ASUS MATRIX HD 7970 Platinum Video Card Review

Rusty0611 · 17 Oct 2012 at 17:34

Rusty0611 said:
But they didn't actually achieve that overclock reading the review Masai.

humbug said:
Is that for me?

Unless you've changed name to Masai then no, it wasn't aimed at you.

humbug said:
Thats right, it achieved 1325MHZ on 3Dmark 11, that's not ~1400Mhz, so yeah it is an exaggeration at this time, but at the same time 75Mhz (5%) short of anything up to 1400Mhz (~) is a bit anal and petty.
Especially given that comment is months old, you must have trawled through 500 or more posts of mine to get at it, or did you hang on to it for this time?

I mean why is that so important? it seems insane to me.

Well I can get through 3D Mark 11 at around 40 MHz higher than what is actually stable so I wouldn't really call that a barometer of stability but each to their own. Unless of course you buy your graphics cards for 3DM11 only? Do you do this humbug?

No - it took about 10 seconds actually to find with an Advanced Search

.

It isn't petty - it's called questioning potential gross exaggerations of which that was. It's all good though no need to go on the offensive and insult my graphics cards or whatever comes next

.

humbug · 17 Oct 2012 at 17:53

Rusty0611 said:
Unless you've changed name to Masai then no, it wasn't aimed at you.

Well I can get through 3D Mark 11 at around 40 MHz higher than what is actually stable so I wouldn't really call that a barometer of stability but each to their own. Unless of course you buy your graphics cards for 3DM11 only? Do you do this humbug?

No - it took about 10 seconds actually to find with an Advanced Search .

It isn't petty - it's called questioning potential gross exaggerations of which that was. It's all good though no need to go on the offensive and insult my graphics cards or whatever comes next .

3DMark 11 is one of the things i use to test clocks, i can play Avp / BF3..... @ 1245, that's also the highest i can bench 3DMark 11.

I guess you and i have different ideas on what's petty and whats "gross exaggerations" i don't believe 1325Mhz of anything up to 1400Mhz is, we will have to end on a disagreement to that.

It's all good though no need to go on the offensive and insult my graphics cards or whatever comes next .

I genuinely have absolutely no idea where that comes from, or what it even means, i don't understand that at all. :confused:

Please explain.

pgi947 · 17 Oct 2012 at 17:56

Had a better read of the review, sounds a very impressive card, gives anyone the option for extreme overclocking without having to jump through hoops (hint hint MSI).

It would seem the card is shipped limited to 1.37v, but given you just need to stick a jumper in the back of the card to get more its a non-issue, I presume they did this when they stated they rasied the core voltage to 1.4v.

One thing thats bugging me, on 3dMark11, they set a clock of 1300/1700 and get a graphics score of 12123, with 1350/1975 I couldn't even break 12000 g/points?

Edit: LTG VRM's are CHL8228+uP6262, can't find any info as of yet to what the matrix uses.

Rusty0611 · 17 Oct 2012 at 17:57

No.

So back on topic - did you pay over the odds for it 8 Pack or was it reasonable? The card looks tasty to be fair.

Only a Lightning 680 will have a chance of keeping up if at all if the overclocks are reaching north of 1300 MHz as standard.

Can you imagine how many of these things would have sold had they been available say 3-4 months ago when the Lightnings were flying out the door at a fairly significant price premium over a reference 7970?

pgi947 said:
One thing thats bugging me, on 3dMark11, they set a clock of 1300/1700 and get a graphics score of 12123, with 1350/1975 I couldn't even break 12000 g/points?

Hmmmm. Don't know. Perhaps yours was clocked too high and throttling back? Or were you seeing performance increase all the way up to those clocks?

Gregster · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:03

It annoys me to see misinformation and we do try and advise potential buyers of new GPUs to the best of our knowledge (in this section at least) but I find it hard to trust any information from someone who braggs on other forums that they have hit 1452 with a 7870.

You missed the point, AMD cards have a stronger GCN GPU DIE able to hold much higher frequencies. that's why you see them with insane clocks.

@ [name removed], had mine running @ 1452Mhz, on the stock cooler. try that

This is my point, if you had your card running at that clock speed, then I appologise. I would require proof though and I find it very very hard to believe. If your ingenuousness was done as a joke, I would say we share a completely different sense of humour, as I could see someone trying to replicate those clocks and doing damage to a perfectly good GPU.

What ever Nvidia do they can't beat it, the 7970 has a low base clock, but it is capable of a lot more than the GTX 680. there are people running them at 1400Mhz / 1600Mhz on the stock cooler completely and utterly smashing the GTX 680 at its highest overclocks, you only have to compare the best clocks on HWBot to see it.

Nvidia are every day users cards, AMD are enthusiasts cards, the sort of people who know whats what, they separate the men from the boys

Proof of this please.

pgi947 · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:08

I'll re-test tonight/tomorrow at 1300/1700 and see what I get, I know somewhere between 1900-2000 I have some memory correction issues so it could be related to that.

I really love how Asus have made this card easier for someone to over-volt. Very impressed.

Rusty0611 · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:09

pgi947 said:
I really love how Asus have made this card easier for someone to over-volt. Very impressed.

Crossfire one with your Lightning

.

gregster said:
as I could see someone trying to replicate those clocks and doing damage to a perfectly good GPU.

Like Mal did with his 7970.

That or somebody could get annoyed if it's implied that those clocks are your run of the mill clock speeds then get a poor clocker and 'only' get to 1150 MHz.

pgi947 · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:10

Rusty0611 said:
Crossfire one with your Lightning .

A very realistic possibility if we see some waterblocks for them, I'll be in the market for a second card once I get my new case sorted for my new project

psychodil · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:12

Whoever said that comment is just flame baiting Gregster, best to just ignore.
Its not like most people on HWbot use stock coolers is it.

Rusty0611 · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:14

psychodil said:
Whoever said that comment is just flame baiting Gregster, best to just ignore.
Its not like most people on HWbot use stock coolers is it.

You won't be surprised to hear who it is. :rolleyes:

humbug · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:20

gregster said:
It annoys me to see misinformation and we do try and advise potential buyers of new GPUs to the best of our knowledge (in this section at least) but I find it hard to trust any information from someone who braggs on other forums that they have hit 1452 with a 7870.

This is my point, if you had your card running at that clock speed, then I appologise. I would require proof though and I find it very very hard to believe. If your ingenuousness was done as a joke, I would say we share a completely different sense of humour, as I could see someone trying to replicate those clocks and doing damage to a perfectly good GPU.

Proof of this please.

Good Grief... lol

, that's insane. that must be a typo, or i was drunk, Ha!
That's no joke, they don't run at that speed without hydrogen.

Joking aside, that's still funny, don't get so angry about it, it's nothing, i'm pretty sure you put that right, pull the plank out of your backside, stay calm and carry on

psychodil · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:20

Rusty0611 said:
You won't be surprised to hear who it is.

A well known sweet?

Gregster · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:23

psychodil said:
Whoever said that comment is just flame baiting Gregster, best to just ignore.
Its not like most people on HWbot use stock coolers is it.

I should ignore and will

Back on track...This card does look good. Like Matt, I would love to see how it does on 1080P. Talking of 1080P PGI, I have benched 2 games so far (BF3 and Crysis2) and pleased with the results. I will bench Dirt3 shortly. I benched Dishonored but no point as it just stays on 130fps. I will go for something like FSX and Civ V as well just to add something for differing game types.

Rusty0611 · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:27

psychodil said:
A well known sweet?

gregster said:
Back on track...

Indeed - apologies for the side track all

.

Gregster · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:29

humbug said:
Good Grief... lol , that's insane. that must be a typo, or i was drunk, Ha!
That's no joke, they don't run at that speed without hydrogen.

Joking aside, that's still funny, don't get so angry about it, it's nothing, i'm pretty sure you put that right, pull the plank out of your backside, stay calm and carry on

I was always impressed with your knowledge but this just makes you look like a prevaricator

psychodil · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:29

For me, the main advantage of this card over the lightning is the display outputs

pgi947 · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:30

gregster said:
I should ignore and will

Back on track...This card does look good. Like Matt, I would love to see how it does on 1080P. Talking of 1080P PGI, I have benched 2 games so far (BF3 and Crysis2) and pleased with the results. I will bench Dirt3 shortly. I benched Dishonored but no point as it just stays on 130fps. I will go for something like FSX and Civ V as well just to add something for differing game types.

Sounds good mate, I've done DiRT3 and Just Cause 2 so far, quite impressed with the overclock gains, seeing around 15-30 FPS increases going from 925 to 1200. I did try Borderlands 2, but didn't see the point when my high spikes were hitting 200 FPS

I'll start up the thread tomorrow at some point, mrs's birthday today so have to take her out for a curry (so I can sneak a few pints of Cobra too

).

Edit: Another good point for MSI to take on-board, DL-DVI is essential IMO.

Gregster · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:30

psychodil said:
For me, the main advantage of this card over the lightning is the display outputs

Yep, on the 7970 Lightning they are rubbish

pgi947 said:
Sounds good mate, I've done DiRT3 and Just Cause 2 so far, quite impressed with the overclock gains, seeing around 15-30 FPS increases going from 925 to 1200. I did try Borderlands 2, but didn't see the point when my high spikes were hitting 200 FPS
I'll start up the thread tomorrow at some point, mrs's birthday today so have to take her out for a curry (so I can sneak a few pints of Cobra too ).

Nice one. No rush and get over your hangover first

Oh and I have my card at 1328 stable with +550 on the memory (what ever that is in total). I wouldn't expect big differences between them and my BF3 test was 64 man Caspian Border and I never got to blow a tank up with C4 (meh!!!) but I was about to untill a team mate beat me to the trigger

A good test I find is that kind of map and explosions.

humbug · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:38

gregster said:
I was always impressed with your knowledge but this just makes you look like a prevaricator

Mate

Whatever i wrote there and for whatever reason, it was done a while ago.

Dragging up ancient history doesn't do anyone any good, and you don't seriously hold a grudge for that long, do you?

Up until now i did not think of you as someone to be at odd's with, but the message i'm getting from you indicates i'm seriously mistaken, am i?

Rusty0611 · 17 Oct 2012 at 18:40

humbug said:
and you don't seriously hold a grudge for that long, do you?

I don't think you were arguing with gregster in those quoted posts so I don't think "grudge" comes into it...