Asus HD6970 Direct CU II Review – the ultimate 6970 ?

1. Introduction2. Asus HD6970 Direct CU II3. Testing Methodology4. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark5. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage6. Synthetic: 3DMark 117. Synthetic: Stone Giant8. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark V2.09. 1 screen gaming: Alien V Predator10. 1 screen gaming: Dead Space 211. 1 screen gaming: Far Cry 212. 1 screen gaming: Resident Evil 513. 1 screen gaming: Tom Clancy HAWX 214. 1 screen gaming: Mafia 215. 1 screen gaming: Lost Planet 216. 3 screen gaming: Battleforge17. 3 screen gaming: Medal Of Honor SP18. 3 screen gaming: Devil May Cry 419. 3 screen gaming: Metro 203320. 3 screen gaming: Colin McRae Dirt 221. 3 screen gaming: F1 201022. 3 screen gaming: Left4Dead 223. Technical: Thermal Dynamics24. Technical: Acoustics Performance25. Technical: Power Consumption26. Technical: Overclocking27. Closing Thoughts28. View All Pages

Last week we reviewed one of the finest graphics cards we have had in our labs, the Asus GTX580 Direct CU II. This modified card design overclocked to levels we thought impossible and operated at temperatures which other manufacturers have struggled to achieve.

It isn't only the nVidia high end card which has received the full Asus treatment however as they have turned their engineering team to AMD's flagship HD6970 solution. The Asus HD6970 Direct CU II is supplied with only a minor overclock of 10mhz on the core (890mhz).

While on paper this looks to be rather disappointing, the card is supplied with the beefy three slot Direct CU II cooler, so we have high hopes for cooling proficiency and overclocking capabilities.

Product	AMD HD6970	Asus HD6970 Direct CU II
Core Clock speed	880mhz	890 mhz
Primitive Rate	2 prim/clk	2 prim/clk
Shader Architecture	VLIW4	VLIW4
Stream Processors	24 SIMD/1536 ALU	24 SIMD/1536 ALU
Texture Units	96	96
ROPs/Z-Stencil	32/128	32/128
Frame Buffer	2GB GDDR5	2GB GDDR5
Memory Width/Speed	256 bit, 5.5 Gbps	256 bit, 5.5 Gbps
Power Connectors	8 pin & 6 pin	8 pin & 6 pin
Display Outputs	2xDVI + 2x mDP + HDMI	2xDVI + 2x mDP + HDMI

The Asus HD6970 Direct CU II arrives in a large box with another fantasy style warrior riding a battlehorse. Its all very tongue in cheek, but more importantly there is information on the cooler, clearly displayed at the front.

The bundle includes a folder which contains literature and software, including SmartDoctor, which we will use for overclocking later. Asus also bundle a power converter cable, video adapter and a crossfire cable.

On quick inspection, the card looks identical to the GTX580 we reviewed last week, because they are both using the Direct CU II cooler, which is a metal design. This HD6970 has been redesigned from stratch by the Asus engineers and features a dual fan cooling solution. Just like the GTX580, it weighs a ton. The 80mm fans rest over heatpipes and a parallel aluminum fin array, directly cooling the hardware below. Five copper heatpipes transfer heat to either side of the cooler design ensuring wide cooling coverage.

Asus are also using a ‘Super Alloy Power’ system which is a total overhaul and upgrade of all system components on the PCB. Asus claim a 15% performance increase over the reference board with a 2.5 x life span improvement with 35c cooler operation. We will test some of these claims later.

This board supports CrossfireX in 2, 3 and 4 way configurations. While the reference card demands a 6 pin and an 8 pin power feed, this card requires two 8 pin power connectors, hinting at potential high overclocking capabilities.

The output configuration has again been completely overhauled when compared to the reference design. There are two DVI outputs and four full size displayport connectors for up to 6 screen support.

As we mentioned in the introduction, Asus have opted for a very minor clock increase, leaving the memory at reference figures of 1375mhz (5.5 GBps effective). The core clock has seen a tiny 10mhz increase to 890mhz.

Today we are using one of KitGuru’s most powerful systems, a Core i7 970 based configuration – liquid cooled to 4.33ghz, with a Corsair AX1200 power supply – all built into a sexy Thermaltake Level 10 chassis.

Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.33ghz
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65 (MS-7522)
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10
Power Supply: Corsair Ax1200
Memory: 6GB GSkill Performance Gaming ram @ 902.9 MHz (2:10) @ 9-9-9-24
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Monitors: Hazro Ultra Sharp HZ230Wi, Dell Ultrasharp U2410 Rev A00, Iiyama Prolite E2472HDD x2

Other graphics cards for comparisons:
AMD HD6970
AMD HD6950
AMD HD6870
AMD HD6850
AMD HD5870
AMD HD5850
nVidia GTX570
nVidia GTX460 OC (715/900)

Software:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Catalyst 11.1
Forceware 266.58 WHQL
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
TessMark
ShaderToy
HQV 2.0 Software

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Nikon D300S with R1C1 kit
Keithley Integra unit
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter

Games:
Resident Evil 5
Colin McRae Dirt 2
Lost Planet 2
Dead Space 2
Far Cry 2
Alien V Predator
Mafia 2
BattleField: Bad Company
Tom Clancy H.A.W.X. 2
F1 2010
Crysis Warhead
Metro 2033
Left4Dead2
Battleforge
Medal Of Honor
Devil May Cry 4

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests all games across five closely matched runs and average out the results to get an accurate median figure.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

The Asus HD6970 Direct CU II falls in behind the overclocked GTX460 solution with an average of 52.6 frames per second.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7.  This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.

Unfortunately with such a small overclock, the GTX570 manages to score more than the Asus card on test today. It is very close however.

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

3DMark 11 is the latest and greatest benchmark from Futuremark and the Asus card scores slightly more than the reference board, as we would have expected.

Stone Giant is a benchmark tech demo that showcases and measures DirectX 11 performance using the BitSquid Engine. This is a very heavy tessellation dependant benchmark which runs very well on nVidia hardware.

nVidia solutions, unsurprisingly, score the highest with the Stone Giant benchmark. This is not without some controversy however, in our recent interview with AMD guru Richard Huddy he said “With artificial tests like Stone Giant, which was paid for by nVidia, tessellation can be done down to the single pixel level. Even though that pixel can’t be broken away from the 3 other pixels in its quad. Doing additional processing for each pixel in a group of 4 and then throwing 75% of that work away is just sad”.”

Regardless, it is a popular benchmark and we felt it was worth an inclusion in our review today. The Asus HD6970 Direct CU II equals the overclocked GTX460 with average frame rate scores, but manages to outperform it with minimum frame rate figures.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here.

	Asus HD6970 Direct CU II
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	5
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Skin Tones	7
Total	196

A very high level of image quality for the Asus HD6970 graphics card.

Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.

To test the cards we used a 1080p resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on. We use this with most of our graphics card testing so cards are comparible throughout reviews.

The extra 10mhz doesnt really translate into much of a performance gain with this particular Direct X 11 benchmark, although minimum frame rates are improved by a single frame.

Dead Space 2 is a survival horror third-person shooter. The player controls Isaac Clarke from a third-person point of view, looking over the character’s right shoulder. The game features no HUD elements, relying on holograms projected from the player character and his weapons to show information such as messages and ammunition count, respectively. Player health and stasis is shown by a visual indicators located on Isaac’s back. Isaac must fight an alien organism that infects and takes control of human corpses, turning them into “Necromorphs”, mutating their bodies.

Necromorphs must be dismembered as the alien organism controls host bodies via tentacles extending into their limbs. Other, larger types of Necromorphs that cannot be dismembered will often have yellow, glowing pustules, indicating weak spots. Occasionally, when an enemy gets close enough to Isaac, they will grab a hold of him, and the player must repeatedly press a key to fend off the enemy, with failure to do so leading to death of the player character.

Dead Space 2 has been a firm favourite among KitGuru staff now for the last few weeks, however it isn't a taxing test for any semi powerful modern day graphics hardware. The GTX570 is stop of the performance chart by a clear margin, although all solutions on test today can power through this engine with ease.

Far Cry 2 (commonly abbreviated as “FC2 or “fc2″) is an open-ended first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21, 2008 in North America and on October 23, 2008 in Europe and Australia. It was made available on Steam on October 22, 2008. Crytek, the developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.

Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, though the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day East African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate “The Jackal,” a notorious arms dealer.

Far Cry 2 is still a popular game and the open world environment can be taxing on even the latest hardware available today.

Settings: 1920×1200, D3D10, Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(8x), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Ultra High), Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Ultra High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High), Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High)

nVidia hardware has always performed better with this specific engine and we can see the single card GTX570 leading the way behind the GTX460 SLI configuration, with the Asus HD6970 holding third place.

Resident Evil 5, known in Japan as Biohazard 5, is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on March 5, 2009 in Japan and on March 13, 2009 in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Windows version of the game was released on September 15, 2009 in North America, September 17 in Japan and September 18 in Europe. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

Within its first three weeks of release, the game sold over 2 million units worldwide and became the best-selling game of the franchise in the United Kingdom. As of December, 2009, Resident Evil 5 has sold 5.3 million copies worldwide since launch, becoming the best selling Resident Evil game ever made.

An extra 1fps isn't much, but the performance from the AMD cards in this test leads the way, with the GTX570 falling into fourth place.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2 is an arcade-style flight action game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft. After the events of the first game, the H.A.W.X squadron is sent to Middle East, where a high level of violence is being registered, and the appearance of various insurgents leaders in various hotspots. The team also has to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Russian nuclear weapons. The player will be controlling three groups: one American (Hunter), one British (Munro) and one Russian (Sokov), each with its own pilots and supporting characters. There will also be references to other characters in the Tom Clancy universe.

We are testing in full DX11 mode with all settings to maximum.

As we have said many times before, the HAWX 2 engine is dramatically skewed in favour of nVidia hardware, with a GTX460 outperforming AMD's flagship HD6970 by several frames per second. Still all solutions can handle this engine at 2560×1600.

Mafia II is a gritty drama which chronicles the rise of World War II veteran Vito Scaletta, the son of Sicilian immigrants. As the game progresses, Vito will join the Falcone Crime Family and become a made man. There are 15 chapters in the game, connected into one storyline.

We tested at 2560×1600 with fullscreen: on, antialiasing:on , Anisotrophic filtering: 16x, Shadow Quality: High, Ambient Occlusion: on, Geometry Detail: High and APEX PhysX: medium.

nVidia's GTX570 leads the performance pack by a huge margin. The Asus card on test today doesn't have a high enough overclock to outperform the GTX460 OC, but it only falls a single frame behind, with better performance with minimum frame rates.

Lost Planet 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition which is also made by Capcom, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. The story takes place back on E.D.N. III 10 years after the events of the first game. The snow has melted to reveal jungles and more tropical areas that have taken the place of more frozen regions. The plot begins with Mercenaries fighting against Jungle Pirates.

After destroying a mine, the Mercenaries continue on to evacuate the area, in which a Category-G Akrid appears and attacks them. After being rescued, they find out their evacuation point (Where the Category-G appeared) was a set-up and no pick up team awaited them. Lost Planet 2 runs on the MT-Framework 2.0, an updated version of the engine used in several Capcom-developed games.

We are testing in DX11 mode with all settings on the highest. Direct X 11 features are on high.

Very close between the reference board and the Asus solution, with the improved clocks able to add only a single frame rate of performance.

BattleForge is a video game developed by EA Phenomic and published by Electronic Arts. It was released on Windows in March 2009. A demo was released in the same month. BattleForge is a card based RTS. It revolves around trading, buying and winning through means of micro-transactions. Micro-transactions are not required for playing the game, only for buying new cards.

It supports DirectX 11 providing full support for hardware tesselation.

No average frame rate performance gains from the additional 10mhz, although the minimum frame rate has improved a little. Nothing really noticeable when playing the game.

Medal of Honor’s single-player campaign uses a heavily-modified version of Unreal Engine 3, and its multiplayer uses the Frostbite Engine. The single player campaign takes place in 2002 in Afghanistan.

For half of the game, players assume the role of a DEVGRU operator codenamed “Rabbit”, of AFO Neptune. For the remainder, the player alternates between the roles of a Delta Force sniper code-named “Deuce”, of AFO Wolfpack, as well as Army Ranger Specialist Dante Adams of the 75th Ranger Regiment, and AH-64 Apache gunner Captain Brad “Hawk” Hawkins.

Again, the small core clock increase doesn't really translate into anything noticeable with this engine either. Perfectly playable mind you, and great fun.

Devil May Cry 4 is an action game that was published and developed by Capcom in 2008 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows platforms. The game is the fourth installment to the Devil May Cry series.

In the game, the player controls both Nero and Dante, the game’s protagonist and the series’ title character as they fight enemies in close combat using firearms, swords, and other weapons. The characters Lady and Trish from previous games in the series makes an appearance, along with new characters Nero, Kyrie, Credo, Gloria, and Agnus. The game is set after Devil May Cry but before Devil May Cry 2.

We used Super high settings with HDR on high and 8aa and 16af to improve the image quality as much as possible.

The HD6970 powers through Devil May Cry 4 with ease, delivering a great gaming experience at 5760×1080.

Metro 2033 is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010 for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows.

The game utilizes multi-platform 4A Engine, running on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows. There is some contention regarding whether the engine is based on the pre-release X-Ray engine (as claimed by Sergiy Grygorovych, the founder of GSC Game World, as well as users who have seen the 4A Engine SDK screenshots, citing visual similarities, shared resources, and technical evaluation of the pre-release 4A Engine demo conducted at the request of GSC Game World), or whether the engine is an original development (as claimed by 4A Games and Oles’ Shiskovtsov in particular) who claims it would have been impractical to retrofit the X-ray engine with console support). The PC version includes exclusive features such as DirectX 11 support and has been described as “a love letter to PC gamers” because of the developers’ choice “to make the PC version [especially] phenomenal”.

Metro 2033 is a very taxing game which demands a lot of the hardware involved. We would need to lower image quality settings to get this game perfectly smooth at these settings.

Colin McRae: Dirt 2 (known as Dirt 2 outside Europe and stylised, DiRT) is a racing game released in September 2009, and is the sequel to Colin McRae: Dirt. This is the first game in the McRae series since McRae’s death in 2007. It was announced on 19 November 2008 and features Ken Block, Travis Pastrana, Tanner Foust, and Dave Mirra. The game includes many new race-events, including stadium events. Along with the player, an RV travels from one event to another, and serves as ‘headquarters’ for the player. It features a roster of contemporary off-road events, taking players to diverse and challenging real-world environments. The game takes place across four continents: Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. The game includes five different event types: Rally, Rallycross, ‘Trailblazer,’ ‘Land Rush’ and ‘Raid.’ The World Tour mode sees players competing in multi-car and solo races at new locations, and also includes a new multiplayer mode.

We are testing across three screens in Direct X 11 mode with 4aa and 16af enabled. All settings are switched to high.

Dirt 2 looks fantastic over 3 screens, and the HD6970 is able to keep the frame rates above 30 at all times. Excellent results.

F1 2010 is a video game based on the 2010 season of the Formula One world championship. It is the sequel to the 2009 video game based on the same series. It was released in September 2010 on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows platforms. The game was confirmed by Codemasters on 23 April 2009. The game engine is based on the new EGO 1.5 engine, an unofficially titled evolution of the EGO 1.0 engine that was created specially for the title.

We are testing across three screens with 4aa and 8af enabled and ultra quality settings in DX11 mode.

F1 2010 looks great with this system, just playable at these settings, although a reduction in AA would help increase the frame rates a little more.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation’s award-winning Left 4 Dead.

Like the original, Left 4 Dead 2 is set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic pandemic, and focuses on four survivors fighting against hordes of the infected. The survivors must fight their way through levels, interspersed with safe houses that act as checkpoints, with the goal of reaching a rescue vehicle at the campaign’s finale. The gameplay is procedurally altered by an artificial intelligence engine dubbed the “Director” that monitors the players’ performance and adjust the scenario to provide a dynamic challenge. Several new features have been introduced: new types of infected, melee weapons, and a story-arc that connects the game’s five campaigns together.

No problems for this hardware in powering Valves' somewhat dated Source engine. A very good experience throughout all our test level.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 25c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.

Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.

The Asus Direct CU II cooler is fantastic. When gaming the card peaks at 70c which is around 15c lower than the reference card at similar clock speeds.

As we noted when we last looked at this cooler, the dual fan system spins at very low rpm. 27 percent relates to around 1,400 rpm. Under full load this only rises to 35 percent which equates to around 1,750 rpm. The thermal profile is well optimised with steady fan speeds reported when both idle and under load. No annoying fluctuation which can become distracting.

Return to ambient is a feature we have recently added to our reviews … we measure the time it takes for a solution to return to idle temperatures, immediately after full load. The faster the time, the better the cooler – for example a Noctua NH D14 cooler will return an Intel processor to idle temperatures much faster than a reference cooler. This is a good indication of how quickly a heatsink can dissipate heat.

This cooler is significantly better than the reference design, taking only 18 seconds to return the core to idle temperatures. The reference card can take over 30 seconds to do the same task, while making a lot more noise.

Recently we have changed our method of measuring noise levels. We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. We are using a heatpipe based passive power supply and an Intel SSD to keep noise levels to a minimum. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests. Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

We load the card with FurMark.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

When compared to a reference design, this card is much, much quieter. Even when gaming it is barely audible and will be drowned out by even a few high quality chassis fans.

To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. The best way to get maximum load results is by using Furmark, and even though it is not indicative of a real world situation it shows the limits the card can theoretically demand. The ‘gaming’ results are measured when playing Crysis Warhead and is a more valuable result to take from this.

Power consumption at idle is fantastic, only taking 20 watts. This rises to around 189 watts when gaming, and Furmark pushes it to 257 watts.

To overclock the Asus HD6970 Direct CU II today, we used SmartDoctor which Asus supply on the software disc. This allows for voltages to be increased.

Smart doctor is an application which can reside in the taskbar, much like MSI’s Afterburner software. At the bottom of the program are sliders which allow for VCore voltage increases and core clock and memory overclocking.

Yes, you didn't read the figures wrong. A 24 percent increase on the core to a mind blowing 1103mhz. Memory increased by just over 11 percent to 1528mhz (6112 mhz effective). Card temperatures only rose by 4c under load which is very impressive.

This huge manual overclock means that the ASUS HD6970 Direct CU II is able to outperform two overclocked GTX460 cards in SLi, the first time ever a HD6970 has achieved this in our labs.

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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