ASUS Revises Radeon HD 7950 DirectCU II

[btarunr]

ASUS is working to redesign its Radeon HD 7950 DirectCU II family of graphics cards. The new revision sees a breakaway from the common design that HD 7950 and HD 7970 DirectCU II graphics cards share, to one that has a more compact cooler and PCB, with denser aluminum fin stacks, six copper heat pipes (instead of five on the original design), and a redesigned display output layout (2x DVI DL, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort; compared to 1x DVI, 1x HDMI, and 2x mini-DisplayPort, on the original). The new design could be implemented on both the standard and TOP models. The standard model ships with clock speeds of 800 MHz core, while the TOP model ships with 900 MHz core clock speed. While it's not expected that the new cards will be cheaper than the current HD 7950 DirectCU II cards (at least not significantly), they could let ASUS brace itself for industry-wide price-cuts of the HD 7950, if and when they come about.



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[DarkOCean]

nice but is the triple slot cooler really necessary?

 

[djisas]

I think triple slot is fail, there are so many good dual slot alternatives...

 

[TheMailMan78]

nice but is the triple slot cooler really necessary?

I think triple slot is fail, there are so many good dual slot alternatives...

Very few are as quiet as a properly done DirectCU II. Look at the sound levels of the 570 DirectCU II.

 

[djisas]

Very few are as quiet as a properly done DirectCU II. Look at the sound levels of the 570 DirectCU II.

Im sure shaving 1 or 2 cm of the aluminum plates wouldn't make a major difference and the fans would still emit same noise, they could even use more cooper, it would cost like 5€ more in raw material...

 

[INSTG8R]

Considering the amount of posts with OC'ing issues I have seen across a few forums, the cooler really isn't the problem with this card.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

meh im glad i got the Asus card (HD 7970 TOP) clocked it up set it forget it up to 60% fan is utterly silent as in my HDD is louder, and 55'c under load im a happy camper.

 

[INSTG8R]

Yeah but crazyeyes for the "Premium" on the DCU II that isn't much of an OC. I just had to flip my BIOS switch and I was doing 1000/1450 I just messed around in Overdrive and can run 1100/1500 I haven't even tried testing it's limits.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

yea but your not running 1100+ utterly silent, with temps under 60'c and when i say silent i mean SILENT a shallow breath through my nose aka just typical breathing is louder than my GPU, silence is something i care about after years of 100% fan speed overclocks,

ive pushed the card as high as 1160 so far stable with a slight volt bump havent pushed further yet, but considering BF3 ultra = 55'c max temp at 1125 core im pretty damn happy. and its really a 2.5 slot cooler but the back expansion slot bracket is 3 slots eitherway having owned MSI and Gigabyte cards the Direct Cu II cooler on my 7970 is pure win for what i wanted. it was worth it. and considering most aftermarket coolers are triple slot its rather asinine to complain the DirectCu II does just as well, and didnt cost extra or void warranties blah blah blah etc etc

 

[INSTG8R]

Granted I hit between 60-65C my fans spin up to 60-65% As for the noise from it I can't say I run a couple of Adda 2000rpm "Turbines" for case fans don't hear much over them.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

yea asus Direct Cu II at 60% fan sound slike a Twin Frozr III at 25% at 80% the Direct Cu II sounds lvl seems to be comparible to the twin frozr III at 45% the noise lvl is just that low it really is amazing how quiet the design is, that and on the Top model at least the backplate is pure bonus lol I honesty cant say how good the 7950 version will be but the 7970 TOP has been pretty damn solid after the overclocking fixes applied via Sapphire Trixx awhile back and now other tools as well.

Eitherway it all depends on what a user wants and or needs

A MSI Twin Frozr or any number of aftermarket solutions will get the job done but if you want pure silence AND overclocking the triple slot Direct cu II pretty much takes the cake only way to get better is to use aftermarket coolers. which are usually larger.

 

[m1dg3t]

Bleh, Asus

MsI has made some changes too, just scooped a 7950 tf3 and looks to me like they are now slapping 7950 cores on 7970 boards

Wish I could get some snapz up for you guys, hopefully my ISP gets their sh1t straight

Posted from my phone

 

[djisas]

Well, i dont know what gainward did, but their hd4850gs had a fantastic cooler, cool temps 35-70(exceptionally on a warm day) without the fan ever budging from 50% and more silent than my current HD6850 in idle...

Still miss her...

 

[silapakorn]

Asus GTX670 DCII Top has a 2-slot cooler. I played Alan Wake and got around 77c from Asus and 79c from Galaxy 670 GC edition. Granted, the fan is very quiet, but the cooling performance from 2-slot cooler is just on par with other brands.

So if you ask me, yes, 3-slot cooler is important if you want superior cooling performance.

 

[Initialised]

My triple slot 4870x2's old hat now, I want's one of these to replace it.