's Lycium Engine has support for DirectX 11, using tesselation, advanced dynamic lighting and camera effects like depth of field. We benchmark the DX11 version with details set to highest.

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Formula One 2010

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F1 2010 is an official implementation of the Formula One 2010 season with accurate teams, drivers and cars. Highlights of the game are extensive realism options and detailed weather effects. You pick a driver and get to race over several seasons, constantly improving your skill and trying to impress the big teams to score a contract with them to enjoy the faster car to race for the world championship. The game is based on an improved Dirt 2 engine and features the latest in DirectX 11 technology. Our testing is performed in DirectX 11 mode at Ultra settings.

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Far Cry 2

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Four years after the success of Far Cry, Ubisoft has published the sequel called Far Cry 2. While the first part was set on an island, Far Cry 2 takes you deep into Africa with game play that resembles Grand Theft Auto much more than the original Far Cry, which was a classical 3D shooter. Ubisoft engineered a completely new 3D engine called "Dunia" which offers a large amount of popular features like DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 support, destructible environments, physics and non-scripted AI while not being as much of a resource hog as Crytek's CryEngine. We test the Ranch Medium level at DirectX 10 with highest details.

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Tom Clancy's HAWX

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Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. is one of the very few recent flight simulator games on the market. Being a console conversion it emphasizes "flight" more than "simulator". It is set in a near future in which private military companies have begun fighting conflicts for nations with their own military gear. You are playing an elite pilot who was recruited by such a private company. During the game you get to fly over 50 different aircrafts, ranging from MIG 21 to the mighty F22 Raptor. One notable feature of its engine is the use of GeoEye satellite imagery for terrain generation which offers one of the most realistic incarnations of battlefield terrain ever seen.

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Metro 2033

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Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter game that is set in a post apocalyptic Moscow - as the name suggests inside the metro system. You will fight mutants or other humans who like to take away your shelter. The game has many gameplay elements similar to STALKER, also the engine has similar features. This is because two STALKER engine programmers left GSC Game World and started their own company which is now making Metro 2033.
The engine has support for all the latest eye candy like DirectX 11 and Tesselation. Unfortunately it leaves a less than optimized impression, making it a candidate to surpass Crysis for the highest hardware requirements. We test in DirectX 11 mode with details set to "Very High".

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STALKER: Call of Pripyat

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STALKER: Call of Pripyat takes places shortly after the events of the previous game STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. The player is one of many stalkers who are attracted by the Zone in hope of finding fame, wealth and artifacts. Over the course of the game you meet Strelok, the protagonist of the first STALKER game and team up with him to progress through the Zone.
An updated X-Ray Engine 1.6 powers the game with support for DirectX 11 using Compute Shaders for improved shadow rendering and tesselation to improve model quality.

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StarCraft II

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StarCraft II, released in July 2010, is a sequel to Blizzard's award-winning strategy game StarCraft. In the 26th century three species Terrans, Protoss and Zerg are at war. The campaign takes you through many missions on different planets where you have to face the various enemy factions, sometimes several of them. StarCraft II features a similar number of units as the original game, some of them new. Due to the massive success of the first game, Blizzard chose to focus large aspects of the game on multiplayer combat through Battle.net. The campaign serves as a good introduction to units and concepts and competitive multiplayer is where the action is at.
The StarCraft 2 engine supports only DirectX 9, but several patches have improved rendering quality and available options considerably. We test using a recorded 1 vs. 1 multiplayer replay in the late game phase.

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Total War: Shogun 2

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Set in 16th century feudal Japan, Total War: Shogun 2 takes the player on a quest for domination to conquer and unite the warlords of Japan. Moving away from the European setting of previous Total War games, the game is now designed around principles of the brilliant Chinese general Sun Tzu and his book "The Art of War". Gameplay is switched between real-time battles during which units on the battlefield are controlled and turn-based strategy which enable diplomacy, economy and production management. Taking control of a castles is comprised of several different stages which adds more complexity to warfare.
At this time only a DirectX 9 mode is available, DirectX 11 support is promised to be released soon. We test using the highest details settings in DirectX 9.

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Unreal Tournament 3

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The fourth game in Epic's highly successful Unreal Tournament Series is simply called Unreal Tournament 3. It is based on the Unreal 3 engine which is a major step forward from the previous engine. The game principle is centered about an arena style gameplay where several contestants try to reach a certain kill count or capture a flag, for example. For its time, the graphics are top notch, with large and detailed textures. Unreal Tournament 3 is an important benchmark because its engine is being used in a large number of other titles, and there are even some in development using it. One major drawback of the way the engine is designed is that there is no support for Anti-Aliasing.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

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World of Warcraft is the most successful massively multiplayer online game in the world with far over 12 milion monthly subscribers. The game is centered around the epic battle between the Horde and Alliance factions with many other races getting involved in a long and complex story line. Even though it has been released in 2004, Blizzard has always added incremental improvements to the graphics, especially with new expansions. One key success of World of Warcraft is that it will run on a large number of slower systems, but also delivers a decent graphics experience on high-end systems. We test in DirectX 11 mode with details set to "Ultra".

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3DMark 11

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3DMark 11 is the very latest from the house of Futuremark, which has given out some of the most comprehensive benchmark applications for PC enthusiasts and gamers. 3DMark 11, as the name might probably suggest, makes use of Microsoft DirectX 11 API, and puts every feature at its disposal to use, creating astonishingly-realistic visuals. In the process, it evaluates DirectX 11 compliant GPUs, and lets gamers know what to expect from games from the near future that make use of the API, in terms of visual realism. The tessellation and depth of field tests are particularly of interest here.

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Unigine Heaven 2.0

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Unigine Heaven was one of the first demos that supported DirectX 11. Heaven is a technology demonstration for Unigine engine which supports DirectX 9 through 11 and OpenGL too. Version 2.0 adds more scenes and optionally more complex tesselation features. While there is some controversy surrounding the benchmark whether it is an accurate representation of what to expect from future games in regards to DirectX 11 we still chose it as test to get an insight into potential future gaming.

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Power Consumption

Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs. An optimized fan profile is also one of the few things that board vendors can do to impress with reference designs where they are prohibited to make changes to the thermal solution or components on the card.

For this test we measure power consumption of only the graphics card, via PCI-Express power connector(s) and PCI-Express bus slot. A Keithley Integra 2700 with 6.5 digits is used for all measurements. Again, the values here reflect card only power consumption measured at DC VGA card inputs, not the whole system.

We chose Crysis 2 as a standard test representing typical 3D gaming usage because it offers: - very high power draw - high repeatability - is a current game that is supported on all cards due to its DirectX 9 nature - drivers are actively tested and optimized for it - supports all multi-GPU configurations - test runs a relatively short time and renders a non-static scene with variable complexity.

Our results are based on the following tests:

Idle: Windows 7 Aero sitting at the desktop (1280x1024 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed. Card left to warm up in idle until power draw is stable.
Multi-Monitor: Two monitors connected to the tested card, which use different display timings. Windows 7 Aero sitting at the desktop (1280x1024 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed. Card left to warm up in idle until power draw is stable.
Average: Crysis 2 at 1920x1200, Extreme profile, representing a typical gaming power draw. Average of all readings (12 per second) while the benchmark was rendering (no title/loading screen).
Peak: Crysis 2 at 1920x1200, Extreme profile, representing a typical gaming power draw. Highest single reading during the test.
Maximum: Furmark Stability Test at 1280x1024, 0xAA. This results in a very high non-game power consumption that can typically be reached only with stress testing applications. Card left running stress test until power draw converged to a stable value. On cards with power limiting systems we will disable the power limiting system or configure it to the highest available setting - if possible. We will also use the highest single reading from a Furmark run which is obtained by measuring faster than when the power limit can kick in.
Blu-ray Playback: Power DVD 9 Ultra is used at a resolution of 1920x1200 to play back the Batman: The Dark Knight disc with GPU acceleration turned on. Playback starts around timecode 1:19 which has the highest data rates on the BD with up to 40 Mb/s. Playback left running until power draw converged to a stable value.

Thanks to PowerColor's revamped power conversion and delivery design, the card consumes less power in all our test cases than the reference design HD 6970. What makes this even more impressive is that PowerColor's card runs at a significant overclock, yet needs less power.

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Fan Noise

In the past years users would accept everything just to get more performance. Nowadays this has changed with people being more aware of the fan noise and power consumption of their graphic cards.
In order to properly test the fan noise a card emits we are using a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound level meter (~$4,000) which has the measurement range and accuracy we are looking for.

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The tested graphics card is installed in a system that is completely passively cooled. That is passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, passive cooling on the motherboard and Solid-State HDD.
This setup allows us to eliminate secondary noise sources and test only the video card. To be more compliant with standards like DIN 45635 (we are not claiming to be fully DIN 45635 certified) the measurement is conducted at 100 cm distance and 160 cm over the floor. The ambient background noise level in the room is well below 20 dbA for all measurements. Please note that the dbA scale is not linear, it is logarithmic. 40 dbA is not twice as loud as 20 dbA. A 3 dbA increase results in double the sound pressure. The human hearing is a bit different and it is generally accepted that a 10 dbA increase doubles the perceived sound level. The 3D load noise levels are tested with a stressful game, not Furmark.

Low noise,especially in idle is certainly not a strong suit of the PowerColor Devil 13. In normal mode, there is almost no change in fan speed between idle and load. In idle the fan runs at 20%, under load 21%. In Turbo mode the fan idles at 20% too, and ramps up to 26% under load. To me this looks like PowerColor has not planned their fan purchase optimally, since the RPM operating range of the fan is not used at all.

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Performance Summary

The graphs on this page show a combined performance summary of all tests and resolutions from previous pages. Each graph shows the tested card as 100% and all other cards' performance relative to it. A sixth graph summarizes all tests in all resolutions to calculate the total relative performance of the review sample.

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Performance per Watt

Using the relative performance scores from the previous page and the typical gaming power consumption result, the following graphs show efficiency of the cards in our test group.

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Performance per Dollar

If you are looking for the best bang for the buck, then you will love this graph. We looked up the current USD price of each card on the popular online shop Newegg and used it and the relative performance numbers to calculate the Performance per Dollar Index.

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Overclocking

The overclocks listed in this section were achieved with the default fan and voltage settings as defined in the VGA BIOS. Please note that every single sample overclocks differently, that's why our results here can only serve as a guideline for what you can expect from your card.

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Maximum stable clocks of our card are 960 MHz core (0% overclock) and 1495 MHz Memory (5% overclock). Unfortunately the card does not have much additional overclocking headroom beyond the turbo clocks. On the other hand, this is a good thing, as you can be sure to get maximized performance by enabling turbo mode, without the need for additional overclocking.

Overclocked Performance

Using these clock frequencies we ran a quick test of Call of Duty 4 to evaluate the gains from overclocking.

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Actual 3D performance gained from overclocking is 0.2%.

Temperatures

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Temperatures are low in all our tests. Unfortunately fan noise is quite pronounced on the Devil 13, I would have prefered a more balanced approach.

Voltage Tuning

It has been a long known fact that overclocking headroom increases as soon as you increase the operating voltage. Until recently, software voltage control on VGA cards has been the exception and most users were not willing to risk their warranty by performing a soldering voltmod. Nowadays almost all current graphics cards have voltage control in order to achieve low power consumption by lowering voltage when in idle or slightly loaded.
In this section we will increase the GPU operating voltage step by step and record the maximum clock speed possible. Voltage is listed as the value that the voltage regulator reports via software, not actual measured voltage. The card was installed in-case, with fan settings at default, memory will not be overclocked either. If a card has thermal throttling we will reduce the operating frequency to keep performance as high as possible for a given voltage. Please note that the fan profile will have an effect on observed temperatures: if the card gets hotter the fan will ramp up to reduce temperatures or keep them from rising fast.

The following graph shows the overclocking potential we saw on our sample. GPU clock is represented by the blue line, which uses the vertical clock scale on the left. The scale starts at the default clock to give a feel for the overclocking potential over the base clock. Temperature is plotted in red using the °C scale on the right side of the graph. An additional graph shows full system power draw in orange, measured at the wall socket when running at the given voltage, clock & temperature.

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All voltage increases yielded a decent improvement in maximum overclocking potential. At the maximum of 1.35 V, beyond which the voltage controller would not accept the change, we almost break the 1 GHz clock barrier.

Clock Profiles

Modern graphics cards have several clock profiles that are selected to balance power draw and performance requirements.
The following table lists the clock settings for important performance scenarios and the GPU voltage that we measured. We measure on the pins of a coil or capacitor near the GPU voltage regulator.

Normal Mode
<table class="tputbl">
<tr>
<th scope="col"></th>
<th align="center" scope="col" width="70">Core <br />
Clock</th>
<th align="center" scope="col" width="70">Memory <br />
Clock</th>
<th align="center" scope="col">GPU Voltage <br />
(measured)</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Desktop</th>
<td align="right">250 MHz</td>
<td align="right">150 MHz</td>
<td align="right">0.93 V</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Multi-Monitor</th>
<td align="right">500 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1375 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.03 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Blu-ray Playback</th>
<td align="right">500 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1375 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.03 V</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">3D Load</th>
<td align="right">880 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1375 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.20 V</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table class="tputbl">
<thead>
<tr>
<th colspan="2">CCC Overdrive Limits</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Core</th>
<td align="right">950 MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory</th>
<td align="right">1450 MHz</td>
</tr>
</table>

Turbo Mode
<table class="tputbl">
<tr>
<th scope="col"></th>
<th align="center" scope="col" width="70">Core <br />
Clock</th>
<th align="center" scope="col" width="70">Memory <br />
Clock</th>
<th align="center" scope="col">GPU Voltage <br />
(measured)</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Desktop</th>
<td align="right">250 MHz</td>
<td align="right">150 MHz</td>
<td align="right">0.93 V</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Multi-Monitor</th>
<td align="right">500 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1375 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.22 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Blu-ray Playback</th>
<td align="right">500 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1425 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.22 V</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">3D Load</th>
<td align="right">880 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1425 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.22 V</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table class="tputbl">
<thead>
<tr>
<th colspan="2">CCC Overdrive Limits</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Core</th>
<td align="right">1200 MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory</th>
<td align="right">1800 MHz</td>
</tr>
</table>

Value and Conclusion

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<td>

PowerColor's HD 6970 Devil 13 retails for 549$.

</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>

Highest clock speeds of al HD 6970 cards
Low temperatures
Great screwdriver kit included
Voltage measurement points
Low power consumption
3 year warranty
Native full-size HDMI output
Dual BIOS
DiRT 3 full game included
Support for DirectX 11

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
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<td>

Terrible pricing
Noisy cooler
Limited additional overclocking
No support for CUDA / PhysX

</td></tr>
<tr><th>8.0</th>
<td>PowerColor's HD 6970 Devil 13 impresses with very high clock speeds out of the box - when turbo mode is enabled via a little switch. When it is disabled, the card will run at AMD reference design clocks. PowerColor intended the normal mode to be a low noise, low power operating mode that is optimized for casual gamers that spend a lot of time in doing desktop work. However, due to the fan and blade design chosen, the card ends up being noisier than most other cards available today, when running in idle. It seems the fan motor is not really designed to run quiet, at low RPMs at all. On the other hand, temperatures of the card are quite low, which is certainly an effect of the increased fan speed.<br />
In our testing we saw limited additional overclocking beyond PowerColor's Turbo clocks, which might be disappointing to overclockers, but can also be useful to users who don't want to waste their time with tweaking and rather start gaming at maximized performance immediately.<br />
PowerColor chose an impressive accessory kit, especially the included Wiha screwdriver set stands out here. Wiha is a brand chosen by professionals across all industries and countries, personally I'm using their screwdrivers too - these are not cheap chinese screwdrivers. The kit PowerColor included with the Devil 13 has a retail value of around 60 Euros/USD, which certainly adds to the card's pricing.<br />
Talking about pricing, according to PowerColor the card retails at $549. Compared to the $349 for a typical HD 6970, this is a massive price increase that is not justified by anything the card offers. A GeForce GTX 580 costs below $500 now and is 10% faster. Even if the screwdriver set adds 60$ to the card's price, there's still a $100 difference to what I would consider reasonable for a card like this. That's also the reason why the score is so low and there is no award for the card. If PowerColor could bring down the price of the card to $400 or below (with screwdrivers or not) then I could imagine a score of 9.0 with TPU's Recommended Award.
</td></tr>
<tr><th></th><td></td></tr>
</table>