7900 XTX? More like 7970 XTX 3GHz Edition

[@subterficial]

7970 was the card I was dreaming of buying back when I was building my first desktop. Simpler times...

[@mokahless]

Man, I got a used 7950 back in the day. Only reason I needed to upgrade from my 6950 was because I made the mistake of getting the 1GB version - Bioshock Infinite was VRAM limited on that card. After that lesson, I made sure to get the 8GB, not 4GB RX 480. But shortly after, I upgraded to the 1080 Ti. A fortuitous purchase, it turned out, especially with modern cards suffering with 8GB. The GPU landscape looks like such crap these days that I'm still hanging on to the 1080 Ti.

[@boxfabio]

@@mokahless the time was simpler i bought 7 of those cards to mine , they were awsome and no one was specially aware that GPU's were used to mine and i didn't get any flak for it , sold them all for less then 50€ and still got some btc/ltc/doge out of them

[@hansrotec]

Just retiring mine now, was considering the 7900 xtx for the joke of a downgrade... but think it will be a used ebay card until another gen or two

[@MrNelahem]

I still have one in a box in the closet but I think she is dead.

[@GumpPower]

I had a 7970 GHz.. the sapphire was very loud though

[@jimbodee4043]

Asrock has started impressing me with a lot of their recent products.

[@ilovehotdogs125790]

Well not their motherboards

[@gunturbayu6779]

@@ilovehotdogs125790 what?? Their mobo are much much better now , especially their am5 lineup

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@ilovehotdogs125790 the 90s called

[@tonton1047]

Yep they have awesome products🎉

[@bes12000]

@@ilovehotdogs125790 My ASRock X670 Pro RS runs flawlessly as well as my ASRock X399 Phantom Gaming for my threadripper as well as my ASRock 6950XT OC Formula GPU (it's a literal beast).

[@Inimigor1]

Yes, yes we are having a good time with it, I still have my 7970 Ghz edition with an EK waterblock sitting in my shelf. What a great time it was for AMD GPUs.

[@Veriflon88]

A VTX3D HD 7979 GHz Edition was my first video card. Later it was also part of my first custom loop. It definitely held up *much* longer than I expected

[@Mervinion]

7970 ghz edition is the thing I only dreamt back then... Now I can afford having 7900xtx phantom from asrock with alphacool waterblock and its mostly sticking close to 3ghz, but rarely reaching above. Still, I'm satisfied with -1% performance relative to Aqua for 300€ less.

[@merkedgg6322]

U can flash the aqua bios on ur phantom to fully unlock the power limit

[@Zordonzig]

I've got my fingers crossed Sapphire is holding back their TOXIC variant of the 79X0 XTX cards because they know a refresh is coming. The AQUA however is a very very pretty card and a great performer.

[@TieuBachBach]

In sapphire we trust, toxic is the best ❤

[@MrTeknown]

I've got 7900 XT Saphire Nitro+ just to send it back. I got the 7900 XTX Saphire Nitro+ instead. There was an option for a white Taichi XTX for 110 euro cheaper, but I was so impressed with the Nitro+ that I just went for it instead.

[@rollerr]

7970 was an awesome card back in the day. Love the XTX too, just a beast.

[@TheMatthewLedbetter]

"My loop's got ALMOST NO leaks in it!" was the best and more accurate sign off I've ever heard :D

[@Liqtor]

I still have my Radeon HD7970. It was serving my sons computer until I upgraded it to a 2060 last month. He's very happy with the upgrade.

[@wapted]

reminiscing about Tahiti 👀

[@righteousone8454]

So warm, so steamy. Tahiti I remember toasty AMD cards, I had 7950

[@GumpPower]

I've been using EK ZMT for a bit over a year now and the water is still as clear as it can be! I think you will have a good time with it. Also I bought the very card that you are hinting on back in the days. It was glorious

[@LampJustin]

I had the 7870 GHz Edition back then and it was amazing, had that card for a really long time! I even remember patching the vBIOS to add native EFI support :D

[@xXDarthBagginsXx]

Ah the memories, loved my 7870's and 7970's - always wanted that coveted 7990 - really want this card since team green has been shying me away with their pricing and issues from AiB's (still rocking a 1080Ti). That EK ZMT tubing is amazing, haven't drained my loop in over 5yrs with EK's clear coolant, and the loop still flows beautifully and clean.

[@MP_7]

Same with a 1080ti. Still thinking what to do since team green pricing is too much

[@xXDarthBagginsXx]

@@MP_7 just wait to find a steal, ended up retiring my 1080Ti for a 4070Ti Super that I snagged Open-Box for $650

[@MP_7]

@@xXDarthBagginsXx got ya, thx

[@itchrisw]

Loved my 7970 1GHz edition... had that sucker for ages

[@glbernini0]

Can't believe you didn't waste dozens of hours custom cutting & forming hard tubes! Nice to see performance over style!

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

If you're spending that much money for custom loop cooling, I think it's worth a few hours to make hard lines look good.

[@RafitoOoO]

​@@rightwingsafetysquad9872while I agree, hard tubing is a pain if for whatever reason you need to unseat your gpu or whatever. You can have a good looking soft tubing that lets you remove a component every once in a while without requiring a full draining.

[@AeroEngr69]

The Red Devil will do 3.2ghz all day on air. With an EK waterblock installed many people get 3.3 to 3.4ghz. This is without any physical mods. With mods, like Elmors Lab EVC2SE, 3.6ghz has been seen on one; but 3.4 seems to be the upper limit on most of these dies regardless if there's more power that can be drawn.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

7770 GHz Edition was my first graphic card. Would have loved a 7970 back then.

[@guntherultraboltnovacrunch5248]

I didn't have the 7970, but I was a proud owner of the 9700 pro. Lasted all of two years before going belly up. It was fun while it lasted.

[@HuebietheGuru]

Haven't cleaned my loop since 2020 and also using ZMT Tubes with destilled water. 😁

[@umyboiblue]

I didn't have the the 7970 GHz Edition, but my first card was the refresh in the form of the R9 280x. I loved that card so much. When i saw the video title I got super excited.

[@LordMustangGT93]

I have a whole room water cooling loop, with 4 computers on it and have had zero maintenance over 5 years or so now with just tap water and a tablespoon of bleach. Total system water is 3 gallons.

[@Adam_Lynn]

Sounds awesome. Do you have pictures online?

[@juno1597]

Thanks for putting the 7970 XTX Toxic 3 Ghz addition on the charts!

[@rustler08]

Can't wait to pick one up for $600 in a year or two.

[@OsX86H3AvY]

i still have my r9 280x...love it...ill probably use it again in something some day, it just keeps going, it wont die

[@Maxjoker98]

Haha, I had a HD7790 GHz edition. Worked flawlessly under Linux(even with the modern AMDGPU drivers!) until I replaced it with a GTX 1070 I got for free. NVidia Drivers are way worse.

[@AxleTrade]

You'll trigger the man children who buy i9 cpus and any current gen Nvidia XX90 just to argue on the internet.

[@goblinphreak2132]

Had the 7970 1ghz edition (yeah you typed 7790 but I know what you meant) and it was the stock blower card. About a year in, a month after warranty, the card started getting hot. I took it apart thinking "maybe the paste went bad" since everyone online at the time was crying about blower cards. Sure enough, the paste had dried up. Replaced paste with Arcitc Silver 5, the classic OG paste for high end systems (still is in my opinion) and not only did my temps go back down, but I got lower temps than stock by like 10c. It was insane. To this day the card still works even though it sits on a shelf.

[@adriancioroianu1704]

​@@AxleTrade He's talking about Linux.

[@myamaha62]

Us old timers remember. Especially considering my first pc was a commodore Vic 20. Even had the tape player with it. Lol

[@HighTechPioneer]

In the tail end of the 2010s I got my first ever graphics card, an xfx 7970 ghz edition, that even came with a free raidmax rx700ss which surprisingly still works perfectly to this day, despite me possibly thermal frying the vrm trying to replace dusty thermal pads on a card that would just end up shutting off after some load. Ended up replacing that with a nitro+ r9 fury, and now a couple red devil vega 64s and a frontier edition I got for around 550 total. For SOLIDWORKS and thermo/aero partical physics, my new setup is gonna be a beast, but if an xfx 7970 xtx comes out, I think I'll know what my next card will be!

[@XoxoxoGaming]

OH! That was you when I was running my 7900xtx benchmark and looking at the Records going wow, us AMD lovers LOVE to see this card in 11th Place in the world!!! XD

[@vasudevmenon2496]

7970ghz edition was the top tier and r9 295x2 was a massive dual GPU monster while r9 nano was great for sff.

[@mattparker9726]

3:08 I got it, in fact I got a 7870 for free this year. It's going in a customer's machine.

[@nnm711]

I still have my Sapphire 7970 Vapor-X GHz edition, even though it is no longer functional. Lots of "fun" with that one, it ran so hot. (also Fractal define R4 wasn't exactly a great airflow case with just the original fans) In the rebooted Tomb Raider it went upwards of 90C. One of the fans got eventually fried and stopped spinning, had to replace both of them. Then buggy AMD drivers struck, getting fan speed stuck at about 300rpm, regardless of core temperature. The card had enough eventually and died. I still remember the moment my monitor screen turned white.

[@robertt9342]

Mine still works. It’s in a second rig for other gaming.

[@spuchoa]

Great video Wendell!

[@adamlaskey7265]

Love the callback. 7970Ghz edition was a great time to be a GPU buyer. Competition was pretty fierce and so many good options.

[@CyberneticArgumentCreator]

If you owned a 7970 then you were getting effectively half the FPS the benchmarks advertised because ATI/AMD drivers, through to the mid-2010s, were a stuttery mess. It was a TERRIBLE time to be an ATI/AMD owner until many many generations later.

[@adamlaskey7265]

@@CyberneticArgumentCreator I had a 7950 at the time and it was a great card! I never had an issue with it and it was great for mining Bitcoin in the early days.

[@killroy713]

Man. Didn't have the 7970 hd but I did have a 6950 which I flashed a modded 6970 bios too almost got the ghz out of that sucker. A beast of its time 800 base 880 boost I oc'd it to 910 930 on a good day.

[@gusmlie]

Loved my 7970. Flashed to a 1ghz rom and was fantastic performance for the time.

[@AndreiNeacsu]

It's 9 of us. My 1GHz XT2 (3GB 384bit) edition card was used until I upgraded to the R9 390 (8GB 512bit). If I had the 6GB version, I would have kept it longer.

[@superpandabacon]

Woo Raystorm! Been using their cpu blocks for my liquid cooling builds. They’re not fancy but they’re easy to clean come maintenance time.

[@mattparker9726]

6:40 best stuff ever. Gold standard.

[@ramblinjay3816]

Why can't i find the 7900 xtx liquid devil powercolor anywhere? Should i just get the asrock aqua? I got a 5700xt liquid devil and ready to update.

[@Fractal_32]

The HD 7970 GHz edition cards sound legendary from what I’ve heard from people in the space back then. It was also cool because that’s when Sapphire had a HD 7950 that could possibly unlock the GPU core to be a HD 7970.

[@mokahless]

There was no such thing as the HD 7970 3GHz edition. Maybe you're confused because the GHz edition (1 GHz) had 3GB of VRAM. It also wasn't legendary at all. Essentially, Nvidia was dragging their heels a bit so AMD launched the HD 7970 at 800MHz (a more power-efficient speed). But Nvidia was just around the corner from launching the 680 and when they did, it demolished AMD so they needed to respond. They did so by stopping "production" of the 7970 and replaced it with the 7970 GHz edition, which they just increased core and memory clocks, bringing it up to be even with the 680. Efficiency suffered. The GHz edition was 15% less efficient than the 800MHz version. And both were less efficient than the 680. The only real "legendariness" of the card would be their implementation of OpenCL. For compute workloads, it was a huge jump at the time, as long as you didn't need Cuda. Until Nvidia's Maxwell architecture, it was also the king architecture for cryptocurrency mining. And that has nothing to do with specifically the GHz edition.

[@Fractal_32]

@@mokahless thank you for catching that mistake, I forgot it was the GHz edition and not 3GHz.

[@PineyJustice]

Had a 7970 rog matrix, ran that card at 1.3ghz all the way till 2017

[@chrisbullock6477]

most will just google it to feel special. But I remember when DICE did a exclusive look at Battlefield 3 at a AMD event using the 7970 3GHZ edition.

[@PyromancerRift]

I have a 7950 gigowatt edition but it sadly died. RIP in peace. It probably died from something overheating. GPUs were not as good for cooling mosfet and ram chips back then.

[@dexter2433]

that tear gave me chills whooooh

[@retrosean199]

I was there, Wendell. I was there, two thousand years ago... 🧝🏻‍♂️

[@michaelfalabella6296]

P.S. you are my favourite techtuber haha you're the most trustworthy in my opinion

[@hando87]

was too poor to get the ghz edition but had a 7870 for a long time........great generation of cards!

[@thew1neguy]

I can not find anyone online with a teardown video on this card. I have been running it in my personal rig since you posted this video, and while I have been very happy, I wonder if I could get the hotspot temps down with a better thermal paste. However I can not find anyone who has done a teardown on this card. Future content?

[@greysins190]

I love the humour in this video. So good

[@jedbaldwin]

Are you thinking of looking at the new System76 case personally or professional? It’s called the Nebula I think? I believe it shares some heritage with the Thelio.

[@einarabelc5]

The only channel with "the lick" in its intro :D

[@sirjake84]

At one point I did consider cleaning up my old 7970 (it was bought second hand) and meme posting about "AMDs new gpu" in the end i never got around to digigng it out of my old phenom2 system thats in the back of the tech/utility closet.

[@vincei4252]

It's so heavy? Is there something wrong with gravity in the future ?

[@mikes2381]

AsRock is giving that card more rocks.

[@Bound4Earth]

The 7970 was the first mistep of ATI under AMD. They had great acrds up til that one jump the power usage and temps to keep up with nVidia. Perhaps they dont want a reminder of better times or unfolding of that.

[@niclasjns6289]

Is it a 7900XTX video er are cleaning customloop video. Hope you catch my drift. Love the 7970 comp.

[@PSYCHOPATHiO]

what caught my eyes was the 7970.... amazing HOT card.

[@larsvassenjansen1651]

I had a HIS 7970. By no means the 3Ghz Ed', but like the entire 7970 range, it had its moments and certainly had its flaws, and suddenly dying was at the top of that list.

[@swizzler8053]

Just received my bykski block for the asus tuf 7900XTX. Cant wait to watercool that baby.

[@warrenskeen9203]

I still have a 7870 GHz edition in a box in the cupboard. ❤

[@96kylar]

Is this the original version or the OC version? Your link shows the original but I was curious. Also have you flashed this card with asrocks new performance Vbios? Thanks

[@Mageoftheyear]

Yeah, I'm annoyed they probably aren't going to give us a 7970 / 7990 refresh.

[@florihae]

I am so torn....made the "mistake" of buying the Sapphire Pulse 7900 XTX. The card is amazing and I got it for a really good price....but the cooler sucks. Should I go for an GPU AIO Eiswolf from Alphacool or should I go back to a full custom loop....I once swore I will never go back....but damn....now I want 😂

[@andljoy]

I have the 6900XT Liquid Devil , its fantastic.

[@mattbelmonte8334]

Finally someone make a video of this card. I've had it since practically release. Only thing I have to add is the thermal paste is absolute trash, repaste it indefinitely. Also Wendell have you installed the new vbios update from asrock? You can push 563 watts with their official extreme vbios.

[@Der_Drache]

i have the 7900XTX Aqua for now 3 months and i had to do a repaste already after like 2 weeks. the temps went from 70C up to 90-100C under load at normal settings. kinda sad but Asrocks paste seams like a more cheap one, but there was never a spot without Paste on. Now i still have to get my VR setup more stable with Win 11 and the AMD driver crashing all the time (will go back to win 10 after a while of testing with 11)

[@ajallen212]

Yeah alot of people reported initial heat problems with the factory paste, but after a quick repasting its been running just fine. They cheaped out on the paste, im planning on ordering an aqua soon and im just gonna repaste it by default.

[@stuartlunsford7556]

Optimum blocks are the top tier man! I'd love to see one on here.

[@joeykeilholz925]

Can confirm as one of the eight. Back when a 7950 was $190...

[@bhume7535]

I got a HD 7970 with an arctic accelero on it in my TV PC. It may not be efficient, but it pains me not to use it.

[@ThunderGod9182]

I ran 2 7970 gigahertz edition in crossfire. Those were the days when I was young and hopeful. The gpu market now makes me want to drop the bombs...

[@MaddJakd]

I was looking as these the other day. Surprised (mildly) there aren't any AIO variants of the 7900XTX, but have had custom loop aspirations since I started building 😈

[@BealBega]

Throwback to my baby HD7770. First GPU I bought and slapped that shit in a pre built

[@kaisercreb]

glad Wendell is there to hit the PC parts nostalgia

[@0xde57]

Was running the 7970 Ghz edition up till a few months ago!

[@Justin-vq9co]

not gonna lie, asrock and msi have been doing really well lately

[@spinkey4842]

forgive my ignorance but what do you mean by "Resetting" the GPU? are you talking about the bios or something else?

[@chapstickbomber]

The new Extreme BIOS for the AQUA is great and is definitely tuned for stability at higher clocks, much nicer than EVC. 550W after OC. It's awesome. Also I'm one of the other 7 people. Edit: also, "not a 24/7 thing" lol not with that attitude

[@sammus1412]

I just flashed my AMD reference card to this bios (with an EK block) and boy is the performance uplift massive compared to stock bios!

[@SeesSean]

LMAO nice reference, that old card was a BEAST

[@bernds6587]

funnily enough my old PC almost would have gotten its precedessor, a HD 6970. But a friend of mine said: that 6970 is - considering price/performance not really better.. So I went with a HD6950. My plan was to go with a RX6950 for the lulz, but couldn't decide yet. Until now it's a 7950X, using the iGPU currently. Feels a bit like a formula 1 car without steering wheel

[@jonsquare1248]

Hey! I used to have one of those... It was awesome.

[@marcovpv]

This made me realize this is now the 3rd time we have had a 7000 series ATI/AMD card

[@dangingerich2559]

Kyle from HardOCP?? He's still kickin' around? It's been so long since I even thought about HardOCP.

[@enthusiasticpaunch]

11 years ago? No way. My son, "They had graphics cards before i was born?" I just said kinda.

[@TieuBachBach]

I remember to ATI day with xx70 sub named. They are top of top for ATI lover, with Sapphire toxic. Wow, it was a nuclear 😢

[@rodhester2166]

Sometimes I feel the the oldest tech in the room being 56.. lol.. cheers. and hopefully everyone else here will still be at it in their 50s and beyond.

[@devtank]

Buy an oil filter syringe, they can be 500 or more ml, and are the single best safest & fastest thing to fill or drain a loop.

[@StaySic4Ever]

I do wonder is there going to be a refined chip with higher clocks, like it was mentioned before that potentially it could. We've seen much higher clocks in some workloads from some OCs on air but not as high for gaming.

[@joshuagreer8046]

My reference 7900xtx has ekwbs le block on it and my god I was surprised that it can hit 3050mghz all these cards need and much like Vega is great cooling and some undervolting as well

[@MegaAshabasha]

I can see what he finds appealing about his work...

[@bobruddy]

6600 was bug free. use that every day. but the 6500 was plagued with reset issues

[@Dracconus]

My 7900XT does 3Ghz at 1025mV. 7th Place in the world in Firestrike Extreme. In SOME instances I can drop the voltage more, but it really doesn't like it if I bump the memory over 2500Mhz and fast mode. Honeywell TPM7950 and Gelid Extreme Pads and I run the XFX Speedster Merc 310 Black Edition stock air cooler and it stays under 70c in benchmarks. It's absolute insanity to run 3Ghz and run a 400w TDP and do so on AIR.

[@Phynellius]

So this vs the liquid devil I’m curious what the difference is on actual performance

[@trousersnake1486]

My first gpu was the 7870 ghz edition back in 2013.

[@juno1597]

Are there any AIO's that would work with this? I'm to lazy for water cooling :(.

[@kidkadian4054]

i giggle every time you say 3 ghz edition ... never change man

[@glitchvid]

7900 XTX (N31) could've been a lot closer to the 4090 had they stuck with the WGP layout/ratio of N21 (10 WGP per SE), that would be a 120 CU design. Could've done that with the existing 355W budget, but it would've really screamed with 450W+ and 3GHz like what's shown here.

[@LBH91]

Do you have to add all the hoses or is it just add water and go please help?

[@mokahless]

FYI, there's a quiet but high-pitched whine throughout your video, here.

[@mattparker9726]

0:47 OOOH Woodgrain!? Pretty!

[@kaptain1477]

is it possible to get a cheaper card and buy a water block and flash this asrock bios and get similar performance.

[@Born_Stellar]

yes

[@Strykenine]

Almost no leaks! Mine too!