Introduction

ASUS Radeon HD 7970 Crossfire review

The Radeon HD 7970 was received quite well a week or two ago. And although a paper launch probably is never a good idea, this week you'll start seeing some stock in the stores with good availability starting at January 9th 2012.

Though definitely not cheap, the 7970 series is a product with a lot of horsepower and sure, a lot of reserve. The graphics engine was overhauled with the result that in more stringent condition it just performs better. Such conditions would be GPU limited games, and gaming in the massive resolutions with multiple monitor configurations, hence that phat 3 GB graphics memory helps out.

As mentioned in the reference review already, injected in the 499EUR / 549 USD price tag bracket the product will have to compete directly with the equally expensive GeForce GTX 580, it will actually be a decent notch better then that IMHO.

ASUS was the first to send a retail sample towards us, it's clocked standard, has a reference design and aside from a sticker it is just 100% the reference product really, with all the same top notch features, performance and technology.

With the reference card in-house, we figured well, we can replicate the entire reference review again with the frame rates showing an offset of 1% here and there, or we just take it to the next level -- multi-GPU gaming.

So in this review we'll show you a little about the technology, the card itself of course ... but more interestingly, we'll have a look at Crossfire performance. As if you figured just one card would be interesting, you have no idea what's coming at you with two cards.

Have a peek at the offering, and then march onward into the review, hihoo Tahiti ...