Posted February 20, 201213 yr Some photos ASUS HD 7970 Direct CUII TOP: More photos here: OCLab.ru Edited February 23, 201213 yr by slamms
February 20, 201213 yr so stupid .. why did Asus place that choke and cap there right above the GPU. Rest of the card look great. Maybe they're trying to force overclockers to buy Matrix...
February 20, 201213 yr Author Not will be Matrix for 7970, only for nextgen NVIDIA. I asked about choke and cap, and i hope tommorow i will be know answer.
February 20, 201213 yr so stupid .. why did Asus place that choke and cap there right above the GPU. Rest of the card look great. Maybe they're trying to force overclockers to buy Matrix... I can see the solder points on the back. We can at least remove them from the front I've seen early prices for this. Very close to reference, so i'm pleased Asus have chosen not to charge a big premium Edited February 21, 201213 yr by K404
February 20, 201213 yr In denmark the DCU2 are the cheapest HD7970 card you can get all the ref cards are way more expansieve
February 21, 201213 yr Yea...I think will be the way... To remove the indutor and cap and reinstall back the card....or...to build a new Tek9 DCU II edition
February 21, 201213 yr GTX670 (GK104) next month. Should apparently be around 7950 performance. But maybe more OC headroom, and better cold scaling if it's anything like GTX580.
February 23, 201213 yr In denmark the DCU2 are the cheapest HD7970 card you can get all the ref cards are way more expansieve How much ?
February 24, 201213 yr Holy shit: link Apparently there would be an issue when using the card horizontally (like in a normal system) and the contact between GPU and cooler. A French site tested the DCU2 cooler with a 7950 and, well, it's not doing too well. Slamms, can you check if you have similar issues with the 7970?
February 24, 201213 yr Good to know, thanks MM. We're supposed to have one of the 7970 DirectCU II's on the way soon. I normally test on a bench too. Glad you posted this; I'll be sure to test it in a case as well! One thing that bothers me about that link: "Asus was one of the first manufacturers to send us a Radeon HD 7950 semi-custom, that is to say, based on a reference PCB (but manufactured in its own factories) and equipped with a cooling system alternative, the famous brand DirectCU II." Their photos aren't loading for me, but the 7970 above is decidedly NOT a reference design. Did they really just slap a cooler on the reference 7950 for that DirectCU II version?
February 24, 201213 yr This is the layout of the 7950 DCU2 pcb: This is the layout of the 7950 ref pcb: Seems like the PCB is a bit different (which is normal for the DCU version). I think the problem is related to the weight of the cooler and the mounting mechanism. At least, that's what I get from the translation of the article. I think the author fixed the temperature issue by tightning up the screws holding the mounting and got normal results. It happens, it's not out of the ordinary. What would be bad, however, is these cards making it to retail with this design error. I think that's what the author is hinting at and why he published the article: he complained to Asus about this issue, got ignored and found cards being pushed to retail anyway. I wonder if it's present on the 7970 too. I assume it would be, given the similar mounting method?
February 24, 201213 yr It will be one of the first things I test, rest assured. FWIW, I shot a quick email to ASUS USA so they could have a look at it. Don't know if they'll reply as it doesn't affect us directly, but they at least know about it now.
February 24, 201213 yr Hope you send the link to the original article. If you linked to here, obviously hwbot will be 'against asus' again
February 24, 201213 yr Well that was fast. They're trying to get details on the reported problem but none of the cards they have on-hand have the problem and they've received no user reports either.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.