ASUS HD 7970 Matrix Platinum 3 GB Review

Item: ASUS HD 7970 Matrix Platinum 3 GB
Author: TPU Staff

W1zzard

on Oct 15th, 2012,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: ASUS

Packaging & Contents »

Introduction

AMD's HD 7970 and its more powerful brother HD 7970 GHz Edition have been on the market for a while now. MSI has also launched their HD 7970 Lightning in June. Now ASUS has released the HD 7970 Matrix - a card that will directly compete with MSI's HD 7970 Lightning.

ASUS has increased clock speeds to 1100 MHz. That is 50 MHz more than the GHz Edition and higher than any other HD 7970 card, including the MSI Lightning. Memory clock is, with 1650 MHz, also higher than any other AMD card.

The card comes with a powerful triple slot cooling solution and adds many features for hardcore overclockers like support for VGA Hotwire, voltage control, and three buttons for direct GPU voltage control. We also find voltage measuring points and a Turbo-fan button to set fan speed to 100% on the card.

Price-wise, the HD 7970 Matrix comes at $480, which is quite a price increase given AMD's recent price drops for the HD 7970.

HD 7970 Market Segment Analysis
	GeForce GTX 660	Radeon HD 7870	GeForce GTX 580	GeForce GTX 660 Ti	Radeon HD 7950	GeForce GTX 670	Radeon HD 7970	HD 7970 GHz Ed.	ASUS HD 7970 Matrix	GeForce GTX 680	Radeon HD 6990	GeForce GTX 590	GeForce GTX 690
Shader Units	960	1280	512	1344	1792	1344	2048	2048	2048	1536	2x 1536	2x 512	2x 1536
ROPs	24	32	48	24	32	32	32	32	32	32	2x 32	2x 48	2x 32
Graphics Processor	GK106	Pitcairn	GF110	GK104	Tahiti	GK104	Tahiti	Tahiti	Tahiti	GK104	2x Cayman	2x GF110	2x GK104
Transistors	2540M	2800M	3000M	3500M	4310M	3500M	4310M	4310M	4310M	3500M	2x 2640M	2x 3000M	2x 3500M
Memory Size	2048 MB	2048 MB	1536 MB	2048 MB	3072 MB	2048 MB	3072 MB	3072 MB	3072 MB	2048 MB	2x 2048 MB	2x 1536 MB	2x 2048 MB
Memory Bus Width	192 bit	256 bit	384 bit	192 bit	384 bit	256 bit	384 bit	384 bit	384 bit	256 bit	2x 256 bit	2x 384 bit	2x 256 bit
Core Clock	980 MHz+	1000 MHz	772 MHz	915 MHz+	800 MHz	915 MHz+	925 MHz	1050 MHz	1100 MHz	1006 MHz+	830 MHz	607 MHz	915 MHz+
Memory Clock	1502 MHz	1200 MHz	1002 MHz	1502 MHz	1250 MHz	1502 MHz	1375 MHz	1500 MHz	1650 MHz	1502 MHz	1250 MHz	855 MHz	1502 MHz
Price	$230	$240	$430	$300	$300	$380	$390	$420	$480	$480	$700	$750	$1000