OCUK 6970 TFIII (Lightning) review.

ALXAndy · 22 Dec 2011 at 13:10

Well yeah the 7970 is faster, but it costs it too.

And it's not like it has made cards that can, you know? run any game irrelevant.

This card is still a bloody bargain IMO and I certainly don't regret buying mine. Especially given that the cooler on the 7970 is obscenely loud.

beefybarn · 24 Dec 2011 at 11:15

Hi guys, have just installed this card and all seems to be working but at the rear of the card there is a row of lights. Now they are green apart from the last 3 which are red. Can someone who has this card tell me if this correct, cheers.

COYS · 24 Dec 2011 at 11:26

beefybarn said:
Hi guys, have just installed this card and all seems to be working but at the rear of the card there is a row of lights. Now they are green apart from the last 3 which are red. Can someone who has this card tell me if this correct, cheers.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18355215

Hopefully the 1st post in here means its OK

beefybarn · 24 Dec 2011 at 11:59

Thanks, teach me to look at the other threads first, thought i was going to be without gaming over the christmas period

oweneades · 24 Dec 2011 at 13:10

ALXAndy said:
Can your 6870 play everything at ultra with 4xFSAA? because the 6970 can.

LOL

Try BF3 at 3560x1920 all Ultra Settings with 4xAA and then come back and say it can play everything.

For reference my HD6970 pulls around 5fps at that setting AND runs out of memory....

Great card for the money though.

ALXAndy · 24 Dec 2011 at 14:39

oweneades said:
LOL

Try BF3 at 3560x1920 all Ultra Settings with 4xAA and then come back and say it can play everything.

For reference my HD6970 pulls around 5fps at that setting AND runs out of memory....

Great card for the money though.

That's because it's a 1080p card.

Anything more than that ATM and you need dual GPU. This is why the 7970 will come in very handy for larger resolutions, but I feel will be wasted at 1080p given that there are several cards that can run anything on the market at 1080p

dwskillz · 24 Dec 2011 at 15:39

Got my card today and noticed the voltage was not changing when i raised it.

Had to change the Graphics Processor type setting to 1175mV because default is 1150mV in afterburner

ALXAndy · 24 Dec 2011 at 17:04

You may need to disable the CCC overdrive part. Mine was doing that.

GTA767 · 24 Dec 2011 at 17:48

msi is amazing but 6970 is too late

warmasice · 30 Dec 2011 at 00:56

GTA767 said:
msi is amazing but 6970 is too late

Bargain if you ask me! Although i'm not sure how much the 7000 series is costing as not looked.

warmasice · 30 Dec 2011 at 02:17

ALXAndy said:
Haha you'll soon know mate

Your PC will just lock up, and you will get lovely sharded graphics all over the screen

The way you will note it throttling is when you score 4500 in 3dmark 11 @ 1035mhz when you scored 6000 @ 960mhz, yet it runs through fine.

Hi,,
How did you get your voltage level up? It is greyed out for me in Kombustor! Do i need to click on the unlock key symbol in CCC first?

Your help would be appreciated!

Thanks.

Carl_Bennetts · 30 Dec 2011 at 08:54

install afterburn and unlock from the settings menu

warmasice · 30 Dec 2011 at 13:57

I can see the option now.. duh!!

b3mor · 1 Jan 2012 at 11:43

Hi,

I picked up an MSI 6970 Twin Frozr III and tested it quickly using Kombustor and after a couple of minutes it was at 70C, does that sound normal? Fans were set to auto.

Does Kombustor test many different aspects of the card for stability automatically or do I have to tell it to do the different tests? I couldn't see any options to switch between tests?

Also can someone explain what you mean by setting the power settings in CCC to +20% please? Do I need to use Catalyst or is it best just to use Afterburner and disable Catalyst altogether?

Seems an awesome card though, I set BF3 to 'Ultra' and it blitzed it, whereas the 5770 used to struggle and that was with medium settings (1920x1080).

Oh and happy new year!

Carl_Bennetts · 1 Jan 2012 at 15:22

b3mor said:
Hi,

I picked up an MSI 6970 Twin Frozr III and tested it quickly using Kombustor and after a couple of minutes it was at 70C, does that sound normal? Fans were set to auto.

Does Kombustor test many different aspects of the card for stability automatically or do I have to tell it to do the different tests? I couldn't see any options to switch between tests?

Also can someone explain what you mean by setting the power settings in CCC to +20% please? Do I need to use Catalyst or is it best just to use Afterburner and disable Catalyst altogether?

Seems an awesome card though, I set BF3 to 'Ultra' and it blitzed it, whereas the 5770 used to struggle and that was with medium settings (1920x1080).

Oh and happy new year!

My card runs around the 70c mark in games. I believe this is normal but this card is new to me as well. Although i've got vram issues on this card which i'm going to RMA.

hawky525 · 1 Jan 2012 at 17:10

Carl_Bennetts said:
My card runs around the 70c mark in games. I believe this is normal but this card is new to me as well. Although i've got vram issues on this card which i'm going to RMA.

What kind of VRAM issues have you had?

Carl_Bennetts · 1 Jan 2012 at 20:17

artifacting all over the place. search for one of my posts and you will see a photo of it!!

b3mor · 2 Jan 2012 at 01:07

Thanks, I hope you get your card sorted ASAP btw!

Just played 2 hours BF3 and peaked at 64C with the case side off so happy with that.

Anyone got any ideas regarding my other queries?

strid1 · 2 Jan 2012 at 12:11

b3mor said:
Hi,

I picked up an MSI 6970 Twin Frozr III and tested it quickly using Kombustor and after a couple of minutes it was at 70C, does that sound normal? Fans were set to auto.

Does Kombustor test many different aspects of the card for stability automatically or do I have to tell it to do the different tests? I couldn't see any options to switch between tests?

Also can someone explain what you mean by setting the power settings in CCC to +20% please? Do I need to use Catalyst or is it best just to use Afterburner and disable Catalyst altogether?

Seems an awesome card though, I set BF3 to 'Ultra' and it blitzed it, whereas the 5770 used to struggle and that was with medium settings (1920x1080).

Oh and happy new year!

Hi,

Just picked up one of these from OCUK and a bit concerned with the temps. With case side off mines hitting 75C in the Kombustor test and around 80 C in BF3. With the side of the case on I hit 90 C in BF3. I'm idling at around 38 C.

Running BF3 at 1920x1200 on high settings, no MSAA if that makes any difference?

Any comments appreciated.

Cheers

ALXAndy · 2 Jan 2012 at 13:27

strid1 said:
Hi,

Just picked up one of these from OCUK and a bit concerned with the temps. With case side off mines hitting 75C in the Kombustor test and around 80 C in BF3. With the side of the case on I hit 90 C in BF3. I'm idling at around 38 C.

Running BF3 at 1920x1200 on high settings, no MSAA if that makes any difference?

Any comments appreciated.

Cheers

1. Kombustor is evil, get used to it. Hence the name, it's a parody of

combust [kuhm-buhst]
Origin
com·bust [kuhm-buhst] Show IPA
verb (used without object), verb (used with object)
burn.
Origin:
1325–75; Middle English < Latin combūstus (past participle of combūrere to burn up, equivalent to com- com- + -ūs- variant stem of ūrere to burn +

2. BF3 is a torture test too. Thankfully it hates my GTX 295 Quad SLI, but NFS : The runs had my 295s hitting 104c and shutting down.

3. What case do you have and what cooling for the GPU? Pics will help.