it was an awesome article. I think you really got gave it straight. No one has come out with it like that, they only seen parts of the picture.

one thing though, i think the gtx 680 is a GK104 not a GK114. The article is typo'ed, lol.

Other than that, its flawless. Yours contains wayyyy more data than anywhere else. It really is a fine piece of work, one of the best.

I also think that your 7970 uses more power than some others. I think they must vary a lot. Further evidence that the 925mhz clock was low because of power consumption issues. Your 7970 seems a little higher than some others. But i have seen some as high as yours too. Anyway, as long as you report accurate your doing your job right. You cant help what the numbers say. You just record them. And record them you did. A mighty fine job!!!!

great work!!!!!

Yes, there are probably still a few typos. i worked for 4 hours last night and when i saved, IE glitched and somehow corrupted the last 4 hours of saves. So i had to rewrite everything from memory (and some nasty html save that i had independently). That was at Midnight. i went to bed at 2:30 AM and got up at 4:30 to finish it and it was done by 6:30 AM

i have still got to do a couple of image links for the ABT front page, so i will correct them tomorrow,

Thank-you very much for organizing the timeline so well on the forum. i think that it will get more attention in a launch article rather than in a blog or separate piece; and i made sure to headline it in the first few sentences of my article - because i think it is important.

Thank-you for your help, and your insights

i believe you are right; and that is the reason that AMD set the clocks at 925MHz. Now that the process is mature they can up them +75MHz. If they could put them any higher, they would.

AMD rushed the HD 7970 to market and did not have any insurance policy
- well, we warned them, didn't we? No wonder they don't like ABT

Pics are done .. starting the install and then going to bed early

Technically, 12:01AM is as "early" as it gets


And it sure is a pretty card. Styling is conservative but i am really interested in the cooler; i imagine it is adapted for 7800 series and i sure would like a HD 7870 or 7850 - or preferably both to test mixed CF

Yes it is a pity that AMD doesn't want us reviewing their HW. That is the very best part of AMD and it's very easy to say good things about their HW.

Last thing before i start. i ran the original benches with HD 7770 with my i7-920 at 3.8GHz.

It makes sense to not use a highly clock CPU. i am thinking that i7-3770K should be run at its stock settings - 3.5GHz with turbo to 3.9GHz - for less powerful video cards.

its more practical that way, i dont think it will make any real difference overclocked anyway..

Did you guys hear that the thermal compound is the cause of the high Ivy Bridge temps?

2 weeks ago and debunked.

No, there is new info and they showed a 10-20C drop in temps.

link please