After DirectCU and Matrix series ASUS has a new GeForce GTX 780 card in its portfolio which even features a new revision of their DirectCU II cooler with 0dB Fan technology named STRIX, there is also a non-reference PCB which features a ten phase power design with super alloy components. Everything put together sounds like a higly compelling offer.
Today, we will be checking ASUS'
newest STRIX Edition of the Geforce GTX 780 graphics card and show you all the
strengths and weaknesses of this graphics card.
ASUS' GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition is based on NVIDIA's massive Kepler
GK110 chip, which is manufactured by TSMC using the latest 28 nanometer process
technology. With the GeForce GTX 780 you get twelve SMX units which results in
2'304 CUDA cores. Following the specs further, there are 192 TMUs, 48 ROPs, a
384 bit wide memory interface and 6GB of GDDR5 memory, which is clocked
at 1'502 MHz (effective 6'008 MHz). In the end, there is a memory bandwidth of
288.4 Gigabyte per second. Concerning the GPU clock speed, it runs at a base
clock of 889 MHz and a boost clock of 941 MHz. During our tests the highest
boost clock we measured was 1'045 MHz and the average boost clock was also 1'045
MHz.
The ASUS GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition also supports GPU Boost 2.0. The first
version of GPU Boost stopped overclocking the GPU when a certain power target
was hit. This new second version of GPU Boost stops overclocking the card, when
a certain temperature is being reached. This makes sense since the temperature
is the bigger inhibitor than the power target in most cases. In this case the
temperature target is 80 degrees Celsius. In other words, as long as the GPU
runs at less than 80°C it will keep overclocking until the maximum frequency has
been reached. This is why in our case the average boost clock was 104 MHz higher
than the typical boost clock NVIDIA advertises.
ASUS decided to equip the GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition with a new version
of their famous DirectCU II cooler. In case of this card you get no less than
five heatpipes, two six millimeter, two eight millimeter and one massive ten
millimeter. Soldered to the heatpipes you find the fin stack which is being
provided with fresh air via two fans. The fans on the new STRIX series are
designed to spin only when GPU temprature reaches 65 degrees, which means that in
2D
mode they are completeley off. Also, under low loads the fans don't start to
spin. Under high-load the noise level is still silent, subjectively
speaking.
The ASUS GTX 780 STRIX OC
Edition graphics card, or to be precise our sample of
it, allowed a maximum stable overclock of 1'160 MHz
for the GPU and 1'700 MHz on the memory side. We used Furemark V1.11.0 Geeks3D
benchmark with 15 minutes duration. With these clocks we had to feed the GPU
with 1.21 Volts and the memory ran at stock voltages.
A closer look at the PCB shows that ASUS equipped this card with a
ten phase digital power design. The GPU gets its current from eight phases and
the two phases left, take good care of the 6GB of GDDR5 memory. Once more, ASUS is using high
quality super alloy chokes. On the backside of the GPU you can find dedicated SAP
CAPs to maximize overclocking headroom.
Checking the voltage regulation chip, we find a digital multi-phase buck
controller ASP1212 from IR (International Rectifier). Furthermore, there is an
unidentified Richtek 2-phase PWM labelled 02=FA F2B taking care of a stable
current supply for the the memory.
The memory chips used are made by SKhynix and carry the model number
H5GC4H24MFR. They are specified to run at 1'502 MHz (6'008 MHz
effective).
The graphics card ships well bolstered in a foam made mold. Bundled with it there is a user guide, a driver CD that includes the GPU Tweak overclocking tool, an SLI bridge and a power converter (2x6-Pin-PCIe to 1x8-Pin-PCIe).
If you are looking for game vouchers or something like that you will be
disappointed, since there is absolutely nothing like this in the
box.
For the noise level results, we measured the noise
level using a decibel meter (Voltcraft SL-200) located at 1 meter away from the
graphics card.
Idle Temperature
Temperature
Auto
50%
70%
100%
ASUS
GeForce GTX 760 Striker Platinum
34
34
33
29
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC
30
29
28
28
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum
32
31
30
29
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition
53
40
38
32
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Ti Matrix Platinum
37
37
36
34
ASUS
Radeon HD 7970 Platinum
28
28
28
27
ASUS
Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top
30
30
29
29
ASUS
Radeon R9 280X Platinum
30
30
29
29
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II
36
35
34
34
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X Platinum
37
36
35
34
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition
29
27
26
26
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 OC V2
30
29
28
28
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780
30
29
29
27
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition
32
31
30
29
PowerColor Radeon R9 280X TurboDuo OC
32
32
31
30
PowerColor Radeon R9 290X LCS
29
NVIDIA Reference
32
30
29
29
More is better
Idle, temperature is
taken after 15 minutes @ lowest, 40 %, 50 %, 70 % and 100 % fan speed.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature under Furmark
Temperature
Auto
50%
70%
100%
ASUS
GeForce GTX 760 Striker Platinum
73
73
73
72
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC
83
71
63
56
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Ti Matrix Platinum
77
77
72
68
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum
90
81
72
62
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition
70
66
59
54
ASUS
Radeon HD 7970 Platinum
76
70
69
69
ASUS
Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top
90
71
64
63
ASUS
Radeon R9 280X Platinum
77
73
71
70
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II
89
90
85
81
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X Platinum
88
85
82
78
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition
90
80
73
58
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 OC V2
90
83
75
63
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780
73
71
63
56
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition
80
77
72
69
PowerColor R9 290X LCS
46
PowerColor R9 280X TurboDuo OC
n/A
n/A
74
68
NVIDIA Reference
90
83
76
68
More is better
For FurMark, temperature is taken
after 15 minutes of GPU Burn test at lowest, 40 %, 50 %, 70 % and 100 % fan speed.
We stopped the test when the GPU temperature hit 90°C.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature and
fan speed under BattleField 3
Auto
Temperature
PowerColor R9 290X LCS (watercooled)
39
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming R9 280X OC Edition
60
ASUS
GeForce GTX 760 Striker Platinum
62
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition
62
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Ti Matrix Platinum
66
ASUS Radeon HD 7970 Platinum
66
MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780
66
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition
67
ASUS Radeon R9 280X Platinum
68
ASUS
GeForceGTX 780 DirectCU II OC
69
ASUS
Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II Top
69
Gigabyte
GeForce GTX 780 OC V2
70
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum
71
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X Platinum
72
PowerColor R9 280X TurboDuo OC
73
ASUS
Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II
79
NVIDIA Reference
79
More is better
For BattleField 3, temperature and fan speed
values taken are the highest achieved after 1 hour gaming @ auto fan
speed.
The "Performance Index" value is calculated as the sum of all
benchmarks results divided by the amount of games (3DMark and Unigine are not
included into the calculation).
Performance/Price
Graphics Cards
Performance Index
Price (€)*
Performance/€*10
ASUS Radeon R9
290X Platinum
n/A
n/A
n/A
ASUSGeForce GTX
780 Ti Matrix Platinum
n/A
n/A
n/A
AMD Radeon HD 7790
33.44
91
3.67
AMD Radeon HD 7870
50.53
143
3.53
AMD Radeon R9 270
50.00
144
3.47
AMD Radeon HD 7850
42.39
124
3.42
AMD Radeon R9 270X
53.85
159
3.39
nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost
40.87
121
3.38
nVidia GeForce GTX 660
47.37
144
3.29
nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti
30.80
100
3.08
AMD Radeon R9 280X
68.85
241
2.86
nVidia GeForce GTX 760
56.63
199
2.85
nVidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti
53.55
193
2.77
AMD Radeon HD 7970
64.27
232
2.77
nVidia GeForce GTX 670
62.00
228
2.72
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
70.75
260
2.72
nVidia GeForce GTX 770
70.92
266
2.67
nVidia GeForce GTX 580
50.49
190
2.66
AMD Radeon HD 6870
31.88
126
2.53
nVidia GeForce GTX 680
68.36
291
2.35
ASUS
GeForce GTX 760 Striker Platinum
59.92
288
2.08
nVidia GeForce GTX 780
81.66
415
1.97
AMD Radeon HD 6950
36.83
205
1.80
PowerColor Radeon
R9 290X LCS
91.19
577
1.58
ASUS
GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition
84.22
532
1.58
nVidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti
90.53
582
1.56
AMD Radeon HD 6970
41.19
310
1.33
AMD Radeon HD 5850
30.05
260
1.16
AMD Radeon HD 5870
35.98
335
1.07
AMD Radeon HD 6990
73.44
708
1.04
nVidia GeForce GTX TITAN
85.05
832
1.02
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti GHz
104.63
613
N/A
* 06/01/2014
More is better
Less is better
More is better
For the price we took the lowest price available on geizhals.eu.
ASUS’ brand new GeForce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition is a
really nice piece of hardware. This custom card is not only quicker than
a reference Geforce GTX 780 but it also features ASUS' latest version of the STRIX OC
Edition cooler, which makes it silent under load conditions and
inaudible in 2D since the fans don't spin up as long as the GPU runs
cooler than 65C. It is just a pity that there are no games in the bundle
when you buy high-end graphics cards from ASUS these days, although
they're are everything but cheap. Apart from
that minor bundle issue, the ASUS Geforce GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition is an excellent
graphics card.
- Performance
- Intelligent fan control
- Cooling
Cooling / Noise
Level
+
-
The GPU temperatures were good at maximum of 70°C
under heavy FurMark load with the fans locked at 30% fan speed. From a noise level
perspective, the new STRIX series from ASUS provides 0dB while in idle
or under very low-loads, which means the fans
are completely off and they're designed to start spinning when GPU reaches
65 degress. Furthermore, the cooler is really powerful
and it keeps the card at reasonable temperatures even under heavy load.
When running Furmark
for 15 minutes the GPU temperature never passed 70 degrees, which
is way lower then what you
get with the NVIDIA's reference cooler.
-
Noise level in both
idle and load
- 0dB in idle
Performance
+
-
A closer look at overall performance shows that the
GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition is, on average, 5.2 % faster in games than a
reference GTX 780.
Taking a look at the clock speed shows that this card clocks at 941
MHz on average, when applying heavy 3D loads. At this point one can
really see GPU Boost 2.0 doing its job, since it always tries to get
the maximum clock speeds out of the card, without overstepping the
temperature target.
A closer look at power consumption shows, that our test system, equipped
with the GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition, burns 52 Watts under idle conditions
and 294 Watts under load. Compared to the reference GTX 780 the heavily
modified GTX 780 from ASUS consumes seven watts more in idle and only
two
watts more under load. Especially concerning the full load power
consumption you should be aware that the STRIX OC Edition version clocks a
lot higher than the reference card but thanks to the better PWM,
compared to the reference
design, it provides much better power consumption results.
-
Performance/Watt
- 6 Gigabyte Memory
- Power consumption under
load
- Power Consumption in idle
Recommendation /
Price
+
-
Should you be looking for a really fast graphics
card with an excellent cooler, and you'd love to have a silent gaming
PC, then the GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition from ASUS is a great choice. Unfortunately, the ASUS GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition is 35% more
expensive than lowest priced Geforce GTX 780 graphics card we found at geizhals,
which is frankly: quite a lot.
On another note: we would love to see AMD R9 290/290X and also GTX 770/780 Ti
cards from ASUS with same
cooler and fan technology.
-
High-End Gaming
- Price
The GTX 780 STRIX OC Edition
from ASUS receives 4.5 out of 5 stars.