Asus GTX780 DcuII Review (Pics+Thoughts+Benchmarks)

[FloRolf]

Hey Guys,

today, as you may or may not have already noticed, im gonna review the GTX780 DCuII from Asus.

 

First, why did i choose the Dcu2 over the other Versions from different vendors?

I actually didnt.

My first choice was the Classy since the Dcu2 wasn available here for a long time. But then finally when i wanted

to buy it, it became available and had some benefits including: lower price (80€ less!), maybe better cooling, a sexy Backplate and

an overall look of an beast card.

So that made my decision clear and i ordered it.

 

Now the day of my *first* review has arrived and i want to start with some pictures, followed by Specs, a few Benchmarks and comparisons

as well as a little overclocking and a final conclusion.

 

So lets start right off with the pics *Sorry for the crappy quality, i actually thought they'd be better but now its

too late to retake them... *

 

Here you can see the front and the back of the box, for those who are interested in this ^^

The teasing beginns

*drumm roll*

 

Tada, not a good pic but we'll see it in action later

 

Here's what comes in the box. A Setup Guide which you probably wont need, a driver disc which you also dont need *download the latest

drivers from the nvidia website*, a 2x6pin to 8pin adapter, a looong SLI bridge and the most important part, a huge graphics card.

At this part of the review i have to compliment Asus. There's no VGA-DVI adapter, welcome to the 21st century!

here's a closer look at the beast. shouldn't have choosen that background, grr. But look at that huge heatpipe! its as thick as my pinky!

 

... and from the top, where you can see the different fans.

 

Here you can see a little size comparison between the GTX590 and the GTX780 DCuII. Its quite a bit wider. btw, the 590 will go along

with us through the whole review!

Now to the Specs:

The card itself has the gk110 gpu with 2304 cude cores and 7.1 billion transistors.

it features a 384bit memory bus and 3gb of gddr5 memory with a speed of 6008mhz.

The gpu is clocked at 889 mhz with a boost of 941mhz (actually boosts up to 1032 in my rig)

For power you need a 6 and an 8pin pcie connector and nvidia recommends a minimum of 600w PSU.

at the rear I/O you find two dual link DVI, a Displayport and an HDMI port.

It also has two green leds and the pcie-power ports to indicate if you have the power cords plugged in.

My System Specs:

i7 2600k @Stock with H100

Gigabyte Z68xp ud4 Mobo

8gb 1866mhz Corsair Vengeance Ram

Corsair AX750 PSU

OCZ Solid 3 SSD as a bootdrive

1TB WD Caviar Green HDD

and worst of all, a HAf932 (-> now you'll find out why)

 

Excited as i was, i threw my old card out of the rig and wanted to install the 780 right into the case. But unfortunately the case didnt want me to.

Here was my first problem i had with this huge cooler. The weird Toolless Pci clips of the HAf932 are too big. So i thought, ok no problem

theres always this bag of screws lying aroung here. It was until today... But finally after around 15minutes i found 2 screws that now hold

the new card safe in place. So if you own a HAF Case, maybe get a different/smaller card or proposition some screws ^^

This is what it looks like in the end:

*Excuse the cable mess, i will clean that up in a few days*

But what is a review without some nice Benchmarks and comparisons? For that purpose i only took Benchmark Tools

from the Games themselves and didnt play regular because of time. Also I've got some other benchmarks like Heaven, Valley, 3D Mark etc.

The opponent of the 780 is of course my old gtx590.

 

As you can see, the 780 is almost in every test faster. Sometimes not by that much but in games like Hitman with 8xMSAA i saw a huge 10fps boost (20-30%)

because of the vram. The 1.5gb of the 590 isnt enough for modern games, even at "low" resolutions like 1080p.

For the Temperature, with 30°C in Idle and barely 70°C on load, im really satisfied. Also, the noise of the fans is almost unhearable up till 45-50%

when it reaches >55% you can hear it but only by a bit.

I used the third row in the document for some overclocking results. I just made a mild oc with +130 on the core and +475 on the memory but you have plenty

of headroom and it already gives a nice boost in fps in some games i tested.

 

 

Conclusion

 

In my opinion, the gtx780 DCuII is an awesome card which delivers you the best of the best performance in almost every

scenario. The only downside is, that its very pricey and huge.

 

Pros:

-Awesome performance

-One of the best looking cards out there

-Cool and quiet

-Backplate for stability

-SLI capable, only 2slots.

-Overclocking headroom

Cons:

-huge

-expensive

-voltage limited

 

THE END.

I hope you liked my first and hopefully not last Review (you decide! ) and i would like to hear your opinions on the card

and maybe give me some suggestions to improve me and my reviews!

 

If you have further questions, please ask them down below or send me a personal message. Also, if you want some real

game benchmarks, Check my game list and ill give you all the benchmarks you want!

+ Splinter Cell Blacklist, BF3, Far Cry Blood Dragon, Crysis3

 

PS: Excuse my english! and thanks for watching/reading/commenting.

[SSOB]

Nice review

[FloRolf]

Nice review

Thanks!

[Kiwiandapple]

Great review, really like your tests there. Im still sitting here with my 570!  

 

[FloRolf]

Great review, really like your tests there. Im still sitting here with my 570!  

 

thx.

i had a 570 before the 590, too. It was a good card but the 1.25gb vram werent enough for me since even BF3 uses over 1750mb on ultra ^^

[Kiwiandapple]

thx.

i had a 570 before the 590, too. It was a good card but the 1.25gb vram werent enough for me since even BF3 uses over 1750mb on ultra ^^

 

Hah, well I recently got BF3 and am not playing on ultra - but, am very happy with what this card is capable off! 

[Pingypoker]

Gotta love Asus's packaging.

[gibbsy81]

Nice review.

[ZmanFTW]

Very good review. Hate rehashing an old post but you did a really good job. You should consider video reviews!

[cesrai]

Nice review.

[FloRolf]

Very good review. Hate rehashing an old post but you did a really good job. You should consider video reviews!

Thanks m8!

i'm not really a camera guy but you can expect a gtx970 review sometime in the near future from me!

Nice review.

thanks!

[ZmanFTW]

Thanks m8!

i'm not really a camera guy but you can expect a gtx970 review sometime in the near future from me!

thanks!

 

I cancelled my order for ASUS GTX 970 and bought an ASUS GTX 780 for $350 USD with free Borderlands The Pre-Sequel and $20 rebate. When the next series comes out I will buy a GTX 980 w/ free game and rebate for $350! I am camera shy too because I am part vampire...but don't tell anybody...I don't wanna get staked!

[Jumper118]

great review. its good to see a companrison with your older card as well