Is buying an Asus TOP card worth it?

[BCreation]

Comparing a normal DirectCUII and a DirectCUII TOP, is paying extra for a factory overclock worth it? Do they both use the same coolers? Lets use a 7950 as an example.

[fishymamba]

I would get the cheaper one, it will be really easy to just bump up the clocks on the stock card and you will save money.

[mvitkun]

heatsinks are identical,correct me if I'm wrong,the only difference is that the TOP cards are binned somewhat better.

I'd go for the normal DCUII as it's already high quality,unless you want to achieve uber overclocks on LN2 the slightly better binning shouldn't make a difference to you.

[AroundWayOtherThe]

Depends how much you want to overclock. I've got a GTX680 DCII OC (non-TOP) that I've overclocked to a bit over the TOP settings, however, I did have to raise the power target to around 120% and it runs about 10-15 degrees hotter at full load with FurMark (peaks at around 80 degrees now). Still really quiet either way, with the fan only audible at around 40% speed.

The cooler is exactly the same, it's just that the TOP versions are binned higher.

[iRandomize]

Depends how much you want to overclock. I've got a GTX680 DCII OC (non-TOP) that I've overclocked to a bit over the TOP settings, however, I did have to raise the power target to around 120% and it runs about 10-15 degrees hotter at full load with FurMark (peaks at around 80 degrees now). Still really quiet either way, with the fan only audible at around 40% speed.

The cooler is exactly the same, it's just that the TOP versions are binned higher.

80C is 11C too much on Kepler, doesen't it throttle at those temperatures? (i know mine doesen't, but that took quite a lot of BIOS editing...)

[iRandomize]

The only difference is the binning, however, lots of people have reported that the DirectCU II Top has been unstable at stock speeds :S

[Opsilon]

Depends how much you want to overclock. I've got a GTX680 DCII OC (non-TOP) that I've overclocked to a bit over the TOP settings, however, I did have to raise the power target to around 120% and it runs about 10-15 degrees hotter at full load with FurMark (peaks at around 80 degrees now). Still really quiet either way, with the fan only audible at around 40% speed.

The cooler is exactly the same, it's just that the TOP versions are binned higher.

80°C should not throttle the card, you can see thermal throttling when your GPU boost starts falling and on Kepler cards that should start around high 80's, so keep it in 70's range and you'll be fine

[Opsilon]

Top of the range cards ( TOP, Matrix, Lightning editions ) are never worth their money, "lower" versions of the same cards get you 98% of the "strongest" card performance, so save money, next gen you will get more performance than this card and pay 50$ less, at least

Buy the top just because you want to say: I have the ASUS TOP card. But that will be it, nothing spectacular

[Helltech]

Comparing a normal DirectCUII and a DirectCUII TOP' date=' is paying extra for a factory overclock worth it? Do they both use the same coolers? Lets use a 7950 as an example.[/quote']

They are basically the same, I have non Top version and it overclocks higher than most TOP overclocks.