Crossfire 7970 for $575 new, blows away any single card!

[DefStar]

Just got my pair of MSI OC Edition 7970s (they run @ 1050c 1375m) from newegg for $575. Installed them and ran Firestrike..Graphics score @14179 on my factory set 3770k.

Is that nice or what? Just blew Titan, 780, and R9 out of the water for under $600. Now is the time to jump on some great deals. With AMD's Frame Pacing driver i'm just gonna have fun with crossfire now. Not really bragging...just saying we can still get stellar performance for under $600 for all you on a budge and those who just don't want to pay exorbitant amounts of money.

Oh yeah, at newegg you can still get these same msi 7970s for under $600.

[TheGoat Eater]

Nice How are you liking those Twin Frozr coolers on the MSI cards? I bet they are working pretty well - though is that benchmarking with the fans on auto or full blast?

[DefStar]

Bench-marking on Auto fan. I cleared my Motherboard bios and installed the cards, booted up, I installed 13.9 drivers, rebooted, and ran 3D Mark. So that's as vanilla as it gets...

Update: I sold the two Gold Rewards cards on ebay for $20 each and mailed in the $20 rebate. So the actual cost is...$516 now!

These coolers are pretty nice for a reference card (reference PCB), it's like a smaller version of the Arctic Acellero which is pretty beast...but I'm ordering two EK water blocks on the 20th. So then I will be up to $736...but water cooled. That is about how much they want for the R9 pre-order...but I got more power and I'm on water . I Like this, I feel like I got exactly what I want for the money...because that money was for the R9.

[Evantaur]

crossfire is ok as long as it's not running something unreal engine based :P

[DefStar]

crossfire is ok as long as it's not running something unreal engine based :P

YeaH! THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH EVERYTHING....GLAD YOU POINTED THAT OUT. And it can probably never be fixed either...

[STEvil]

I was thinking of picking up 3x 7950's, they're dirt cheap!

[screwtech02]

Well, hate to say it, but your claim of "Unreal Based" is false... I run 3 5830's and play RO2 just fine in eyefinity.....

[DefStar]

I love it, people getting different results with near identical hardware. Well, software can be buggy and needs updated and then it comes down to the user to...well, make it work.

[DefStar]

Warning!!! I'm still using the Twin Frozr stock cooling..I just installed Crysis 3 and within 1 minute the top card was 96c and the bottom card at 90c. I opened the case and felt the cards aluminum frame and yeah...its hot. So, Wow...I can't recommend these unless your getting water blocks, have the wide 2.4" space between pcie slots (I only have 1.6"), or have a way to get better airflow in-between the cards so the top one gets some air.

Seriously...think of how much power you are using with two of these in full load...the GPU is hot, and the VRMs are even hotter so watch out, be careful, and get aftermarket cooling.

I still believe this is the better buy because I have since day one planned on water cooling these. Even with the water blocks I'm only paying ~$750...and like the title says...blows any single card out of the water. So you know its on you to properly cool this much power.

[DefStar]

Okay, the cards are obviously getting pretty hot in crossfire mode and we want to know why...right?
So, I took apart the card to find any obvious deficiencies:

Here we see caked on, dried-out and cracking, play dough like thermal compound:



Here we see an approximate 120 grit finish on the mating surface of the block...the lines you see around the diamond shape is the same finish on the diamond itself:


The heat-sink itself is plenty big and I scratched the plating to reveal copper, so with the exception of the aluminum fins...the block and heat-pipes are copper:


Under the heat-sink is a nice black anodized aluminum plate that covers the VRMs, memory, and other chips. Unfortunate, the bottom two memory chips are not covered and therefor have no active cooling:


Here you can see my computer is bad-ass...so its not my fault:

[DefStar]

So, I decided to lap the heat-sink (600 grit is all I had) and apply some PK-3 thermal compound...

and leave the shroud off...

I re-installed crossfire and now I got some breathing room...

A little finesse on our part, I'm 20 min. into crysis 3 maxed out and temps are 52C on hottest card now...


And finally I'm at 86c after 1 hour even after lowering core clocks to 900 MHz...so wow...water cooling is a must have.
I'm putting away card two until I get my water blocks.

[STEvil]

what did you use to stabilize your lapping surface so you didnt make the raised portion of the base concave?

[MaddMuppet]

I'm certainly interested in your results when you get your water blocks. These cards are so cheap, I may grab 2 or 3 myself. I have a bad feeling the 290x will cost as much as the GTX780 here. For that price I can buy 2 280x's or 7970's. So adding a third is certainly cheap enough.

[DefStar]

I used a 1/2" thick steel plate from my brothers work as the surface...and I dragged the block across it. The raised portion is not raised very far on this block (compared to my Arctic Acellero) so I was careful. One corner had some drag but its not on the GPU (overhang). I really just suggest water blocks...I lowered the core to 900 and It was still climbing in temp...I just gave up at 86c...believe me it was still getting hotter.

I will paste screen shots (results) when I get the EK blocks...on the 18th I order them so I will have them on the 23rd...wow, so next... next Saturday I will finally get time to play again.

[Darxide]

Damn, I wish I had room for a second card.
You're right about the price though, the 7970's are phenomenal value right now because of their 'end of line' status. I was planning to get the non X 290, but I just couldn't resist the price drops. I picked up an Asus 7970 Matrix Platinum for a mere ?220 (UK Pounds), and I get the gold games voucher. When you consider that the 280X Matrix Platinum is ?330, and doesn't have the free games, well, bargain!
It's a pity it's a triple slot card, means I doubt I could fit a second one.

[STEvil]

Let me know how long that Asus card lasts you, they tend to die pretty quick.

[22JHP]

580$ this thing still 1400$ in turkey.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127735

[Darxide]

Let me know how long that Asus card lasts you, they tend to die pretty quick.

Well I bought an Asus reference design 6950 when they first came out. Unlocked the shaders and OC'd it. It's still going.

[st0ned]

I think he is talking about ASUS own designs such as the MATRIX. That's what makes sense any way. A reference board is made by AMD so ASUS or not it's just a sticker.

[DefStar]

Ahhhhhh, I don't want to pay $200 for Brand New water blocks...does anybody know of anyone selling a pair of EK 7970 waterblocks? Someone has to be upgrading to R9 and selling off their old 7970 crossfire setup. PM me if you can help.

I'll show you guys next week, I have access to a mill-drill so I took a 1/4' plate of aluminum and made Near identical Knock-offs of EK's Back-plates...I made mine 1/32" thicker overall for added performance. But, I'm not going to anodize them black because everyone charges a $50 minimum to anodize...I'll wait until I got more custom aluminum stuff I want dyed black.

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

I was going to ask why you didn't space the cards out & realized you have an mATX board.

I tried to run gtx 570 twin frozrs in SLI & that was impossible w/o a least one free slot between the cards. Since they don't exhaust air, the back of the 2nd card is cooking the first card. You can probably mount a 120mm blowing directly on the 7970s & your temps would drop a lot. Probably 20+ degrees.

Maybe this would be a much more affordable option:

Dual 80mm: http://www.tweakmonster.com/products...racketpage.htm
Single 120mm: http://www.tweakmonster.com/products...racketpage.htm

There's other options out there, but those are the best I could find. I think blowing cold air onto the cards works much better than removing hot air for that type of set up.

Edit:

Oh, I see you can mill stuff. Just ignore my comment, lol.

Off topic, but how's crossfire scaling these days?

I love my gtx 690, but 7950 x3 (as someone else) or even 7970 x2 would be an upgrade. My 690 can't handle DX11 Crysis @ 1600p.

[STEvil]

I think he is talking about ASUS own designs such as the MATRIX. That's what makes sense any way. A reference board is made by AMD so ASUS or not it's just a sticker.

Yes

And specifically the 7970 cards at or over 1050mhz.

[DefStar]

I was going to ask why you didn't space the cards out & realized you have an mATX board.

I tried to run gtx 570 twin frozrs in SLI & that was impossible w/o a least one free slot between the cards. Since they don't exhaust air, the back of the 2nd card is cooking the first card. You can probably mount a 120mm blowing directly on the 7970s & your temps would drop a lot. Probably 20+ degrees.

Maybe this would be a much more affordable option:

Dual 80mm: http://www.tweakmonster.com/products...racketpage.htm
Single 120mm: http://www.tweakmonster.com/products...racketpage.htm

There's other options out there, but those are the best I could find. I think blowing cold air onto the cards works much better than removing hot air for that type of set up.

Edit:

Oh, I see you can mill stuff. Just ignore my comment, lol.

Off topic, but how's crossfire scaling these days?

I love my gtx 690, but 7950 x3 (as someone else) or even 7970 x2 would be an upgrade. My 690 can't handle DX11 Crysis @ 1600p.

Well, I've been building this system since the beginning of the summer and I already have a "360" radiator installed specifically for dual video and a "240" radiator installed for my CPU, VRMs, and Memory...so I Absolutley, totally, really, really, want to water my video cards...I built this custom case for these radiators and crossfire on a mATX motherboard. So, yeah there is no talking me out of water cooling. But, others should know you won't have the heat issues i'm having if you are using the normal ATX 2.4" spaced PCIe slots...mine are 1.6" apart.

As far as Crysis 3 goes, I played for an hour at 1080p...I only do 1080p so I can do stroboscopic back-lighting at 120 Hz and 120 FPS to eliminate motion blur. With everything maxed I was around 70ish FPS average I think, but I down-clocked both 7970 cores to 900 MHZ because the top card was getting so hot...I stopped playing when I hit 86 C so as to not damage the card.

I'm ordering two water-blocks Friday and should have them by next Wednesday. I have one back-plate milled so far and I will finish the other one on Friday...they look so Awesome...words cant describe how cool milled aluminum looks...especially when you make a custom milled part that is functionally superior to anything you can buy...I will put up pictures of the back-plates this weekend...and by next weekend the water-cooled cards with bench marks. It will be timed right and informative if you are thinking about upgrading to the R9 290x, but are having second thoughts about the high price tag....its a guarantee that two 7970s for cheaper will outperform a high-end single GPU.

[DefStar]

As promised, here is a near finished back-plate I made:

Outside with 180 grit brushed finish and then an 800 grit pass to smooth the 180 a little.


Inside...the camera flash does no justice on this...It really don't look that rough to the eye.


VRM contact area with 1500 finish....nice-n-flat.


Our Mill-Drill has a lot of problems...we are a fab shop not a machine shop...but it can make a functional piece. The Outside was polished with a Rand Bright which is a $40,000 machine which we do for big $$. By "we" i mean my brother's fab shop.

[DefStar]

Here is the finished Back-plates with a 400 grit final finish...