Asus HD6970 Direct CU II Review – the ultimate 6970 ?

We have reviewed almost every HD6970 on the market now, and we strongly feel that this Asus HD6970 Direct CU II solution is the best of the bunch, followed by the excellent PowerColor HD6970 PCS+ in second place.

The HD6970 is a superb graphics card, even as a no frills reference design. This Asus card however has taken the reference design and pimped it out in every conceivable area. The Direct CU II cooler is without a doubt one of the best on the market, when compared to AMD's board, the temperatures drop by 15c and the noise is reduced by over 5dBa, which is very noticeable. A reference design HD6970 is clearly audible when gaming, the Asus card isn't.

The bundle could be better, but ASUS have clearly spent all the budget on the custom board design which we think will be received positively by the public.

The only negative we can mention would be the ridiculously low ‘out of the box' clock settings. A 10mhz increase over the reference board seems like such a ludicrous decision, especially when the overclocking headroom is phenomenal.

No other HD6970 we have tested has gotten close to 1.1ghz and while every card (even from the same batch) will be different we would say that Asus should have set the core to 970mhz, especially as a selling point. We fear that many people looking at this card online might not be aware of the huge headroom and just focus on the ‘890mhz' core clock speed, then move on.

This card is easily one of the best graphics cards we have tested and earns our highest possible award for all round excellence.

Pros:

• one of the best coolers on the market.
• insane overclocking headroom.
• smartdoctor is an easy to use tool.
• very quiet.
• very cool running, even under sustained load.

Cons:

• ridiculously low ‘out of the box' clock speeds.
• no free game.
• 3 slot cooler might not appeal to everyone.

KitGuru says: Asus are creating some of the finest video cards on the market. This is one of their best.

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