ASUS Matrix HD7970 Platinum Review & Benchmarks

Introduction

Most video cards you buy today off a shelf are going to be so similar that the only real difference will be in the sticker attached to the plastic housing you see covering the PCB and GPU as they are usually reference based cards and probably made in the same factory. The big players in the VGA game however take the time to totally go out of their way and design cards above and beyond the normal specs and you see these non-reference beasts for sale online in both NVIDIA and AMD flavors with many a moniker attached insinuating power, performance and cooling. However all cards ARE-Not designed and implemented the same way and features and capabilities separate the good from the bad and the ugly. There are many pretenders out there making claims about how their card is something different from the pack, but is it really?

ASUS is well versed in the art of making a Totally Non-Reference based card that is geared for the more robust user group, the group that tries to break out of the box and get more from their video card by any means possible, including LN2 and other Extreme measures. The cards that are chosen for the ROG MATRIX HD 7970 series are the best in their class selected for the overclocker or competitive user who is not satisfied with just good results, but wants something with more options for direct control of their cards than any cards on the market. The ROG or Republic Of Gamers is a gang of one-eyed evil pirates who terrorize weaker gamers on the net until they bow down to the might of ASUS, LOLJ. Relax I was Just kidding kiddies, no the ROG series products (VGA/Mobo) are made to work together and are the Top of the line products that allow a direct connection from the video card to the motherboard enabling the ability to have total control of all aspects of the card through the motherboards BIOS. Let’s dig deeper first take a look at the specs and then how well it overclocks on to how it performs as well as how loud and how cool it runs.

ASUS MATRIX HD7970 Platinum Basic Features

The HD 7970 Chipset is the highest in the AMD stable at the moment. If you want a war horse that is the best of the bunch from the AMD camp you will be hard pressed to find better than the HD7970 when put to the most stressing demands.

In the box we get to the accessory pack, which assists with connectivity of the card.  In the box we received the following:

• Quick install and user guide
• Installation Disc
• Supplemental MOSFET heatsink (For LN2 use)
• VGA Hotwire cables
• DVI to VGA adapter
• Dual PCIe 6p to PCIe 8P adapter
• Extended Crossfire Bridge
• ROG Case Badge
• Diablo III Mouse pad from SteelSeries

The Accessory pack should be a sign that the MATRIX HD 7970 Platinum is not joking when it comes to the play yard ready to eat your lunch.

Removing the card from its foam enclosure, which is actually one of the best packaging I have seen for a card with the ROG offerings. It encases the card creating a 360-degree shell of protection to help survive the worst case shipping scenarios. After removal you can see that the card is a monster measuring in at over 11 inches long with a PCB height well above standard at 5.5 inches and triple slot cooled with a thickness of 2.5 inches. This all adds to the fact that this card is a pure monster and also one hell of a hefty card that has some serious weight to it.

The outputs on the ASUS MATRIX HD7970 Platinum are:

• 2X DVI
• 4X DisplayPort

DVI and Displayport Supports up to 2560 x 1600 at 60Hz, which is about what, we have come to expect from the Dual link ports to date.  This should fit a broad spectrum of gamers as most have been recently adopting 1920×1080 and so anything higher is still not necessarily mainstream for having caught on yet.

This kind of massive connectivity is built for one purpose and that is to show it prowess or ability to pull off Eyefinity 6 from a single card. And well if you were to try such a feat I could not think of a more powerful card to try such a setup as this thing is packing some serious heat in the horsepower department.

The cooler on the MATRIX HD7970 Platinum is one coming from the long line of DirectCU II lineup which has proven its capability time and time again for dissipating huge amounts of heat without making huge amounts of noise in the process.

The fans are dual sound dampening 100mm models but we will dig a bit deeper into that in the advanced features section.

All mainstream through upper end cards support AMD’s CrossfireX technology.  Most of the more mainstream cards have a single connector, which allows up to a maximum of dual card linked operation. However in the Uber- high-end category the dual connectors allow up to 4GPUs to be linked for some serious gaming and graphics performance scaling from a multi card setup.

One thing worth noting is that being a triple slot thickness card running 4 way crossfire could be a bit tough as 4 way boards are setup for dual slot cards since triple slot would make the motherboard itself almost 4 inches longer and that simply would not fit all but the most extreme enthusiasts needs. So keep that in mind as cards like this with the triple slot cooling are not going to be run in more than 2 way or possibly 3 way in some rare configurations without a lot of custom work such as flexible PCIe slot ribbon extension cables.

The HD7970 by default utilized an 8 Pin PCIe power cable along with a 6 Pin in tow to keep up with the GPU power needs and this worked well even for some serious overclocking ability. But when ASUS stepped in they wanted to step that game up a bit and give the special edition MATRIX model a bit more headroom by simply running dual 8 Pin PCIe power connectors on the card. This should allow for more than enough voltage capability even when running a LN2 benchmarking rig with this card.

The HD7970 by default offers support for full PCIe Gen 3.0 spec, which is double the theoretical bandwidth of the Gen 2 Spec with a jump from 16GB/s to a bi directional bandwidth of 32GB/s.  By default the MATRIX HD7970 Platinum offers the same support as it is built into the architecture and therefore offers similar to PCIe 2.0 x16 in an application such as an Ivy Bridge crossfire gaming build which means that dual cards populated can still run at a very high throughput for maximum performance capability being dropped to Gen 3 x8.

ASUS MATRIX HD7970 Platinum Advanced Features

The ASUS MATRIX HD7970 Platinum has all of the standard features of a full built HD7970 model but with a card like this its all about the trickery going on behind the scenes in many cases or in the case of the MATRIX they’re right in front of you advertised to show its true capability. So let’s dive in and see what exactly makes this bad boy tick and how exactly ASUS pulled it off.

Here you can see many of the special features, which are built into the MATRIX HD 7970 Platinum. I will take a look at many of them here and try to cover why they were employed and what’s makes them special.

Here you can see everything that makes up the DirectCU II cooler. This is a massive cooling solution designed to dissipate mass amounts of heat far superior to any cooler ever seen on a reference model offering. This ensures that no matter the loading condition there is a fair chance it will stay running much cooler in comparison and in that same process clock much higher on its standard air-cooling.

The heat pipes are massive and aligned in a way to maximize cooling efficiency across the fin array for plenty of CPU cooling capability and as a byproduct plenty of cooling air to keep the board components such as the VRM and memory cool as well.

Here you can see the previously mentioned cooler, which is a triple slot design to ensure that even when pushing the clocks it should stay nice and cool. Being triple slot introduces much more surface area for cooling purposes but also gives it the air space to exhaust that heat away from the card which allows for even better cooling potential. If using this in a case you’re going to want to make sure you have some good airflow to exhaust heat out of the chassis as it is exhausted internally into your case.

One feature we observed on the last MATRIX card is the MATRIX LED load indicator. The top of the card has a matrix logo cutout with fogged transparent plastic filling in the letters. This plastic is backlit by an RGB LED, which is controlled by the card itself and changes color according to loading conditions on the card. This is a real time controller and therefore things such as running heaven benchmark at full extreme settings you get quite a light show as the various loading conditions throughout the walk around the landscape is completed. The lightest load is a light pale green and in most cases I have not seen this very often but it seems to hover around the light load of blue. As load throttles it goes through an array of colors with the most stressful being red which means you’re really pushing the card and honestly I have not seen a lot of time in the red so that may be a good thing.

Here is some detailing directly from ASUS, which shows an actual mockup of the GPU power plane, which is the area of the PCB dedicated to feeding the GPU with power during usage. This area has been enlarged quite a bit to allow for some major power pulls and stability under extreme loading situations. This is something that is nice but as the MATRIX is designed with the extreme enthusiasts in mind this will really shine with a LN2 pot strapped to it pulling for world record runs. This is when the true value of the enlarged power area can truly be seen in its full effect.

Here is something very special in the fact that its not just the SAP VRM solution but it is a 20 phase solution which means that it can stand up to pretty much anything and still have VRM to spare. This VRM to say is overbuilt would be massively understated as the VRM is designed to support well in excess of even what I think is possible with LN2 benchmarking but from what I saw at the ASUS absolute Zero event in their HQ I can see it is everything they want it to be.

The MATRIX LINE is designed for the most extreme of extreme users and that is no secret as we have seen. Never more so than recent with the features on the MATRIX sitting in front of me, such as the specialized solder points designed to take the guesswork out of the voltage moods, which used to be a trial and error affair for most extreme users.

It used to be that you would have to prod and probe your way around components to find where would be the correct place to put trimmers in order to trick the power circuit into giving the voltage you want or correcting droop or simply bypassing a protection circuit for extreme clocks. Well these days seem to be coming to an end as ASUS supplies pre placed solder pads that are all labeled to help with these mods so the guess work is gone from this kind of delicate operation. Not only that but they are also placed in a single area to make it even easier to pull off such mods with a little time and soldering skill.

ASUS has really done a lot of engineering when it comes to VRM and components and as such they have a special implementation called SAP or Super Alloy Power which signifies the special selection and durability nature of the components that ASUS selects to meet these strict needs. This is not to say that it is the end all tell all of VRM design as this is just the ASUS solution for now but as we always see they tend to cook up new solutions faster than we can adopt to the ones they introduce so with that I can say that these components are top notch and specifically designed to really take a beating with extreme gaming or even more completely ridiculous loading conditions with LN2 benchmarking.

Here we see some ASUS supplied detailing of the SAP component caps or capacitors which are used on the SAP solution for their high end graphic cards. These caps are highlighted by the fact that they have a rated lifespan in excess of 2.5X that of standard components on reference boards. They are also specially designed to withstand stringent thermals in both the hot and cold (Subzero) category for a better overall overclocking experience.

Here we have some good detailing directly from ASUS showing the improvement of the SAP choke component and how it is superior to other designs implemented presently. Other model chokes can make a whine or screeching sound due to the coil vibration, something we’re sure many enthusiasts and overclockers have heard before. The ASUS design has a sealed/filled core to inhibit vibration, which means noise free operation under extreme loading conditions. Another thing to remember is movement makes heat and friction, so less movement will mean cooler running components.

Here we see the MOSFETs components, which are once again far superior to those you see on reference model cards offering huge advantages in overclocking ability in some cases in excess of 30%. The SAP components as a whole are designed to be more efficient via the DIGI+ controller and component selection to allow for better clocking and overall power efficiency when browsing the web or low loading conditions.

ASUS has some very special tuning options built directly onto the board to ensure that no matter how far you want to push you have the best chance of getting there.

VGA Hotwire used to require soldering to the graphics card in order to connect it to a VGA hotwire-enabled board for voltage control without needing to fumble with trimmers. With the MATRIX the wiring for VGA Hotwire connectivity is simply a plug and play affair, as there are plugs rather than solder points, which allow direct voltage control with a VGA Hotwire, enabled motherboard.

The Turbofan Button enables full speed fan for maximum cooling along with voltage tuning and optimizations to the boost clock settings and other TweakIt options.

The buttons at the board’s far edge of the board are for Voltage adjustment on the fly, directly on the card, which can help if the card needs a small bump during a specific heavy loading point of a benchmark.

The Safe mode switch allows you to quickly recover from a bad crashed condition on a card if problems arise during a bench session that relieves a big worry of “Bricking” a card.

Everyone knows that one of the number one fan-killer is the dirt and dust the fan comes into contact with. Many fans simply are not sealed in such a way that they can keep dust out. Some aren’t even sealed, and you can see the sensitive winding area clearly exposed just by looking at the gap.

The ASUS solution is not just sealing the hub from dust but having 2 levels of sealing which means that over the lifespan of the cooler you can expect a much lower likelihood of grinding or fan failure caused by unprotected fans.

ASUS offers its own software utility and its functionality has grown with generations just like the cards it supports. Of course the card can be overclocked, but voltages can also be tweaked. Within the GPU Tweak app we can even launch the GPU info utility, which is a full custom version of GPUz. This is a really cool feature and especially beneficial to benchmarkers who we can definitely see using this card with some of the awesome tweaks we will discuss in the card overview.

There are many tools within the GPU Tweak menus some a little more hidden than others. First off, directly from the GPU Tweak utility itself you can check for BIOS updates and even update from within the program. Anyone who’s ever updated a vBIOS before knows that having a tool that can do this in a mere few clicks is really handy.

The charts besides offering real time monitoring can also be setup to log thermals, voltages and clocks so that after benchmark or gaming runs you can see if there was any thermal issues or throttling that may have affected performance.

One thing to note is the many different settings available for the MATRIX model card. This is one of the only cards we have ever seen with a Load Line Calibration setting to allow the card to be loaded with less voltage droop. VRM frequency, VDDCI voltage, memory and GPU frequencies are also adjustable. This card has a lot of versatility built in and it should net a huge benefit to overclockers and benchmarkers.

One really cool feature is that there are status- LED’s on each PCI-E connector, which help you recognize that power is actively being sent to each connector of the card.

The dual greens seen above indicate everything is working well. However if the PCI-E cable is not active or is not installed at all, it will show the red light, which tells you something, is wrong. We could definitely see some value in this when diagnosing multi card setups or even single card issues. A dead PCI-E power cable could cause users to pull their hair out, as it would show no outward indication of the defect, and users would have no way of knowing.

ASUS MATRIX HD7970 Platinum Overclocking

The ASUS MATRIX HD 7970 Platinum is a strong and able card as we see by simply looking at the sum of its parts. But parts only mean so much as the ability to make the card run needs to be in place as well and ASUS does that quite well at the same time.

Starting up the GPU Tweak application we went through the settings and enabled all of the voltage and tweaking options. We were amazed to see two full pages of sliders available to tune everything down to even LLC. This is a level of control we have never seen before, and it is nice to see it. This kind of innovation is what pushes for even better future tuning products from overclocking-friendly companies like ASUS.

ASUS MATRIX HD7970 Platinum Test Setup

ASUS MATRIX HD7970 Platinum Performance Results

ASUS MATRIX HD7970 Platinum Final Thoughts

Many companies claim that their card is the Crème de la Crème of the bunch, but really how many of them really go out of their way to make a card that stands apart from the masses and do the research and development that it actually takes to do so? Maybe 2 companies that I know of really go above and beyond the normal standard and really push the envelope as to how much you can really make a company’s chipset design your own and those companies are ASUS and EVGA as they each take special care to make cards that have features virtually untouched by other manufacturers and therefore coveted by many an enthusiast who refuses to take 2^nd best.

The ASUS Matrix is a card that when used in conjunction with an ASUS ROG based motherboard can become the ultimate overclockers dream card due to the flexibility of the options and the total control you can have of the cards voltage, memory and clock speeds, which can all be done within the BIOS. Many of us users may not take things to the extreme edge of the performance abyss, but it is always nice to have the available option to do so. The only drawback to the card is size though due to the fact that it takes up multiple PCIe slots and some motherboards may not be able to accommodate more than one of these cards. I would highly recommend that you use the appropriate ROF series of motherboard so that you know you will be set as those boards are made to be used with the almighty DirectCU versions of cards and have all the right stuff for seamless integration into your system.

If you are the Type-Alpha user you do not really care about cost of the said item you covet and you either have the cash to make it happen or you sit by and check your wish list until you do as nothing else but the best will satiate you. As a reviewer I count myself as one lucky person as I get the joy of testing and checking out great gear in an effort to let you good folk know a products merit and worth to you as the end user. The ASUS Matrix HD 7970 is far above and beyond what any other manufacture has come out with yet, and even EVGA with all their fancy stuff does have a card that can be soldered to one of their motherboards and they are the only company other than ASUS who truly ditches the reference design and builds outside of the box. There are only really good things to say about this card as all aspects are there as promised, overclocking, control and cool running. The ASUS MATRIX HD 7970 earns a solid Gamers Gold product for the hard core or enthusiast user group. Thanks for reading.