![]() History tells me when copper heatpipes make direct contact with the surface to be cooled, the thermal performance is noticeably better when compared to other designs where the heatpipes do not make contact with the target area. All three copper heatpipes pass through the aluminum base and make direct contact with the GPU core. Two of the heatpipes engage the long and short sides of the heatsink, while the third passes through the longer side only. The heatsink is comprised of a high density aluminum fin stack with three heatpipes. ASUS says by double sealing the housing and bearing assembly areas, and thus the dust entry points, you can expect a 25% greater fan lifespan. Where the fans separate themselves from others is with their dust-proof design. These particular fans are marked with a model number of FD7010M125, and I measured them to be right at 100 mm in size. I’ve never encountered any problems with FirstD fans, and they seem to be a popular choice in proprietary video card coolers. Inside the fan shroud, we find two FirstD fans, which we find in video cards from many manufacturers. By removing four more smaller screws, the outer fan shroud can be separated from the heatsink. The application of TIM was a little on the heavy side, but nothing alarming. The easy method of removing the DirectCU II cooler is intentional by design, which allows for easy cleaning and maintenance. Once that is done, the whole assembly is easily taken off. In order to remove the DirectCU II cooling apparatus, there are only four spring loaded screws that need to be removed. The GTX 770 series graphics cards also support Tri-SLI, and you’ll find the appropriate bridge connections at the top of the card. If you see green lights – all systems go! The display connection options are plentiful and include Dual Link DVI-I, Dual Link DVI-D, DisplayPort, and HDMI. There are two LEDs located just below the power connections that will glow red if bad power or no power is connected. In order to power the GTX 770 DirectCU II OC, you need both 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power leads, or you can use the provided power adapter cable found in the accessories. We’ll get into more detail of the different areas as the review progresses, but for now enjoy the picture show! With a pile of cardboard set aside, we can get a better look at this attractive graphics card. All these high level features equate to an enhanced experience when compared to the reference design cards. The main message here is higher GPU clocks, cooler and quieter operation, a robust power delivery design, and a software package designed to get the maximum performance possible. We’ll be going into more detail of the other features as we progress through the review, but here is a snippet to whet your appetite. The slides below outline some of the high level features you can expect when purchasing this card. Typically, the ASUS DirectCU II graphics cards are packed with special features, and that doesn’t change this time around either. The 7010 MHz memory clock, 1536 CUDA cores, and a 256 bit memory bus interface are the same as the reference design, but are impressive statistics in their own right.Ī quick glance at GPU-Z confirms what we see above and adds a few other details. Of special note here is the GPU base and boost clock increase from the reference design’s 1046/1085. Here are the specifications pulled from the ASUS press deck. ![]() It’s what they do after all! So, let’s take this latest offering from ASUS for a test drive and see how well their efforts have paid off. We just knew ASUS was going to take the GTX 770 reference design, beef up the power delivery, and overclock it. Today, we have a GTX 770 series card from ASUS to check out – the GTX 770 DirectCU II OC. NVIDIA’s GK104 based graphics cards made quite a splash while being used in some of the GTX 600 series cards, and now they make their presence known in the GTX 700 series as well. ![]()
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