They do still exist, the graphics cards that also stand out optically and technically in equal measure. You can’t reinvent the wheel, but you can achieve one or two performance improvements via the tires. This realization probably also prompted Gigabyte to turn the cooling principle upside down in the truest sense of the word. With the new Windforce 5X cooling system, the waste heat is consistently directed away from the motherboard to the upper edge of the board, where it is then released into the environment via (hopefully existing, because absolutely necessary) openings in the case’s side panel. This solution is interesting not only because of the promised thermal relief of the inner workings, but also because of the way it is technically implemented. After all, large-diameter fans cannot be used, and the required intake pressure must be generated in a belt-like manner along the entire length of the stack cooler above the board.
We are now interested in 3 things in detail at the same time: how loud, how cool and how fast does this card act. The fear that the 5 small fans could even surpass the inferno of a hurricane did not come true in its entirety. Nevertheless, we had to lend a hand this time as well to get an optimal result. The test on the following pages will show whether it was worth it. The frontal view already looks quite martial. The anodized metallic cover is purely optical, the cooling block behind it is closed and attached to the PCB with 6 screws.
Technical data and preliminary remark
Gigabyte doesn’t rely on AMD’s Radeon 7970 GHz edition firmware and chips, and that’s a good thing. In view of the rather voluminous cooling, it really tickles the fingers to explore the clock limits of this card, which would be extremely hindered by the restrictions of the rather lovelessly implemented regulation in the GHz edition including “Turbo mode”. The card is delivered with a factory clock of “only” 1080 MHz, which is also achieved with every card in the reference system as a user.
And so it will also be our task later to find out how far you can overclock this card with normal means. The memory is quite low and the clock is left at the 1375 MHz of the reference system, although at least the marketing slides show 1550 MHz. The RAM is from Hynix and easily surpassed the 1.5 GHz mark in later tests, but more on that later.
The card has one dual-link DVI, one HDMI and two mini display port connectors. The technical parameters are now revealed in the tabular overview:
| Gigabyte 7970 SOC Windforce 5X | Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition |
Radeon HD 7970 | GeForce GTX 680 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stream processors | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | 1536 |
| Texture units | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| Full Color ROPs | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| GPU clock | 1080 MHz | 1000 MHz Base 1050 MHz Boost |
925 MHz | 1006 MHz Base 1058 MHz Boost |
| Texture fill rate | 138.2 Gtex/s | 134.4 Gtex/s | 118.4 Gtex/s | 128.8 Gtex/s |
| Memory clock | 1375 MHz | 1500 MHz | 1375 MHz | 1502 MHz |
| Memory bus | 384-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory throughput | 264 GB/s | 288 GB/s | 264 GB/s | 192.3 GB/s |
| Graphics memory | 3 GB GDDR5 | 3 GB GDDR5 | 3 GB GDDR5 | 2 GB GDDR5 |
| The size | 365 mm² | 365 mm² | 365 mm² | 294 mm² |
| Transistors in billions | 4,31 | 4,31 | 4,31 | 3,54 |
| Structure size | 28 nm | 28 nm | 28 nm | 28 nm |
| Power connections | 2 x 8-pn | 1 x 8-pin, 1 x 6-pin | 1 x 8-pin, 1 x 6-pin | 2 x 6-pin |
| Power consumption maximum (TDP) |
300 watt | 275 W | 250 W | 195 W |
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