ASUS Matrix Radeon HD 7970 Platinum Video Card Review NCIX Tech Tips

The Asus Matrix 7970 is a high-end graphics card that boasts an array of exclusive features and technologies that set it apart from other cards on the market. One of the most notable aspects of this card is its dual eight pin power connectors, which keep the beast powered and ready to tackle demanding tasks. In addition, the card features a unique handpicked selection process for its Platinum edition cards, ensuring that only the best components are used.

The Asus Matrix 7970 also comes with a range of exclusive features that enhance its performance and functionality. The TurboFan button allows users to push their GPU to maximum speeds for overclocking, while the GPU Tweak feature enables manual adjustments to be made to the card's settings using onboard buttons. The Safe Mode feature takes this one step further by allowing users to revert to default settings with a clear CMOS-type effect on the graphics card itself.

Another notable aspect of the Asus Matrix 7970 is its use of advanced solid capacitors, specifically Japanese-made Nikicon GT series capacitors. These capacitors offer up to five times the lifetime and better tolerance for higher temperatures, making them ideal for high-performance applications like overclocking. This focus on reliability and performance is reflected in the card's ability to withstand extreme conditions without dying.

The back of the PCB features a range of useful components and connectors, including solder points for monitoring voltages and adjusting settings, as well as a VGA hotwire port for easy overvoltage capabilities. The card also boasts three gigs of memory, making it an ideal choice for surround multi-display configurations. Additionally, its dual DVI and quad DisplayPort outputs allow users to drive six displays natively without any adapters.

One of the most interesting features of the Asus Matrix 7970 is its built-in load indicator, which changes colors to indicate the level of load on the GPU. This feature provides a visual indication of the card's workload, making it easier for users to monitor performance and adjust settings accordingly.

The card is also compatible with multiple multi-GPU configurations, including two-way, three-way, and four-way Crossfire setups. This makes it an excellent choice for those who want to push their system to its limits using a range of high-performance GPUs.

In terms of real-world performance, the Asus Matrix 7970 delivers impressive results in various benchmarks and games. In Battlefield 3 at ultra settings, the card outperforms the reference card by around 12%, while also surpassing the MSI GTX 680 Lightning edition at its maximum overclock. However, when compared to the high-end 680 edition in non-overclocked scenarios, the Matrix falls slightly behind.

When it comes to scaling and performance, the Asus Matrix 7970 shows excellent results, with a consistent difference of around 10-15% between the card and reference card or other GPUs like the MSI GTX 680 Lightning edition. This suggests that the card's advanced technology and features are having a tangible impact on real-world performance.

Overall, the Asus Matrix 7970 is an impressive graphics card that boasts an array of exclusive features and technologies that make it stand out from the competition. Its focus on reliability, performance, and user convenience makes it an excellent choice for those who want to push their system to its limits using high-performance GPUs.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to an extremely exciting edition of ncix tech tips we have the all-new asus rog matrix hd 7970 platinum this is a hand selected gpu with all the overclocking and tweaking tools loaded into it and basically i think slick and i are in agreement it takes the performance crown for a single gpu card let's start with a close look at the physicality of this beast the first thing you're going to notice is the triple slot directs you to matrix cooler so this has a massive massive aluminum sheet of fins over top of the entire card plus it's got three heat pipes going the one way two heat pipes going the other way for five heat pipes total covering the card the cooler uses dual 100 millimeter fans it has a full back plate on the back of the card which looks absolutely amazing with a brushed aluminum finish and the asus branding in the correct orientation which is actually a big deal when you have it installed in your case in addition to that it has a full thick aluminum unisync on the underside of the card before the cooler this aids with heat dissipation as well as helping the card be more rigid and not put as much strain on the pci express slot at the back your case by sitting more firmly in your computer there's a ton of exclusive asus features including their 20 phase vrm 20 power phases for this gpu yeah they had to have a custom pcb in order to accommodate that so you can see the pcb is actually quite a bit higher at the uh at the top of the card here than you would normally see on a graphics card dual eight pin power connectors keep this beast powered and then there's a whole bunch of exclusive features down the back here so you've got asus turbofan button their gpu tweak it as well as a safe mode for operating the gpu in well safe mode very very neat stuff on the back of the pcb as well you've got solder points for monitoring voltages adjusting voltages all the kinds of things that liquid nitrogen overclockers would normally have to do manually and by trial and error in the past asus says nope no way this is a hand bin card hand selected card the platinum ones are hand selected the other ones are gigahertz edition gpus that are overclocked but this is a platinum card no we're gonna get you guys to just go ahead and do that don't worry about it now there are a couple things that i want to go a little bit more into depth in one is the fact that it uses not just standard solid capacitors it used to be solid capacitors was the big marketing point that everyone wanted to talk about solid capacitors now we're talking about specific japanese made nikicon gt series solid capacitors we're talking up to five times the lifetime and better tolerance for higher temperatures so this card pretty much doesn't die that's that's what it comes down to now all of those features at the back are pretty cool so vga hotwire allows you to easily overvolt that's on the card tweak it allows you to use the onboard buttons to just physically adjust the the uh the voltages by just pressing the plus and minus buttons which is very cool turbofan allows you to run the fan at 100 speed for maximum overclocking if you are overclocking under air and then safe mode takes you back to defaults with a clear cmos type of effect on the graphics card itself last really cool thing about this card okay it's got three gigs of memory which means it's great for surround multi-display configurations it has the horses to drive it it also has the connectors to drive it it has dual dvi and quad display port outputs meaning it can drive six displays natively without any adapters as long as they're displayport compatible now all of this is just theoretical until we throw some actual numbers at you so oh yeah last cool thing that i totally forgot in the last shot this indicator on the top actually tells you how heavy the load on your gpu is so it changes colors which is sort of neat okay it's compatible with two-way three-way crossfire even four-way crossfire if you want to throw all those bridges in there now let's talk sexy performance we have two sets of data one set of non-overclocked data and one set of overclocked data so we're comparing this card against a 7970 reference card this is not a gigahertz edition there's nothing special about it just a plain jane 7970 we are also throwing into the mix msi's gtx 680 lightning just to find out with the very latest drivers what is the fastest single gpu you can buy at stock speeds in battlefield 3 at ultra settings the 680 lightning steals the show but you can see the 7970 matrix is about 15 faster than a reference card right off the bat when we throw overclocking into the mix the difference kind of narrows a bit but the matrix does perform in the real world at maximum overclocks maximum voltages slick was working at this for over a week to achieve much better results than a reference 7970 and it even surpasses the 680 at its maximum overclock remember there's lightning editions high-end 680 not like jokes 680. all right which it's not that any 680 is jokes but you know now which are two so which or two please note guys the graph is a little bit misleading these numbers are all very close together it starts at 32 so just bear that in mind look at the numbers so the 7970 matrix outperforms the reference card by about 10 you know give or take a little bit more 12 percent again and outperforms the light while they both outperform the 680 lightning in this case then when we dial it up they get pretty close however i think you'll see in our last game this one's back to normal scaling by the way folks uh when we get back to this one we see again a 15 10 15 difference in metro 2033 even when both cards are overclocked to the max so all the technology that asus has built into this graphics card does it make a real world difference the answer is yes thank you for checking out this ncix tech tips showcase on the asus matrix 7970 don't forget to subscribe for more videos like this from your favorite e-tailer ncix.comwelcome to an extremely exciting edition of ncix tech tips we have the all-new asus rog matrix hd 7970 platinum this is a hand selected gpu with all the overclocking and tweaking tools loaded into it and basically i think slick and i are in agreement it takes the performance crown for a single gpu card let's start with a close look at the physicality of this beast the first thing you're going to notice is the triple slot directs you to matrix cooler so this has a massive massive aluminum sheet of fins over top of the entire card plus it's got three heat pipes going the one way two heat pipes going the other way for five heat pipes total covering the card the cooler uses dual 100 millimeter fans it has a full back plate on the back of the card which looks absolutely amazing with a brushed aluminum finish and the asus branding in the correct orientation which is actually a big deal when you have it installed in your case in addition to that it has a full thick aluminum unisync on the underside of the card before the cooler this aids with heat dissipation as well as helping the card be more rigid and not put as much strain on the pci express slot at the back your case by sitting more firmly in your computer there's a ton of exclusive asus features including their 20 phase vrm 20 power phases for this gpu yeah they had to have a custom pcb in order to accommodate that so you can see the pcb is actually quite a bit higher at the uh at the top of the card here than you would normally see on a graphics card dual eight pin power connectors keep this beast powered and then there's a whole bunch of exclusive features down the back here so you've got asus turbofan button their gpu tweak it as well as a safe mode for operating the gpu in well safe mode very very neat stuff on the back of the pcb as well you've got solder points for monitoring voltages adjusting voltages all the kinds of things that liquid nitrogen overclockers would normally have to do manually and by trial and error in the past asus says nope no way this is a hand bin card hand selected card the platinum ones are hand selected the other ones are gigahertz edition gpus that are overclocked but this is a platinum card no we're gonna get you guys to just go ahead and do that don't worry about it now there are a couple things that i want to go a little bit more into depth in one is the fact that it uses not just standard solid capacitors it used to be solid capacitors was the big marketing point that everyone wanted to talk about solid capacitors now we're talking about specific japanese made nikicon gt series solid capacitors we're talking up to five times the lifetime and better tolerance for higher temperatures so this card pretty much doesn't die that's that's what it comes down to now all of those features at the back are pretty cool so vga hotwire allows you to easily overvolt that's on the card tweak it allows you to use the onboard buttons to just physically adjust the the uh the voltages by just pressing the plus and minus buttons which is very cool turbofan allows you to run the fan at 100 speed for maximum overclocking if you are overclocking under air and then safe mode takes you back to defaults with a clear cmos type of effect on the graphics card itself last really cool thing about this card okay it's got three gigs of memory which means it's great for surround multi-display configurations it has the horses to drive it it also has the connectors to drive it it has dual dvi and quad display port outputs meaning it can drive six displays natively without any adapters as long as they're displayport compatible now all of this is just theoretical until we throw some actual numbers at you so oh yeah last cool thing that i totally forgot in the last shot this indicator on the top actually tells you how heavy the load on your gpu is so it changes colors which is sort of neat okay it's compatible with two-way three-way crossfire even four-way crossfire if you want to throw all those bridges in there now let's talk sexy performance we have two sets of data one set of non-overclocked data and one set of overclocked data so we're comparing this card against a 7970 reference card this is not a gigahertz edition there's nothing special about it just a plain jane 7970 we are also throwing into the mix msi's gtx 680 lightning just to find out with the very latest drivers what is the fastest single gpu you can buy at stock speeds in battlefield 3 at ultra settings the 680 lightning steals the show but you can see the 7970 matrix is about 15 faster than a reference card right off the bat when we throw overclocking into the mix the difference kind of narrows a bit but the matrix does perform in the real world at maximum overclocks maximum voltages slick was working at this for over a week to achieve much better results than a reference 7970 and it even surpasses the 680 at its maximum overclock remember there's lightning editions high-end 680 not like jokes 680. all right which it's not that any 680 is jokes but you know now which are two so which or two please note guys the graph is a little bit misleading these numbers are all very close together it starts at 32 so just bear that in mind look at the numbers so the 7970 matrix outperforms the reference card by about 10 you know give or take a little bit more 12 percent again and outperforms the light while they both outperform the 680 lightning in this case then when we dial it up they get pretty close however i think you'll see in our last game this one's back to normal scaling by the way folks uh when we get back to this one we see again a 15 10 15 difference in metro 2033 even when both cards are overclocked to the max so all the technology that asus has built into this graphics card does it make a real world difference the answer is yes thank you for checking out this ncix tech tips showcase on the asus matrix 7970 don't forget to subscribe for more videos like this from your favorite e-tailer ncix.com\n"