Conclusion

General		+	-
With the HD 7870 DirectCUII Top, ASUS has a custom design and factory overclocked version of AMDs Radeon HD 7870 in its portfolio. The factory overclocking, which is 100 MHz, is well measurable and increases the performance noticeably as this architecture scales well with GPU frequency. This cards performance was better than both previous generation high end graphics cards GeForce GTX 580 and HD 6970 which were the last gen single GPU performance kings. Furthermore there is ASUS' DirectCUII cooler which - once more - did a great job from the noise level as well as temperature point of view. Meanwhile though it is the same cooler than on the 7850 DirectCU II we tested previously, it was a bit noisier under 3D load.		- 2D silent - More silent than AMD reference cooler - Factory Overclocking	- Noise Level in 3D mode - PCB reference design
Performance		+	-
Regarding performance the ASUS HD 7870 Direct CU II Top can almost be compared with a reference GeForce GTX 580 from NVIDIA. On average the HD 7870 Direct CU II Top is a bit faster than the previous NVIDIA high-end card and also faster than AMDs last gen high-end GPU HD 6970. It also doens't matter if you look at synthetic Futuremark performance or real life gaming benchmarks, the performance of this card is on a highly competitive level.		- Performance in general	- No additional phases
Overclocking		+	-
Included in the bundle you get the software ASUS GPU Tweak, which allows to adjust the GPU voltage as well as GPU and memory frequencies. It has been possible to run 3DMark 11 with 1'320 MHz on the GPU and 6'200 MHz on the memory. Which results in a 16 % more powerful card at those clocks. This architecture really does scale well with higher core frequency.		- Overclocking GPU 1'320 MHz / Mem 6'200 MHz - Max. 1.3 Volt
Recommendation		+	-
If you should be looking for a well performing graphic card that features a factory overclocking, then the ASUS HD 7870 DirectCU II Top is a very good choice. Furhtermore it wont make hurt your bank account to much.		- High-End Gaming - Performance Gaming	- Desktop PC

Author: Christian Ney, c.ney@ocaholic.ch Edition and translation: Christian Ney, c.ney@ocaholic.ch Marc Büchel, m.buechel@ocaholic.ch

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 8 - Stone Giant
Page 2 - Technical Data / Specifications	Page 9 - World in Conflict
Page 3 - Preview / Delivery	Page 10 - Resident Evil 5
Page 4 - Testing conditions	Page 11 - Call of Juarez
Page 5 - 3D Mark 11	Page 12 - Far Cry 2
Page 6 - 3D Mark Vantage	Page 13 - Overclocking
Page 7 - Unigine Heaven	Page 14 - Conclusion

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