ocaholic - Board

In den vergangenen Wochen konnte man sich kaum noch retten vor NVIDIA Launches. Da sind wir doch durchaus glücklich wiedereinmal etwas über die rote Fraktion schreiben zu dürfen. Vor allem wenn man sich vor Augen hält, dass es sich bei der Matrix HD 7970 von ASUS um eine der besten Radeon HD 7970 Grafikkarten überhaupt handeln könnte. So findet man nicht nur eine äusserst umfangreiche Spannungsversorgung mit 20 Phasen, sondern auch noch ASUS' Direct CU II Kühler sowie zahlreiche zusätzliche Features und einen wohl dimensionierten Lieferumfang.





Review: ASUS Matrix HD 7970 Platinum

Thank you, fixed

I guess softwares and BIOS aren't fully ready, thats the reason of our issues with overclocking and I guess the posponing NDA too, but normal use is 100 % fine.

Will make another article anyway, not happy with the current one and how things went

Chatting with ASUS' tech support TW now, hope we fix it...

http://www.ocaholic.ch/xoops/html/module….php?itemid=901

See I wasn't the only one, a lot of overclockers and reviewers having problems with the card:
http://kingpincooling.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1989

I like to play around with words so let's make a drama :

1) DirectCU II cooler, kind of...

ASUS' following slide as well as Matrix's Box and Matrix's specifications on ASUS' official website state that the 7970 Matrix (Platinum) has a DirectCU II Cooler. Aka "Heatpipes in direct contact with the GPU".



Well this picture we took from the cooler of our sample shows that there is an extra metal plate between the heatpipes and the GPU. Which makes it by definition a non DirectCU cooler. ASUS DirectCU Specs




2 ) LN2 Mode and VGA Hotwire not working.



According to slides, Matrix's box and ASUS' website, the 7970 Matrix has a LN2 Mode as well as VGA Hotwire function. Aka: "Ultimate Overvolting [...] so you don't need to worry about risky soldering.".
Well it's not really working well, and we aren't the only one who didn't manage to get them working on the card as you can see here.

ASUS sent a rework modification to overclockers so they get those features working. You have to flash the BIOS and MCU with a new one and you need to remove some SMD from the PCB and short some points. Aka: you need to mod/solder a card that is supposed to be mod/solderless.

PS: Our sample should be the retail version.

EDIT: ASUS replied to me, the rework is for Extreme Overclockers only and bring those features to an higher level. Those features should be working in the first place for a standard use.

EDIT2: As I wasn't 100 % sure about point#3 I removed it.

I apologize to ASUS for point #2 and #3.

2.) I tried again this week end as I got my new card. Without any mod it's working like a charm now. I have now full options under GPUTweak I never had before.
Looks like our first sample was not working well at all.
Now that I did everything step by step I can actually overclock it well (voltages, frequency without any limits without mods and directly into GPUTweak).


3.) The graphics card used by Rsannino for the 3DMark03 World Record was actually a 7970 Matrix, my source misled me by saying it was different. I double checked and the PCB was the same, only some components on the PCB were different which is normal and is called modifications.



But still it's not a DirectCU

You need to flash MCU and BIOS for special ones anyway for Pro Overclockers (to unlock GPU freq up to 2200 MHz, vGPU up to 1.8v and so under GPUTweak). But I didn't need to solder anything on the card or short anything to get this working this time.