14 DAY TRIAL // With AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 now available in retail, system builders have started integrating this monster of a graphics card in their systems and one of the first companies to do so is Maingear, who has added AMD’s latest creation to their Shift, F131 and Vybe gaming desktops.
Made official in the second part of December 2011, AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 is based on the company’s Graphics Core Next architecture and is the first graphics card to be manufactured using the 28nm production process.
At its heart, the card packs 32 Compute Units for a total of 2048 stream cores that are joined by 128 texture units, 32 ROP units and a 384-bit wide memory bus.
This connects the GPU to 3GB of GDDR5 video buffer which runs at 1.375GHz (5.5GHz effective), while the graphics core’s operating frequency is set at 925MHz.
In Maingear’s desktops, the powerful AMD graphics card can be paired with Intel LGA 1155 or LGA 2011 processors as well as with AMD’s own FX-Series CPUs.
These can come either air or liquid cooled, and Maingear allows its users to equip the systems with as much as 32GB of DDR3-1866 memory, high-end power supplies with ratings up to 1,500W, and up to six hard drives or SSDs.
“‘No Compromise’ and ‘unmatched performance’ are an irony with regards to what we’re seeing inside the MAINGEAR Labs” said Wallace Santos, CEO and founding father of Maingear.
“With AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, gamers searching for a real excessive gaming experience will find what they’re searching for,” concluded the company’s rep.
The Radeon HD 7970 equipped Shift and F131 gaming desktops are already available from Maingear’s website, while the Vybe should arrive at a later date.
Pricing for the base configuration of two systems, including an AMD Radeon HD 7970, is set at $2,453.00 and $1,917.00 (1,931 and 1,509 EUR). CrossfireX setups are also available.