ASUS HD 6970 DirectCU II - Triple Slot Monster
Category : AMD
Published by Marc Büchel on 01.02.11
With their DirectCU II version ASUS shows its first high end AMD graphics card with a triple slot cooler. Until today only Gainward with their GLH series (Goes Like Hell) was known for their huge triple slot coolers but now also ASUS has such a monster in its portfolio. But overworking only the cooler would have been too easy. ASUS provided this card also with their own power design which is an indicator for good overclockability. We'd like to thank ASUS for providing us with the testsample.
On the following pages we will show you the strenghts and weaknesses of the ASUS HD 6970 DirectCUII.
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[pagebreak]
Technical data / specifications
With the DirectCUII ASUS has the first high-end AMD graphics card in its portfolio that features an improved power design as well as a new cooler. This card now can rely on nine phases and to furhter improve reliability ASUS provided the different components like coils, capacitors, POSCAPS and MOSFETs with an alloy which should keep them cooler and therefore improve their lifespan. One can also find two 8-pin power connectors. The message ASUS sends out, especially with the two 8-pin connectors, is quite clear and aims at extreme overclocking.Another key component with this card is the DirectCUII cooler which also is a design by ASUS and has been equipped with two 100 millimeter fans. You also find five heatpipes with a diameter of eight millimeter. According to ASUS this cooler should work much more efficient than the reference model. In realitiy we see that when the card is in idle mode it is a little bit noisier then the reference but under heavy load conditions it is more silent.
Looking at the clock speed we can see that the HD 6970 DirectCUII comes with a 10 MHz overclocking on the GPU which is almost standard with ASUS graphics cards these days.
| ASUS HD 6970 DirectCUII | ASUS EAH6950 | ASUS EAH6850 | ASUS EAH5870 | GTX 580 | |
| Chip | Cayman | Cayman | RV940 | RV870 | GF110 |
| Process | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm |
| Transistors | 2.64 billion | 2.64 billion | 1.7 billion | 2.15 billion | 3.0billion |
| GPU clock | 890 MHz | 820 MHz | 790 MHz | 850 MHz | 772 MHz |
| Shader clock | 890 MHz | 820 MHz | 790 MHz | 850 MHz | 1'544 MHz |
| Memory | 2'048 MB GDDR5 | 2'048 MB GDDR5 | 1'024 MB GDDR5 | 1'024 MB GDDR5 | 1'536 MB GDDR5 |
| Memory clock | 2'750 MHz | 2'500 MHz | 1'000 MHz | 1'200 MHz | 1'002 MHz |
| Memory interface | 256 Bit | 256 Bit | 256 Bit | 256 Bit | 384 Bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 176'000 MB/s | 160'000 MB/s | 128'000 MB/s | 153'600 MB/s | 192'400 MB/s |
| TMUs | 96 | 88 | 48 | 80 | 64 |
| TAUs | 96 | 88 | 48 | 80 | 64 |
| Shader Cores | 384 (4D) | 352 (4D) | 192 (5D) | 320 (5D) | 512 (1D) |
| ROPs | 32 ROP | 32 ROP | 32 ROP | 32 ROP | 48 ROP |
| Shader model | SM 5 | SM 5 | SM 5 | SM 5 | SM 5 |
| Maximum board power | 250 Watt | 200 Watt | 127 Watt | 188 Watt | 244 Watt |
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[pagebreak]
Preview / Delivery
For the HD 6970 DirectCU II ASUS uses their standard box. Everything has its specific place and in the delivery you find an installation CD, a manual, a power adaptor, a DVI-to-HDMI-adptor and a CrossFire bridge. Therefore the delivery is sufficient but we would have loved to see an additional game in the box.
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[pagebreak]
Overclocking
For our overclocking test we used the delivered software ASUS Smartdoctor. This tool allows you to adjust the core voltage and clock frequencies as well as the memory clock. The standard voltage regarding the GPU is 1.1 Volt. Using Smartdoctor you can rise this value all the way up to 1.5 Volt. Therefore we found the optimal voltage at 1.381 Volt. At this point it was possible for us to drive the GPU at 974 MHz and the memory at 5'872 MHz. Because of the power design which ASUS improved as well as the cooler that is more powerful by quite a margin we would have expected the HD 6970 DirectCU II to show better overclocking than the reference model. Unfortunately this wasn't the case. So there the only bit of hope left concerns extreme overclocking using liquid nitrogen as a coolant. Probably the card shows some more potential there.
Futuremark Overclocking
| 3DMark 11 Total | Score | Percent |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 (GPU 966 MHz / Mem 2'332 MHz) | 6'212 | 115.40 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII (974 MHz / Mem 5'872 MHz) | 5'656 | 105.07 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 5'383 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 (GPU 1'001 MHz / Mem 6'016 MHz) | 5'365 | 99.67 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 (GPU 986 MHz / Mem 5'764) | 4'733 | 87.92 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 | 4'606 | 85.57 % |
| more is better | ||
| 3DMark 11 GPU | Score | Percent |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 (GPU 966MHz / MEM 1166MHz) | 6'679 | 117.24 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 5'697 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII (974 MHz / Mem 5'872 MHz) | 5'510 | 96.72 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 (GPU 1'001 MHz / Mem 6'016 MHz) | 5'191 | 91.12 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 (GPU 986 MHz / Mem 5'764) | 4'641 | 81.46 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 | 4'108 | 72.11 % |
| more is better | ||
| 3DMark Vantage | Score | Percent |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 (936MHz / MEM 1140MHz) | 29'090 | 190.11 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 23'788 | 173.50 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII (974 MHz / Mem 5'872 MHz) | 19'866 | 129.83 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 (GPU 1'001 MHz / Mem 6'016 MHz) | 19'406 | 126.83 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 (GPU 986 MHz / Mem 5'764) | 17'873 | 116.81 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 | 17'485 | 125.81 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU OC (GPU 1000MHz / MEM 1177MHz) | 15'439 | 100.90% |
| ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU | 15'301 | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
| 3DMark Vantage GPU | Score | Percent |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 (936MHz / MEM 1140MHz) | 25'188 | 169.43 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 23'628 | 158.93 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII (974 MHz / Mem 5'872 MHz) | 21'167 | 142.39 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 (GPU 1'001 MHz / Mem 6'016 MHz) | 20'450 | 137.56 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 (GPU 986 MHz / Mem 5'764) | 18'284 | 122.99 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 | 17'679 | 134.57 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU OC (GPU 790MHz / MEM 1000MHz) | 16'672 | 112.14% |
| ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU | 14'866 | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
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[pagebreak]
Test conditions
Hardware
| OS and Drivers |
|
| Mainboard |
|
| CPUs |
|
| Memory |
|
| Graphic Cards |
|
| HDD |
|
| PSU |
|
Software
Futuremark
- 3DMark 11
- Performance
- 3DMark Vantage
- Performance
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
| High | |
| API | DX11 |
| Stereo 3D | Disabled |
| Shaders | High |
| Tessellation | Extreme |
| Anisotropy | 16 |
| Anti-aliasing | 8x |
| Full Screen | Yes |
| Resolution | 1920x1080 |
Stone Giant
| High | |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Aspect | Auto |
| Tessellation | High |
| Window Mode | No |
World in Conflict
| High | |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Graphic Detail | very high |
| Antialiasing | 8x |
| Anisotropic Texture Filtering | 16x |
Resident Evil 5 DX10
| High | |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Display Mode | Full Screen |
| Refresh Rate | 60 Hz |
| V-Sync | No |
| [de]Bildwiederholrate[/de]Frame Rate | Full Screen |
| Antialiasing | 8x |
| Anisotropic Texture Filtering | 16x |
| Motion Blur | Yes |
| Shadow Detail | High |
| Texture Detail | High |
| Overall Quality | High |
Call of Juarez
| High | |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Display Mode | yes |
| Quality | High |
| Shadowmap size | 2048x2048 |
| Shadows quality | High |
| Antialiasing | 4x SSAA |
| Audio | disabled |
Far Cry 2 DX10
| High | |
| Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Antialiasing | 8x |
| Direct3D | 10 |
| Fire | very high |
| Physics | very high |
| Real Trees | very high |
| Overall Quality | custom |
| Vegetation | very high |
| Shading | ultra high |
| Terrain | ultra high |
| Geometry | ultra high |
| Post FX | high |
| Texture | ultra high |
| Ambient | high |
| HDR | yes |
| Shadow | ultra high |
| Bloom | yes |
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[pagebreak]
3DMark 11
3DMark 11 is Futuremarks latest benchmark for the entire graphical subsystem. The benchmark uses DirectX 11 and it supports all recent features which can possibly generate high load on a GPU. Therefore you find tessellation, compute shader calculations, divers lighting effects and different depth of filed animations. Following we publish values regarding the performance preset of 3DMark 11.
| 3DMark 11 Total | Score | Percent |
| AMD Radeon HD6970 CrossFire | 8'772 | 245.23 % |
| Palit GTX 580 SLI | 5'841 | 163.29 % |
| ASUS GTX 580 | 5'803 | 162.23 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII | 5'335 | 149.15 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 2GB | 5'175 | 144.67 % |
| Zotac GTX480 SLI | 5'046 | 141.07 % |
| Zotac GTX 480 | 4'922 | 137.60 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 2GB | 4'606 | 128.77 % |
| Gigabyte GTX460 | 3'754 | 104.95 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 | 3'577 | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
| 3DMark 11 GPU | Score | Percent |
| AMD Radeon HD6970 CrossFire | 10'189 | 305.52 % |
| ASUS GTX 580 | 5'812 | 174.27 % |
| Palit ENGTX 580 SLI | 5'697 | 170.82 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII | 5'132 | 153.88 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 2GB | 4'949 | 148.40 % |
| Zotac GTX480 SLI | 4'870 | 146.03 % |
| Zotac GTX 480 | 4'802 | 143.99 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 2GB | 4'108 | 123.18 % |
| Gigabyte GTX460 | 3'562 | 106.81 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 | 3'335 | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
3DMark Vantage
3DMark Vantage is able to squeeze nearly everything out of a recent system. Therefore the feature liste is also pretty long: DirectX10, FP16-HDR, motion blur, parallax occlusion mapping, GPU-physics simulation and different shader effects are being used to even make recent high-end systems struggle.| 3DMark Vantage | Score | Percent |
| Palit GTX 580 SLI | 36'482 | 262.50 % |
| AMD Radeon HD6970 CrossFire | 25'076 | 180.43 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 SLI | 24'638 | 177.28 % |
| Zotac GTX480 SLI | 24'520 | 176.43 % |
| ASUS ARES 5870X2 2DIS 4GD5 | 22'496 | 161.86 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 21'171 | 152.42 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 285 SLI | 19'441 | 139.88 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII | 19'165 | 137.90 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 275 1792MB SLI | 19'098 | 137.41 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 2GB | 19'019 | 136.85 % |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 18'895 | 135.95 % |
| Gigabyte HD5870 Super Overclock | 18'244 | 131.27 % |
| Zotac GTX 480 | 17'859 | 128.50 % |
| MSI HD 5870 Lightning | 17'732 | 127.58 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 | 17'598 | 126.62 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 2GB | 17'485 | 125.81 % |
| ASUS GTX 470 | 16'730 | 120.37 % |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 16'056 | 115.52 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU | 15'301 | 110.09 % |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 13'898 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS GTX285 Matrix | 13'047 | 93.87 % |
| MSI GTX 275 Lightning | 12'323 | 88.09 % |
| ASUS EAH3870X2 | 9'508 | 68.41 % |
| ASUS ENGTS250 DK | 8'481 | 61.02 % |
| EVGA 8800 GT 512MB | 6'427 | 46.24 % |
| more is better | ||
| 3DMark Vantage GPU | Score | Percent |
| Palit GTX 580 SLI | 33'378 | 254.08 % |
| AMD Radeon HD6970 CrossFire | 29'775 | 226.65 % |
| Zotac GTX480 SLI | 29'283 | 222.90 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 SLI | 29'128 | 221.72 % |
| ASUS ARES 5870X2 2DIS 4GD5 | 25'544 | 194.44 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 23'628 | 179.85 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 285 SLI | 20'715 | 157.68 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII | 20'039 | 152.54 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 275 1792MB SLI | 19'960 | 151.93 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 2GB | 19'835 | 150.99 % |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 19'789 | 150.63 % |
| Gigabyte HD5870 Super Overclock | 18'745 | 142.68 % |
| Zotac GTX 480 | 18'345 | 139.64 % |
| MSI HD 5870 Lightning | 18'095 | 137.74 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 | 17'857 | 135.93 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 2GB | 17'679 | 134.57 % |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 15'858 | 120.71 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU | 14'866 | 113.16 % |
| ASUS GTX 470 | 13'753 | 104.68 % |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 13'137 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS GTX285 Matrix | 12'156 | 92.53 % |
| MSI GTX 275 Lightning | 11'337 | 86.29 % |
| ASUS EAH3870X2 | 8'292 | 63.12 % |
| ASUS ENGTS250 DK | 6'722 | 51.17 % |
| EVGA 8800 GT 512MB | 5'328 | 40.55 % |
| more is better | ||
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[pagebreak]
Unigine Heaven
| Unigine Heaven | Score | Percent |
| Palit GTX 580 SLI | 1'484 | 420.40 % |
| AMD Radeon HD6970 CrossFire | 1'247 | 353.26 % |
| Zotac GTX480 SLI | 1'223 | 346.46 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 812 | 230.03 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 2GB | 637 | 180.45 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII | 635 | 179.89 % |
| Zotac GTX 480 | 593 | 167.99 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 2GB | 583 | 165.16 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 | 353 | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
| Unigine Heaven | Average | Percent |
| Palit GTX 580 SLI | 58.9 fps | 420.71 % |
| AMD Radeon HD6970 CrossFire | 49.5 fps | 353.57 % |
| Zotac GTX480 SLI | 48.6 fps | 347.14 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 32.2 fps | 230.00 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 2GB | 25.3 fps | 180.71 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII | 25.2 fps | 180.00 % |
| Zotac GTX 480 | 23.5 fps | 167.86 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 2GB | 23.1 fps | 165.00 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 | 14.0 fps | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
Stone Giant
| Stone Giant | Average | Percent |
| Palit GTX 580 SLI | 159 fps | 512.90 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 86 fps | 277.42 % |
| Zotac GTX480 SLI | 83 fps | 267.74 % |
| Zotac GTX 480 | 75 fps | 241.94 % |
| AMD Radeon HD6970 CrossFire | 51 fps | 164.52 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII | 51 fps | 164.52 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 2GB | 50 fps | 161.29 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 2GB | 44 fps | 141.94 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 | 31 fps | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
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[pagebreak]
World in Conflict
| World in Conflict, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA 16xAF | Average | Percent |
| Palit GTX 580 SLI | 110 fps | 164.18 % |
| ASUS ARES 5870X2 2DIS 4GD5 | 106 fps | 179.66 % |
| Zotac GTX480 SLI | 83 fps | 140.68 % |
| AMD Radeon HD6970 CrossFire | 82 fps | 138.98 % |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 77 fps | 130.50 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 77 fps | 130.50 % |
| ASUS GTX 470 | 76 fps | 128.80 % |
| Gigabyte HD5870 Super Overclock | 72 fps | 122.03 % |
| MSI HD 5870 Lightning | 69 fps | 116.94 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 285 SLI | 69 fps | 116.94 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII | 68 fps | 115.25 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 2GB | 67 fps | 113.56 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 2GB | 61 fps | 103.39 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 275 1792MB SLI | 59 fps | 100.00 % |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 59 fps | 100.00 % |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 59 fps | 100.00 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU | 57 fps | 96.61 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 SLI | 57 fps | 96.61 % |
| Zotac GTX 480 | 57 fps | 96.61 % |
| ASUS GTX285 Matrix | 56 fps | 94.91 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 | 53 fps | 89.83 % |
| MSI GTX 275 Lightning | 50 fps | 84.74 % |
| ASUS EAH3870X2 | 26 fps | 44.06 % |
| ASUS ENGTS250 DK | 25 fps | 42.37 % |
| EVGA 8800 GT 512MB | 21 fps | 35.59 % |
| more is better | ||
Resident Evil 5
Resident Evil uses nearly every modern rendering technology: HDR, Hemisphere Lighting, Soft Shadows, Soft Particles, Field- und Motion-Blur oder auch Alpha to Coverage and static Ambient Occlusion. Furthermore Resident Evil 5 has been optimized for multicore architectures and already comes DirectX11 ready. By using the DirectX10 benchmark we can again show you CPU-scaling with low resolutions and the compared to the CPU overproportional influence of the graphics card at high resolutions.| Resident Evil 5, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA 16xAF | Average | Percent |
| AMD Radeon HD6970 CrossFire | 162.50 fps | 169.62 % |
| Palit GTX 580 SLI | 140.10 fps | 146.24 % |
| ASUS ARES 5870X2 2DIS 4GD5 | 123.20 fps | 128.60 % |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 119.50 fps | 124.73 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 2GB | 113.60 fps | 139.46 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII | 113.00 fps | 117.95 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 285 SLI | 108.60 fps | 113.36 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 275 1792MB SLI | 108.30 fps | 113.05 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 107.30 fps | 112.00 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 2GB | 105.70 fps | 110.33 % |
| Gigabyte HD5870 Super Overclock | 105.00 fps | 109.60 % |
| MSI HD 5870 Lightning | 104.30 fps | 108.87 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 | 100.50 fps | 104.90 % |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 97.20 fps | 101.46 % |
| Zotac GTX480 SLI | 96.50 fps | 100.73 % |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 95.80 fps | 100.00 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 SLI | 95.30 fps | 99.48 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU | 93.30 fps | 97.39 % |
| ASUS GTX 470 | 90.30 fps | 94.25 % |
| Zotac GTX 480 | 75.20 fps | 78.50 % |
| ASUS GTX285 Matrix | 75.00 fps | 78.28 % |
| MSI GTX 275 Lightning | 62.40 fps | 65.13 % |
| ASUS EAH3870X2 | 51.60 fps | 53.86 % |
| ASUS ENGTS250 DK | 44.40 fps | 46.35 % |
| EVGA 8800 GT 512MB | 34.6 fps | 36.10 % |
| more is better | ||
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[pagebreak]
Call of Juarez
| Call of Juarez, 1920 x 1080, high details, 4xSSAA | Average | Percent |
| AMD Radeon HD6970 CrossFire | 91.00 fps | 228.64 % |
| Palit GTX 580 SLI | 88.60 fps | 222.61 % |
| Zotac GTX480 SLI | 73.10 fps | 183.67 % |
| ASUS ARES 5870X2 2DIS 4GD5 | 72.80 fps | 182.91 % |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 53.60 fps | 134.67 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 52.40 fps | 131.65 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 SLI | 47.60 fps | 119.59 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII | 46.20 fps | 116.08 % |
| Gigabyte HD5870 Super Overclock | 43.20 fps | 108.54 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 2GB | 42.90 fps | 107.79 % |
| MSI HD 5870 Lightning | 42.50 fps | 106.78 % |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 41.90 fps | 105.27 % |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 39.80 fps | 100.00 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 2GB | 39.50 fps | 99.25 % |
| Zotac GTX 480 | 37.20 fps | 93.47 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU | 32.10 fps | 80.65 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 285 SLI | 38.80 fps | 97.48 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 275 1792MB SLI | 38.00 fps | 95.47 % |
| ASUS GTX285 Matrix | 34.60 fps | 86.93 % |
| ASUS GTX 470 | 34.20 fps | 85.92 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 | 33.20 fps | 83.42 % |
| MSI GTX 275 Lightning | 28.50 fps | 71.60 % |
| ASUS EAH3870X2 | 24.50 fps | 61.56 % |
| ASUS ENGTS250 DK | 13.90 fps | 34.92 % |
| EVGA 8800 GT 512MB | 11.50 fps | 28.89 % |
| more is better | ||
Far Cry 2
| Far Cry 2, 1920 x 1080, high details, 8xAA | Average | Percent |
| Palit GTX 580 SLI | 132.41 fps | 250.21 % |
| Zotac GTX480 SLI | 118.04 fps | 223.05 % |
| AMD Radeon HD6970 CrossFire | 98.50 fps | 186.13 % |
| ASUS ENGTX 580 | 98.36 fps | 185.86 % |
| ASUS ARES 5870X2 2DIS 4GD5 | 91.87 fps | 173.60 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 SLI | 86.87 fps | 164.15 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 285 SLI | 84.49 fps | 159.65 % |
| ASUS EAH5970 | 80.35 fps | 153.48 % |
| ZOTAC GTX 275 1792MB SLI | 79.51 fps | 150.24 % |
| ASUS EAH6970 2GB | 79.21 fps | 149.68 % |
| ASUS HD6970 DirectCUII | 77.54 fps | 146.52 % |
| ASUS EAH6950 2GB | 71.40 fps | 134.92 % |
| nVidia GTX 295 | 66.72 fps | 126.08 % |
| ASUS GTX 470 | 64.51 fps | 121.90 % |
| Zotac GTX 480 | 62.87 fps | 118.80 % |
| Gigabyte HD5870 Super Overclock | 59.21 fps | 111.88 % |
| MSI HD 5870 Lightning | 55.66 fps | 105.17 % |
| ASUS EAH5870 | 54.99 fps | 103.91 % |
| ASUS EAH6850 DirectCU | 54.14 fps | 102.30 % |
| ASUS EAH5850 | 52.92 fps | 100.00 % |
| ASUS GTX285 Matrix | 49.69 fps | 93.89 % |
| MSI GTX 275 Lightning | 42.31 fps | 79.95 % |
| ASUS ENGTS250 DK | 17.95 fps | 33.92 % |
| EVGA 8800 GT 512MB | 15.73 fps | 29.72 % |
| ASUS EAH3870X2 | 10.21 fps | 19.30 % |
| more is better | ||
To the comments
[pagebreak]
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| The HD 6970 DirectCU II with two Gigabyte memory is ASUS' first high-end AMD graphics card that features an improved power design as well as a more powerful cooler than the reference design. The fact that this thing occupies three slots in a system makes it a monster. Unfortunately the cooler hasn't been able to convince us entirely. In 2D-mode the DirectCU II cooler is noisier than the reference model but luckily as soon as there is 3D load on the card the page turns and the new cooler does operates more silent. | - 3D silent | ||
| Delivery | + | - | |
| The delivery of the ASUS 6970 DirectCU II is sufficient. In the box you find everything you need to setup the card appropriately as well as a HDMI adaptor. Again you wont find a game which would be a really nice addition to a high-end graphics card which has been designed for gamers. | - HDMI adaptor | - No game included | |
| Performance | + | - | |
| Regarding the performance the DirectCU II shows about the same numbers and figures like the EAH6970. As expected there were no glitches and what you get is a homogenous picture throughout our comparison tables. | |||
| Overclocking | + | - | |
| Included in the bundle you get the software ASUS Smartdoctor, using which you can adjust the GPU voltage as well as GPU and memory frequency. It has been possible to run 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark 11 with 974 MHz on the GPU and 5'872 MHz on the memory. Therefore overclockig this card really was fun. From a card which features an overworked power design as well as an improved cooler we would have expected to show better overclockability than the reference model which in our tests wasn't the case. |
- Overclocking GPU 974 MHz
/ Mem 5'872 MHz |
||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you should be looking for a Radeon HD 6970 card which comes with a huge cooler and good overclockability then you definitely wont make a mistake buying an ASUS HD 6970 DirectCUII. | - High-End Gaming | ||
Author: Marc Voser, m.voser@ocaholic.ch Copy edited by: Marc Büchel, m.buechel@ocaholic.ch
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