Overclocking at the push of a button
It’s actually quite simple: You press the button dubbed the “Lethal Boost Button” while the system is running and simply restart the system. This enables the “Lethal Boost” mode, and the card uses the higher clock rates stored in the second BIOS, as well as an extremely sharp fan profile. Let’s first look at the initial situation ex works:
When the button comes into play as just described, the action starts. Next to the switch, we see the two Crossfire ports and a row of LEDs that inform the user about various operating states or too high temperatures.
In “Lethal Boost” mode, things look a bit different. Besides the higher clock rates, PowerTune now offers a whopping 50% increase instead of the obligatory 20%. But does it help? Let’s be surprised.
Clock confusion and a capital error
We already noticed it during the launch test of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition: If you manually clock the card even 1 MHz higher or lower than the factory clock, the downclocking to the base clock no longer works and the card behaves like a normal and well-known Tahiti XT. Worse, the disadvantage even becomes significant, because on this card the automatic clock reduction in idle no longer works after a manual overclock. Even when idle, the card continues to run at 1201 MHz, and Zero Core Power no longer works either. The 50 watts measured in idle are downright silly and absolutely out of place. Nevertheless, we will also use the fixed clock for the benchmarks to enable a direct comparison to the normal 7970 Non-Ghz edition.
Our test system
VGA testbench (open structure) | |
---|---|
Processor | Core i5 2500K @4.5 GHz |
Cooler | Prolimetech Supermega + Noiseblocker Multiframe |
Memory | 4 x 4 GB Kingston HyperX 1600 |
Mainboard | Gigabyte Z68X UD7-B3 |
Operating system and drivers | Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Catalyst 12.6 WHQL |
Testbench | Lian Li PC-T60A ATX Test Bench |
Preliminary benchmarks under normal conditions
More clock, more power? Before we start with the rest of the measurements, we first send the card over the small benchmark track to be able to better classify the later results.
In the second test, we use Metro 2033 and additionally compare the clock fixed at 1201 MHz:
Up to a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels, a Gigabyte 7970 SOC Windforce 5X overclocked at 1.2 GHz is about as fast, but has the lower power consumption when the clock is fixed.
- 1 - Einführung und Übersicht
- 2 - Unboxing und Features
- 3 - Platine, Kühlsystem und Stromversorgung
- 4 - Taktraten und der Lethal Boost
- 5 - Takt und Leistungsaufnahme bei Vollast
- 6 - Takt und Leistungsaufnahme beim Gaming
- 7 - Temperaturen und Lüfterdrehzahlen
- 8 - Lautstärkevergleiche im Video
- 9 - Wir bauen ein Eyefinity-System
- 10 - Eyefinity 6 und Benchmarkergebnisse
- 11 - Eyefinity 4 und Benchmarkergebnisse
- 12 - Zusammenfassung und Fazit
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