Overclocking
Using the same methodology of overclocking as on the reference card - that is, simply raising clocks to a level which the card cannot sustain for five minutes - we managed a final, stable speed of 1,060MHz core and 6,000MHz memory. While impressive and certainly indicative of what the GPU can do when pushed, the figures are a few MHz lower than achieved on the AMD HD 7970, which topped out at 1,075MHz and 6,100MHz, respectively.
Anyway, here's how it fared in a rerun of Aliens vs. Predator.
You're looking at about 10 per cent extra performance after a very quick trip into an overclocking utility, and this is precisely why you'll see so many pre-overclocked cards flood the market.
