Asus HD7970 Tri Crossfire Review

The Asus HD7970 graphics card adheres to the AMD reference design which was certainly impressive in December last year. Shortly afterwards XFX released their HD7970 Double Dissipation version of the card which featured a custom PCB design and proprietary two fan cooling solution. This pushed the technology boundaries further, even within the space of a few short weeks. The XFX card is such a huge improvement on the reference solution, that returning to the AMD design is more than a little underwhelming today.

There is no doubt that AMD's HD7970 is the new yardstick to measure single GPU performance, however we had hoped that ASUS might release a card with a custom cooling solution. Sadly, it seems this version is still some time away from retail release.

The Asus HD7970 uses the latest AMD reference cooler, which is an improvement over the previous revision, however it is significantly outperformed by the two fan cooler on the XFX card. The low level of noise is unfortunately compounded when adding two more cards to the mix. Dual HD7970 Crossfire can be slightly distracting, but in 3 way, the noise levels are intrusive. I have a feeling that three of the XFX cards in Crossfire would make for a more compelling scenario.

AMD have nailed Tessellation performance with the latest cards, and three of these are more than a match for two GTX 590's. If you can manage to find a GTX590 for sale, they cost around £650, so you would need £1,300 for a Quad SLi configuration. These Asus HD7970's retail for £499.99 each, so  three of them would set you back £1,500 …. or £200 more. They are faster than the dual GTX590's, but they also generate significantly more noise, and I honestly wouldn't be willing to live with it.

Not every game reaps noticeable rewards when upgrading from two HD7970's to three HD7970's. There is clearly still some work ahead for AMD on the 3 way CFx driver front, as some game engines don't record benefits from adding a third card.

The Asus HD7970 is without question a fantastic graphics card, but we would wait for ASUS to update their range shortly with a proprietary cooling solution. The custom cards might cost a little extra, but it seems pointless to buy one now with the inferior reference cooler.

Pros:

• HD7970 is the fastest single GPU on the market.
• Crossfire performance is staggeringly good.

Cons:

• Reference cooler.
• Can get noisy in 2 and 3 way configurations.

Kitguru says: A great card, but a more inspired release from Asus is surely just around the corner.

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