Gigabyte HD 7970 Super OC 3 GB

pantherx12 · Jul 31, 2012

natr0n said:
yeah true, I was mesmerized by the copper surface area I think lol.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/HD_7970_SOC/images/cooler4.jpg

Yeah it's very impressive, I just don't understand the 40mm fan design.

It's like a step backwards :laugh:

the MSI lightning card that had a higher end GPU clock is dual slot right? and thermal performance is similar.

What the hell were gigabyte smoking :laugh:

Nordic · Jul 31, 2012

My 7970 is quieter, overclocks just as high, runs cooler, and was much cheaper(used) than that. This is an utter fail card. The only good possibility is crossfire.

m1dg3t · Jul 31, 2012

Thnx for the review W1zz! Also nice to see you added a few more games :respect:

Nice idea, bad implementation/price. When we were shown a sneak peek at this cooler earlier i really was hoping they were just spitballin' and would never release a server fan cooled GFX card. But hey; SURPRISE!

That kind of cooler with top fans in 80mm/92mm would prolly be very effective, although very large :eek:

Personally i think there are better cards/deals to be had

PopcornMachine · Jul 31, 2012

Thanks for the review. I remember seeing this card a few months back. And as I thought it isn't a quiet card.

Surprisingly it isn't very cool either. So what's the point of a triple slot card that fails in both areas?

There are others in this price range that do both better and perform the same.

DarkOCean · Jul 31, 2012

Tiny fans ...no thank you!

raptori · Jul 31, 2012

Fail cooler is fail, nice review W1zz!.

gopal · Jul 31, 2012

DarkOCean said:
Tiny fans ...no thank you!

raptori said:
Fail cooler is fail, nice review W1zz!.

I agree with you 2

Casecutter · Jul 31, 2012

Wow, I wouldn’t have thought Gigabyte went this far with a design idea to miss the mark on heat dissipation and noise? The vapor chamber/ heat pipe concept with the memory and VRM heat pads is nice, I like that part. To me it seems to be there’s too much density in the fins and fan are not flowing or sucking at optimum to achieve proper static pressure. I think the whole design and assembly could be optimized to target both ends, but engineering didn’t vet the objective? Or, they did and this is the best? If it was it should have remained in the lab as a learning experience.

W1zzard would like to know do the fans all draw air from the mobo out or blow inward? I almost think two outer ones blow inward the rest suck out it might balance the static pressures. And I didn’t see that this comes with the “GHz Boost” feature. I’d want that and even with a little more aggressive Boost like the 1180Mhz from the first Bios, then the second profile is a straight 1100Mhz or where I can OC it at will.

I can go with the unconventional cooling if it really worked well, while now-a-days I’d want the Boost feature. Right now the way it stands to me; it’s like any original 7970 on bad steroids

Hilux SSRG · Jul 31, 2012

Good review. I don't see how blasting hot air on to the mb would be ideal, especially if you have two doing sli.

SIGSEGV · Aug 1, 2012

Hilux SSRG said:
Good review. I don't see how blasting hot air on to the mb would be ideal, especially if you have two doing sli.

no, the fans spreading and blasting hot air to the case instead of the motherboard..

THE_EGG · Aug 1, 2012

WHY OH WHY GIGABYTE!

Why would they change from the Windforce X3

I find I get very good temperatures on my 580 (max of 72C when fully overclocked). AND the X3 is very quiet as well. I would have been happy if they just kept using the Windforce X3 instead of wasting R&D money on another cooler.

Great review as always though

Hilux SSRG · Aug 1, 2012

SIGSEGV said:
no, the fans spreading and blasting hot air to the case instead of the motherboard..

Where in the review did you read that? W1zzard didn't specify the airflow direction of the fans. Based on the pictures, the fans are facing/blowing down through the large fin array which comes close to the pci express slot.

I think Gigabyte might have lowered idle temps if they had mounted the fans under the heatsink array to blow air away from the mb.

THE_EGG · Aug 1, 2012

Hilux SSRG said:
Where in the review did you read that? W1zzard didn't specify the airflow direction of the fans. Based on the pictures, the fans are facing/blowing down through the large fin array which comes close to the pci express slot.

I think Gigabyte might have lowered idle temps if they had mounted the fans under the heatsink array to blow air away from the mb.

Actually they were correct, if you look closely, the fins on each fan has its 'concave' side facing outwards away from the MB. 'Convex' side being closest to the MB. Also, the fan mount is facing away from the MB which is usually an indication of where air will be coming out of.

So the air will be pulled through the fin array (away from the MB) rather than being pushed (towards the MB).

Melvis · Aug 1, 2012

james888 said:
My 7970 is quieter, overclocks just as high, runs cooler, and was much cheaper(used) than that. This is an utter fail card. The only good possibility is crossfire.

I would have to agree, its one big fail of a cooler in my eyes, and triple slot just makes it even worse. :shadedshu

Those temps are terrible for such a big ass cooler.

pantherx12 · Aug 1, 2012

Hilux SSRG said:
Where in the review did you read that? W1zzard didn't specify the airflow direction of the fans. Based on the pictures, the fans are facing/blowing down through the large fin array which comes close to the pci express slot.

I think Gigabyte might have lowered idle temps if they had mounted the fans under the heatsink array to blow air away from the mb.

THE_EGG said:
Actually they were correct, if you look closely, the fins on each fan has its 'concave' side facing outwards away from the MB. 'Convex' side being closest to the MB. Also, the fan mount is facing away from the MB which is usually an indication of where air will be coming out of.

So the air will be pulled through the fin array (away from the MB) rather than being pushed (towards the MB).

Aye air flow is generally in the direction of the fan rotor support bars.

I think it would be pulling air through the heat-sink and expelling it towards the side panel as well.

Hilux SSRG · Aug 1, 2012

pantherx12 said:
Aye air flow is generally in the direction of the fan rotor support bars.

I think it would be pulling air through the heat-sink and expelling it towards the side panel as well.

That makes more sense to me. I could not figure out the airflow direction from the pics.

I guess the only thing to make sure is the direction of a fan mounted on a side panel?

pantherx12 · Aug 1, 2012

Hilux SSRG said:
That makes more sense to me. I could not figure out the airflow direction from the pics.

I guess the only thing to make sure is the direction of a fan mounted on a side panel?

Yeah side panel exhaust fans instead of intake , think this is the only card that would benefit from such a set up :laugh:

Nordic · Aug 1, 2012

pantherx12 said:
Yeah side panel exhaust fans instead of intake , think this is the only card that would benefit from such a set up

The phantom cards also do.

neliz · Aug 2, 2012

not to rain on anyone's parade here, but good to see my assessment from last April to be 100% correct:

pantherx12 · Aug 2, 2012

neliz said:
not to rain on anyone's parade here, but good to see my assessment from last April to be 100% correct:

http://i43.tinypic.com/2d8nhph.jpg

Took me a while :laugh:

Nirutbs · Aug 2, 2012

fail with niosy idle
(nice review...thx)

gopal · Aug 2, 2012

It is going to be a great failure some day :laugh:

T4C Fantasy · Aug 2, 2012

W1zzard said:
yes, also note the awesome new games we added

i know there is literally hundreds of factors that can determine what makes a video card good but if someone was for example making a list of video cards, what are the most "important" stats of that card should be listed? for example core/memory clocks

W1zzard · Aug 2, 2012

T4C Fantasy said:
i know there is literally hundreds of factors that can determine what makes a video card good but if someone was for example making a list of video cards, what are the most "important" stats of that card should be listed? for example core/memory clocks

for me (as user, not reviewer) noise, relative performance and performance per dollar

T4C Fantasy · Aug 2, 2012

W1zzard said:
for me (as user, not reviewer) noise, relative performance and performance per dollar

which are the most important performance figures that should be listed? that are not game fps

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Gigabyte HD 7970 Super OC 3 GB

pantherx12

Nordic

m1dg3t

PopcornMachine

DarkOCean

raptori

gopal

Casecutter

Hilux SSRG

SIGSEGV

THE_EGG

Hilux SSRG

THE_EGG

Melvis

pantherx12

Hilux SSRG

pantherx12

Nordic

neliz

pantherx12

Nirutbs

gopal

T4C Fantasy

CPU & GPU DB Maintainer

W1zzard

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T4C Fantasy

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