ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II Review

How We Configured Our Test Systems: We tested the ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II in this article on a Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 motherboard powered by an Intel Core i5 3570K quad-core processor and 16GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1866 RAM. We installed Windows 8.1 Enterprise 64-bit onto a pair of Intel 730 Series 480GB solid state drives (SSDs) configured in a RAID 0 array. Once that was complete, we fully updated the OS and installed the latest DirectX redistributable along with all of the drivers, games, and benchmark tools necessary to complete our tests. Since we're also interested in 4K gaming performance, we ran the tests on a Dell UltraSharp UP3214Q 4K Ultra HD monitor.

HotHardware's Test System Intel Ivy Bridge Powered

Hardware Used: Intel Core i5-3570K (3.4GHz, Quad-Core) Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 (Intel Z68 Chipset) 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1866 2 x Intel 730 Series 480GB SSDs in RAID 0 Integrated Audio Integrated Network GeForce GTX 780 Ti Graphics Cards Tested: ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II (GTX780TI-DC2OC-3GD5)

Relevant Software: Windows 8.1 Enterprise 64-bit DirectX April 2011 Redistributable NVIDIA GeForce Drivers v335.23 WHQL Benchmarks Used: Unigine Heaven v4 Uningine Valley 3DMark "Fire Strike" 3DMark 11 Metro 2033 Hitman: Absolution Alien vs. Predator Tomb Raider Batman Arkham City S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat

Futuremark 3DMark 11 Simulated Gaming Performance

3DMark 11

Although Futuremark’s 3DMark 11 has been around for several years, it still provides a good look at gaming capabilities. We ran this benchmark on the Performance preset at 1280 x 720 resolution at on the Extreme Preset at 1920x1080.

Right out of the gate, the ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II takes a slight backseat to the other GeForce GTX 780 Ti cards we recently tested. It's not that we received a dud -- the DirectCU II is the slowest clocked card of the bunch at 954MHz for the base clockspeed and 1020MHz for the boost clockspeed. The offerings from EVGA and MSI both run at 1020MHz base / 1085MHz boost, while the Gigabyte card runs at 1085MHz base / 1150MHz boost. Given the clockspeed disparity, the DirectCU II performed right where it should.

Let's also not forget that the ASUS' card runs $690 street, which ties with MSI for the least expensive GeForce GTX 780 Ti around.

Futuremark 3DMark Fire Strike Synthetic DirectX Gaming

Futuremark 3DMark Fire Strike

Fire Strike has two benchmark modes: Normal mode runs in 1920x1080, while Extreme mode targets 2560x1440. GPU target frame buffer utilization for normal mode is 1GB and the benchmark uses tessellation, ambient occlusion, volume illumination, and a medium-quality depth of field filter. The more taxing Extreme mode targets 1.5GB of frame buffer memory and increases detail levels across the board. Extreme mode is explicitly designed for CrossFire / SLI systems. GT 1 focuses on geometry and illumination, with over 100 shadow casting spot lights, 140 non-shadow casting point lights, and 3.9 million vertices calculated for tessellation per frame. And 80 million pixels are processed per frame. GT2 emphasizes particles and GPU simulations. Tessellation volume is reduced to 2.6 million vertices and the number of pixels processed per frame rises to 170 million.

The rest of our 3DMark benchmark runs showed the same tendencies -- the DirectCU II, with its slower clockspeeds, had it trailing the competition. Bear in mind that in some cases, we're talking about less than a single frame per second difference between ASUS and both MSI and EVGA.