Meet Gigabytes Super Overclock Radeon 7970

Written by: alt639 - 21:53 Jul-08-2012

At CES this year, hardware manufacturer Gigabyte unveiled a new take on the Radeon HD 7970 graphics card. Gigabyte is branding it the "Super Overclock" edition.

That's a pretty hefty moniker to attach to anything when it comes to hardware. Turns out though that this card has the beef to back it up...

Gigabyte is attaching their new Windforce 5x cooler to the SOC 7970. It consists of five, 30-mm fans aligned in parallel with the internal components of the video card. The fans are designed to pull air from behind the card, over the internal components, and then out into the case. In theory, this should keep the GPU a lot cooler than the traditional fan design.

Unfortunately, the new design has a few drawbacks. For one, the cooler adds an extra slot to the two-slot design. Furthermore, the maximum TDP of this card reaches 375 watts. Though not exactly a drawback for single GPU users, those looking to Crossfire will need at least a 1 kilowatt power supply.

Not much else is known about the SOC 7970 yet. A few extra things not mentioned are that: the SOC 7970 has a default core clock speed of 1080 MHz, and that Gigabyte has a dual-BIOS switch, with one setting being the default, while the other, called the LN2 BIOS, removes all protective restrictions for those who are going for a "Super Overclock".

Pricing and market arrival have yet to be announced. Expect the price to be at or above US $600 though.

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