Sapphire HD 7970 6GB Vapor-X GHz Edition Review

Testing:

Power consumption of the system will be measured at both idle and loaded states, taking into account the peak voltage of the system with each video card installed. I will use Unigine's Heaven Benchmark version 2.5 to put a load onto the GPU using the settings below. A 15-minute load test will be used to heat up the GPU, with the highest measured temperature recorded as the result. The idle results will be measured after 15 minutes of inactivity on the system. With dual-GPU setups, the two core temperatures will be averaged.

Settings

• Unigine 3.0 Heaven Benchmark
• 1920x1200 Resolution
• 8x AA
• 15-minute load test
• 15-minute idle test
• Measurement is in watts

In three out of four scenarios the Sapphire HD 7970 6GB Vapor-X is more efficient than the reference design thanks to its custom ten phase power design, Black Diamond chokes, DirectFET technology and 12 layer PCB.