Review: asus hd7870 direct cu ii

Asus announced in early March its new line of ATI HD7870 graphics cards with Direct CU II heatsinks and custom PCBs. The efficiency of your Direct CU heatsink and the quality of Asus components are already known worldwide. Will it meet the expectations set by the Professional Review Team? Let's see it in this analysis.

Product ceded by:

ASUS HD7870 DIRECT CU II FEATURES
Graphics engine	AMD Radeon HD 7850
Bus	PCI Express 3.0
Video Memory	GDDR5 2GB
Clock Frequency	870 MHz
Memory frequency and interface	4840 MHz (1210 MHz GDDR5) and 256-Bit
RAMDAC	400 MHz
Interface	D-Sub output: Yes x 1 (via DVI to D-Sub adapter x 1) DVI output: HDMI output: Yes x 1 Display Port: Yes x 1 (Regular DP) HDCP Support: Yes
Heatsink	DirectCU Series
Dimensions	10.2 "x 4.5" x 1.7 "Inch

• Exclusive DirectCU thermal technology lowers temperature by 20% and offers a quieter environment GPU Tweak utility allows modifying and adjusting clock speeds, voltages and fan speed with an intuitive interface AMD Eyefinity technology allows you to expand the action on multiple displays PCI Express 3.0 multiplies by two the performance of PCI Express 2.0

The card is protected in a large box. In it we can see that it has 2 GB of memory, it is PCI Express 3.0. and its heatsink lowers the reference temperatures by 20%.

The presentation is spectacular. Box with all its accessories and black polystyrene to avoid any problem in its transport.

The bundle includes:

• ASUS HD7870 Direct CU II TOPM graphics card Instruction manual CrossFire bridge 6-pin molex adapter DVI CD adapter with software

The 7870 DCII has an excellent design. The black / red color scheme is ideal to pair with high end style motherboards: Asus Rampage / Maximus or Asrock Fatal1ty.

This models brings two appreciable improvements:

1.- Custom PCB with better phases and capacitors.

2.- Direct CU II TOP heatsink reducing the temperature by 20% with the reference version.

The card only occupies two slots allowing us to mount a crossfire without temperature problems.

Being a graphic with excellent power consumption features, it incorporates two 6-pin connectors.

The heatsink includes 3 thick nickel-plated copper arms.

The card includes three different connectors:

• 2 x DVI. 1 x HDMI. 1 x DisplayPort.

Rear view of the graph.

And now a comparison with the ASUS GTX580 Direct CU II. The size difference is appreciable (2 slots vs. 3 slots). But don't be confused because they are just as quiet and very cool.

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel 2500k 3.4GHZ
Base plate:	Asus Sabertooth P67
Memory:	Kingston Hyperx PNP 2x4GB
Heatsink	Corsair H60
HDD	Kingston Hyperx 120gb
Graphic card	Asus ATI HD7850 Direct CU II
Power supply	Thermaltake TouchPower 1350W

To evaluate the performance of the graphics card we have used the following applications:

• 3DMark11.3DMark Vantage.The Planet 2.Resident Evil 5.Heaven benchmark 2.1

All our tests have been carried out with a resolution of 1920px x 1200px.

What are we looking for in the tests?

First the best possible image quality. The most important value for us is the average FPS (Frames per second), the higher the number of FPS, the more fluid the game will be. To differentiate the quality a little, I leave you a table to assess the quality in FPS:

FRAMES BY SECONDS
Frames for Seconds. (FPS)	Gameplay
Less than 30 FPS	Limited
30 - 40 FPS	Playable
40 - 60 FPS	Good
Greater than 60 FPS	Fairly Good or Excellent

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Let's not fool ourselves; there are games that can have an average of 100 FPS. It may be because the game is quite old, does not require excessive graphic resources or that the graphics is the most powerful on the market, or we have thousands of euros GPU systems. But the reality is different, and games like Crysis 2 and Metro 2033 are very demanding and do not usually give high scores.

TESTS ATI ASUS HD7850 DCII
3Dmark Vantage	24580 points
3DMark11 Performance	P6623 points
Heaven 2.1 DX11	1720 points and 68.3 FPS
The Planet 2 (Directx11)	67 FPS
Resident Evil 5 (Directx10)	264.7 pts

The ASUS HD7870 Direct CU II brings two major improvements over the reference model: custom PCB and cooling. Its design is fantastic in all aspects, those red lines are very sporty.

Regarding cooling, we can only speak highly enough of its Direct CU II dual heatsink. It incorporates a nickel plated copper base, 3 thick heatpipes and a double fan. It is very quiet and hardly warms up. We refer the data to the following data: in idle state it is always at 39-40ºC and at full load (full) 64º.

Its performance is excellent. We have obtained scores at the GTX580 level: 3DMark11 P6623 pts and in Lost Planet 2 games 67 FPS and Resident Evil 264.7 FPS.

The ASUS HD7870 Direct CU II is the new queen in quality / price on the market. For users looking for the performance of a € 400 with Full HD configuration. Another of its advantages is that it fits into Quiet PC equipment? Its price ranges from € 300 in online stores.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE.	- NONE.
+ SILENT AND FRESH.
+ ONLY OCCUPIES 2 SLOTS.
+ DIRECT CU II HEATSINK.
+ EXCELLENT PRICE.
+ PERFORM AS A GTX580

The Professional Review team awards you the gold medal and product quality / price.