Sapphire Pure Black X79N Motherboard and HD7970 GPU Review

1. Introduction2. Sapphire HD7970 Graphics Card3. Sapphire HD7970 (Super High Res Gallery)4. Sapphire Pure Black X79N Motherboard5. Sapphire Pure Black X79N Motherboard (Super High Res Gallery)6. Sapphire Pure Black X79N (Bios & Overclocking)7. Testing Methodology8. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage9. Synthetic: 3DMark 1110. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark11. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra12. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit13. Synthetic: SSD Performance14. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.015. Real World: 3D Rendering16. Real World: Media Encoding17. Real World: BluRay Playback18. Real World: Flash HD Playback19. Real World: Handbrake 9.520. Gaming: F1 201121. Gaming: HomeFront22. Gaming: Alien V Predator23. Gaming: Dead Island24. Gaming: Tom Clancy HAWX 225. Gaming: Resident Evil 526. Gaming: Lost Planet 227. Gaming: Far Cry 228. Technical: HD7970 Acoustics Performance29. Technical: HD7970 Thermal Dynamics30. Technical: HD7970 Power Consumption31. Technical: HD7970 Overclocking32. Closing Thoughts33. View All Pages

Today we are taking a look at the latest ‘Pure Black' X79N motherboard from Sapphire, based around Intel's enthusiast X79 platform (LGA2011). We have reviewed many Sapphire motherboards in the past and have admired their build quality and overall level of performance, even if their bios configurations have been lagging a little behind industry leaders such as ASUS. We are pairing this motherboard up with Sapphire's high end AMD HD7970.

Sapphire have been a little later to market than other manufacturers in releasing their X79 solution … Kitguru has already looked at various models from ASUS, Gigabyte and ASRock.

The Pure Black X79N has dual Gigabit lan, USB 3.0, SATA 6Gbps and BlueTooth support and is built with quality Japanese Polymer solid capacitors, Sapphire diamond chokes and 30u gold plating.

Is this the foundation for a kick ass performance system build to start 2012 with a bang?

Sapphire love 3d rendered babes, and this time they have opted for a well endowed army lass. Sapphire have listed some specifications along the bottom of the box, as well as the 3GB memory capacity top right.

The Sapphire bundle is extensive and includes a software CD, product overview, Crossfire cable and a variety of power and video converter cables.

This particular card is based around the AMD reference design, which features the new improved cooling system.

The fan is broader and incorporates a new blade design which is rated to deliver lower noise emissions and enhanced cooling efficiency. The wider blades also improve airflow.

Sapphire's HD7970 is Crossfire capable in 2, 3 and 4 way configurations. This card features a dual BIOS toggle switch. Setting 1 is the unprotected mode allowing the end user to create their own bios configuration. Setting 2 is the factory default.

The card takes power from a 6 pin and an 8 pin connector.

It is a dual slot design with a full sized DVI and HDMI port, and two mini Display Port connectors. It is Eyefinity capable and can power up to 6 displays. The HD7970 is the first GPU that can simultaneously output multiple, independent audio streams from the HDMI and mini Displayport connectors at the rear of the card. This is also the first GPU to support 3GHz HDMI with frame packing support for Stereo 3D.

The Tahiti core is protected under a partial cover. The memory onboard is high specification Hynix GDDR5. AMD are using a Chil controller, which is a dual loop 6+2 multiphase PWM design. This offers dynamic voltage control and features input voltage management, allowing up to three input voltages to be monitored to ensure adequate power is delivered to suit the load.

The HD7970 is built from 4.3 billion 28nm transistors.

The HD7970 Tahiti core operates at 925mhz, and the 3GB of GDDR 5 memory runs at 1375mhz (5.5Gbps effective) which is connected via a 384 bit interface for over 264GB/sec of bandwidth. The card features 2,048 stream processors, is fully PCI E Gen3 compliant (up to 32 gb/s of data bandwidth) and incorporates new AMD Powertune and ZeroCore power technology. There are dual geometry engines, eight render back ends, 32 color ROPs per clock and 128 Z/stencil ROPs per clock. We noticed in our launch review that the HD7970 would have a problem holding horizontal sync with specific monitors. This Sapphire card didn't experience any of these problems, so we would blame the early engineering sample.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.

The Sapphire Pure Black X79N motherboard arrives in a lovely black and silver box which looks very futuristic. There are a list of the primary specifications along the bottom of the box which is ideal for presentation in a retail store environment.

The Sapphire bundle is better than previous boards, although they still include the full user manual only on the optical disc, which is slightly disappointing. Sapphire supply a USB 3.0 header with rear mounting bracket and screws, 8 SATA cables, I/O backplate and a quick installation guide.

The Sapphire Pure Black X79N is finished with a black PCB (it is actually very dark brown) and blue ports. Not the most eye catching of boards when compared directly against the ASRock X79 Extreme9 or Asus Rampage IV Extreme, but nicely built.

The CPU socket has plenty of space to fit large coolers, with a large heatsink positioned at the very top of the board to help with VRM cooling. There is a single 8 pin CPU power connector here, along with several 3 and 4 pin fan headers. The board has 4 DIMM memory slots, which support 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB DRAMs, for a total of 32GB of memory. Speeds are rated right up to 2,400mhz (OC). Some competitor boards which we have reviewed before are equipped with 8 memory slots, but they are generally priced at £300 or more.

Like many X79 solutions, the X79N board has an active cooling solution beside the SATA ports. This is connected directly into the motherboard.

There are a total of six PCI E slots on the board. PCIE slot 1 is x16 and is Gen3 ready. PCIE slot 2 is x8 and is also Gen 3 ready. Slots 3 to 6 are controlled by the NF200 chip. PCIE 3 is x16/x8 rated, PCIE 4 is x8 rated, PCIE 5 is x16/x8 rated, and PCIE 6 is x8 rated.

The X79N has eight sata ports. The black ports are SATA 2 (3Gbps) rated and the red ports are SATA 3 (6Gbps) rated. The two red ports at the far right are controlled by the Marvell 88SE9128 chip and the rest are controlled by the onboard X79 chipset.

The board is equipped with an LED diagnostic readout, CMOS reset button, and a system reset and power button to the right. This board has two bioses, which can be toggled via the BIOS_SEL switch. Ideal for separate configurations or to recover from a failed boot problem. Sapphire have populated the board with 5 x 3 pin fan headers in various positions, and a 4 pin CPU header. We always like to see 4 or more headers to suit a variety of chassis configurations. Along the bottom of the board are 2x USB 2.0 headers and 2x USB 3.0 headers.

Sapphire have included a 6 pin PCI-E power connector above the PCIE slots to deliver extra power to the board. We didn't need to use this during testing, but it may help with heavily GPU loaded configurations.

The rear panel has a PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector with a total of six USB 2.0 connectors. There is coaxial and optical S/PDIF out and bluetooth capabilities. Sapphire have included two eSATA ports, two 10/100/1000 LAN ports, four USB 3.0 ports and the usual array of audio ports.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.

Sapphire are using their latest American Megatrends QBIOS implementation, a fancy name for a UEFI interface. We like the Sapphire interface as it provides live update for voltage, temperatures and speeds, at the bottom of every panel. Very useful.

The Performance tab is where all the overclocking action takes place, so we will come back here shortly.

The Advanced tab allows changes to be made for onboard controllers such as USB and SATA. The H/W monitor section is available here, always a handy page to verify temperatures.

Sapphire also include a motherboard based version of their TriXX software tool, which is useful for Windows based monitoring.

The Chipset tab allows for changes to two settings – VT-d and I/OAT. The Boot menu allows the end user to change drive priority between optical and hard drives. Everything works as we would expect.

Passwords can be configured in the Security tab, and the Exit menu allows the user to save and reset settings, and to override boot settings. At the very bottom is the S-BIOS Flash Utility.

Overclocking the 3960x Extreme Edition processor proved straightforward enough, simply change the core ratio limits for each processor state while adjusting the core voltage to suit. It was possible to achieve 4.2ghz from this board without changing any of the voltage settings, which was impressive and ideal for an end user who is nervous when changing voltages.

We ran into some initial teething problems with the shipping bios, unable to achieve memory speeds above 1600mhz, regardless of settings.

Sapphire sent us their latest beta bios which cured many of our initial problems. Flashing to the latest beta bios was a straightforward process, taking a couple of minutes.

Above, we were able to get high grade G.Skill memory booting at 2,400mhz but total stability was not achieved, regardless of any settings we tried. We tested with G.Skill and Corsair 2,400mhz rated memory. Backing down to 2,133mhz worked fine.

Overclocking Sapphire boards is slightly different, as you work on a principle of +/- mV. To get 1.46V for instance it requires around +300mV. We achieved an overclock of 4.8ghz with voltage set to 1.5. For 24/7 use we would be happy with 4.2ghz, as this required no voltage increases at all, meaning a very quiet, cool running system when paired up with the Corsair H100.

4.6ghz was possible with +200mW (1.46v) which will suit a wide audience who own a quality aircooling solution.

We are using our new favourite chassis, the stunning Cooler Master Cosmos II, which we reviewed recently, over here. We are using 16GB of G.Skill set @ 1866mhz.

System validation is available over here.

Processor: Intel i7 3960X EE.
Motherboard: Sapphire X79N (SAX79077.ROM)
Cooler: Corsair H100 Liquid Cooler
Memory: 16GB G.Skill Ripjaws 1866mhz 10-10-10-28

Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: Cooler Master Cosmos II
Monitors: Dell U3011
Boot Drive: Crucial C300
Secondary Drive: Patriot Pyro SE 240GB

Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise (64-bit).
FRAPS Professional.
SiSoft Sandra.
Windows Media Player/VLC Player.
CPUz.
GPUz.
CPUID Hardware Monitor.
Cinebench R11.5 (64-bit).
Cyberlink PowerDVD 11 Ultra.
Cyberlink MediaEspresso.
CrystalDiskMark.
3D Mark Vantage.
3DMark 11.
PCMark 7.

Games:
HomeFront
Alien V Predator
Dead Island
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
Resident Evil 5
Lost Planet 2
Far Cry 2
F1 2011
Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Comparison Systems:

AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Processor: AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire

Intel Core i7 990X
Processor: Intel Core i7 990x
Cooler: Corsair H100
Motherboard: Gigabyte G1 Assassin
Memory: Kingston HyperX 6GB
Drives: Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Chassis: Antec Twelve Hundred

Intel Core i7 2700k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2700k
Cooling: ThermalTake Frio OCK
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Chassis: Silverstone Raven 3.
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory
Storage: Intel 80GB SSD (boot) / Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD.

Intel Core i7 2600k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600k
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen 3
Cooler: Intel XTS-100H
Memory: ADATA 1600mhz DDR3 8GB (2x4GB)
Graphics Card: HIS HD6970 IceQ Mix
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
Boot Drive: Intel 510 SSD 250GB

Intel Core i5 2500k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2500k
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 CPU Cooler
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory 8GB (2x4GB)
Graphics Card: HIS HD6970 IceQ Mix
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Boot Drive: Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD.

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Graphics Card: HIS HD6970 IceQ Mix
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire

Comparison System for Game Testing:

Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.6ghz
Graphics: HD6990 (880 core)
HD6970
HD6950
HD6870
HD6790
HD6770
HD6670
GTX590
GTX580
GTX570
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)

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.

Overall scores with this Direct X 10 benchmark are indicative of a high performance system, scoring over 31,000 points.

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.

A score of almost 8,000 points from a single GPU would have been impossible this time a few months ago, but the HD7970 brings a new level of performance to the high end sector.

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

We use the following settings: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing off. Anisotrophy 4, Tessellation normal. Shaders High. Stereo 3D disabled. API: Direct X 11.

As we recorded with our launch review, AMD's tessellation performance has reached an entirely different zone with the release of the HD7970. This Sapphire based system averages over 80 frames per second at our high resolution settings, which is an immensely impressive result.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

Performance falls in line with what we would expect from a performance based 3960X EE system. This 1866mhz quad channel memory configuration scores around 43 GB/s. 2,400mhz memory by comparison would score around 50 GB/s.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.

As we already know, the 3960X EE is a powerhouse when it comes to rendering and encoding duties, way out ahead of the previous leader, the 990X EE.

Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0.1 x64.

The Pyro 240GB SE Solid State drive is very quick, and performance with the Sapphire X79N motherboard is very strong, falling in line with what we would expect.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

Strong performance with the excellent ATTO Disk Benchmark software, scoring almost 560 MB/s seq read and 530 MB/s seq write.

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

	Sapphire HD7970
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 score of 196 points is class leading right now, the ideal solution for high definition media playback.

V2011 is the first release of 3DStudio Max to fully support the Windows 7 operating system. This is a professional level tool that many people use for work purposes and our test will show any possible differences between board design today.

Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 software offers compelling new techniques to help bring designs to life by aggregating data, iterating ideas, and presenting the results.

Streamlined, more intelligent data exchange workflows and innovative new modeling and visualization tools help significantly increase designers’ creativity and productivity, enabling them to better explore, validate, and communicate the stories behind their designs.

Major new features:

• Slate: A node based material editor.
• Quicksilver: Hardware renderer with multithreaded rendering engine that utilizes both CPU and GPU.
• Extended Graphite Modeling Toolset
• 3ds Max Composite: A HDRI-capable compositor based on Autodesk Toxik.
• Viewport Canvas toolset for 3D and 2D texture painting directly in the viewport
• Object Painting: use 3D geometry as ‘brushes’ on other geometry
• Character Animation Toolkit (CAT): now integrated as part of the base package
• Autodesk Material Library: Over 1200 new photometrically accurate shaders
• Additional file format support: includes native support for Sketchup, Inventor
• FBX file linking
• Save to Previous Release (2010)

We created a new 8200×3200 scene and recorded the time for the hardware to finalise the render.

Good scores, although a little lower than other X79 systems, as we are using slightly slower 1866mhz memory this time. Rendering performance can be affected by memory bandwidth.

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are using the newest version which has been optimised for Sandybridge processors.

Graphics acceleration is disabled to measure pure processor performance.

This software doesn't use all available processing time, instead allowing the end user to encode in the background, primarily unaffected by the demand of MediaEspresso. A time of 8 minutes and 47 seconds is good, well in advance of the last generation 990X system.

Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our BluRay and conversion tests.

Cyberlink PowerDVD 11 is one of the finest solutions for the BluRay experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the new Bluray Disc of ‘The Road’.

The Sapphire system produces great bluray playback results, with plenty of CPU cycles free for multitasking duties.

Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online.

No problems playing back high definition Flash material, with minimal CPU demand, around 6 percent.

Handbrake is a fantastic free program which we wanted to include to confirm findings with Media Espresso, earlier in the review. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

We used the latest V 0.9.5 for testing today across all platforms. We encoded an DVD.MPG file.

Another good test to show the architectural benefits of the new X79 platform, taking only 4 minutes and 20 seconds to complete the encoding task at reference clock speeds.

F1 2011 is the newest Direct X 11 racing game from industry pioneers CodeMasters. The 2011 Formula One season is the 62nd FIA Formula One season. The original calendar consisted of twenty rounds, including the inaugural running of the Indian Grand Prix before the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Pirelli returns to the sport as tyre supplier for all teams, taking over from Bridgestone. Red Bull Racing are the reigning Constructor’s Champions. Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel is the defending Drivers’ Champion, one of five World Champions appearing on the grid.

Fantastic results from the Sapphire HD7970 system, averaging almost 80 frames per second at these high settings.

Homefront’s PC version was developed by Digital Extremes, a Canadian developer responsible for numerous Unreal Tournament games and Bioshock ports. It received mixed reports, although Kitguru really likes the single player aspect of this title. The engine isn’t the most demanding on the market, but it requires decent partnering hardware for solid frame rates at 1080p.

A fun game to play and it looks great with the AMD HD7970 at these high settings. No performance problems either, averaging well over 70 frames per second.

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 comparable throughout reviews.

Alien V Predator is a very intensive Direct X 11 benchmark which can bring lesser systems to a grinding halt at these settings. Good overall performance from the Sapphire HD7970 system, averaging 92 frames per second.

Dead Island is a first person horror action-adventure video game developed by Techland and published by Deep Silver for Microsoft Windows. It is centered on the challenge of survival on a zombie-infested open world island with a major emphasis on melee combat. It is rather good fun, for a short while, but it becomes repetitive.

An engine which doesn't tax modern high end hardware as shown by the results above. The Sapphire HD7970 system averages around 177 fps at these settings and could easily cope with higher resolutions.

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.

This engine has always favoured Nvidia hardware, however AMD have optimised their drivers in recent months to enhance overall performance. The HD7970 delivers comparable performance as the GTX580 with this particular game.

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.

A fantastic Direct X 10 game, which proves a great experience on the latest AMD hardware, averaging around 160 fps at these settings.

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, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. We don’t really enjoy playing this game, but the engine is a great Direct X 11 test of modern hardware.

Another nvidia favourite, but the architectural changes brought to market with the HD7970 and updated drivers have ensured that AMD are now competitive. The Sapphire HD7970 system provides similar performance to the GTX580.

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).

A great open world environment based game which runs better on Nvidia hardware as shown above. That said, no one would complain about the HD7970 performance levels, averaging almost 100 fps.

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 closed 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.

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

No surprise that the results are the same as the reference AMD HD7970, as the cards are identical. The card is a vast improvement on older reference cooled solutions, although it is still louder than the custom third party coolers we have tested from companies such as Sapphire, MSI and XFX.

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.

Temperatures are a little better than the reference board we tested last month, perhaps because we applied high grade Noctua thermal paste to this card before testing.

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. We measure results while gaming in Crysis Warhead and record the results.

In such an energy aware climate, AMD are making a big deal out of their new ‘ZeroCore Power’ technology. Many solutions today use power gating, clock gating and memory compression to reduce idle power requirements, but ZeroCore power technology can completely power down the core GPU while the rest of the system remains active.

The card demands only 4 watts of power when in the long idle power state. This rises to a maximum of 215 watts when loaded with a high demand game, averaging often around 190-200 watts with some titles. When loaded with Furmark this rises to just over 270 watts.

Today we are using the latest beta version of Sapphire's TriXX tool for overclocking duties.

Overclocking with the TriXX tool is easy. We managed to achieve a 1047mhz core overclock which translates to a healthy 13.1% increase. It is possible to get higher than this, but we noticed some slight artifacting with some stress tests, so we aimed for the lowest ‘100% artifact free' result.

The HD7990 overclock helped to boost overall performance in 3DMark 11 from 7919 points to 8667 points, which is an incredible result for this system.

Sapphire Pure Black X79N Motherboard:

Sapphire released a diverse selection of polished, competent products last year and 2012 is certainly starting on a positive note with the release of their excellent Pure Black X79N motherboard. We were initially concerned as we received the board a while ago with a very early, slightly unstable beta bios. This bios didn't want to work at all with memory clocked faster than 1600mhz, regardless of manual tweaking. Fortunately, their latest bios is a huge improvement and memory up to 2133mhz worked without a hitch.

When compared directly to competitor flagship products such as the ASRock X79 Extreme9 or the Asus Rampage IV Extreme the Sapphire bios still needs some work. We love the concept of having an array of voltage, clock speed and temperature readings on display universally throughout the bios, but it still lacks several bios settings which the hard core enthusiast audience would expect – such as more sophisticated loadline settings. The ability to directly key in voltage settings would also be welcomed. We also couldn't get 2,400mhz memory to run without some issue, although Sapphire say they are committed to updating their code on a regular basis. Additionally, we would expect retail bioses to offer more stability and improved memory support. There have been multiple bioses released for this board in the last week alone as Sapphire gear up for official launch shortly.

Sapphire motherboards are normally a little more expensive than competing products, although we have no confirmed pricing of the X79N as we go to publication today. We would however expect it to retail for around £235-£250 inc vat … our best educated guess at this time. After all, it has half the memory slots of the leading X79 motherboards available around the £300-£330 price point, and 4 fewer SATA ports than the ASRock X79 Extreme9 which is priced at £300 inc vat.

We have no hesitation recommending Sapphire's Pure Black X79N due to the class leading build quality, fantastic overall performance and efficient board layout. That said, the bios isn't as impressive as the leading ASUS or ASRock solutions, but Sapphire are working hard to continually improve the code and the latest beta bios has noticeably enhanced the product.

The Sapphire Pure Black X79N is definitely worth buying, but it doesn't quite reach the staggering level set by the leading ASUS solutions around the same price point.

Pros:

• Great build quality.
• Overclocks well.
• Very stable.
• Ideal pairing for the Sapphire HD7970 graphics card.

Cons:

• We couldn't get 2,400mhz memory to work flawlessly.
• Bios needs a few more features and enhancement before it can match the big players.
• A full printed manual should be supplied, not just on the disc.

Sapphire HD7970 Graphics Card:

The AMD HD7970 is a fantastic product and we were suitably impressed when we published our launch article just before Christmas last year. There is not much we can add to our closing thoughts, because the Sapphire HD7970 is based around the reference AMD design, with Sapphire branding. This is the first time we have seen a retail bundle, and we appreciate all the video adapters which Sapphire supply.

The HD7970 sets a new performance standard in the high end, ousting the GTX580 from the single GPU top spot, without breaking a sweat. Scores over 8,000 in 3Dmark 11 were previously only possible with the GTX590 and HD6990, and multi card Crossfire/SLI configurations.

The reference cooling solution is a step forward for AMD, as the new blade design produces a lot of air, while reducing noise emissions. There is no doubt that custom third party cooling solutions will improve the situation further, but we will have to wait a while longer before we can test a Toxic or VaporX version of the HD7970.

The only problem with the HD7970 is the same concern we had on launch day – the pricing. At around £450, the HD7970 is a considerable investment and only £70 less than the faster, last generation dual GPU HD6990, if you can manage to get your hands on one that is. With prices of custom cooled GTX580's dropping all the time, you need to really think hard and long about that £70+ premium. Is the extra performance something you really need?

Obviously in this ultra high end sector price concerns are secondary, as hardcore AMD fans will already be budgeting for one, or two HD7990's. We can say if performance is your primary concern then you can't get any better than the HD7970.

The only problem for the plethora of reference AMD HD7970's that have been released today is that there is a new class leader, the XFX R7970 Double Dissipation with advanced, proprietary cooling solution. This card is significantly better than the reference AMD design and we hope that Sapphire can release a HD7970 VaporX or Toxic Edition soon to offer a challenge.

Pros:

• Fastest single GPU card on the market.
• power drain is good, considering the performance.
• We like the new reference cooler.
• Sapphire warranty and product support is highly rated.

Cons:

• Single fan.
• The HD7970's cost around £450, which is a lot of cash.

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