A Closer Look

First, we removed the cooler's top cover. It is made of thick, solid metal and adds to the experience nicely.


Once the top plate is removed, we get to look at the two waterblock modules with their integrated pump. Please note the central fan adding some airflow inside the cooler to keep secondary components cool.


We find the backplate on the other side of the card. It protects the card against damage during handling and cools the memory chips on this side. It is covered by a protective foil that should be removed before installation, so that air can flow freely.


The unibody heatsink construction is milled from a single piece of metal, just like your iPhone or MacBook case. This gives the card an extremely solid and sturdy feel, but does add to the cost.


Direct GPU cooling is provided by two waterblocks with an integrated pump. Both blocks are, as a sticker on the radiator reveals, made by Asetek.

The card requires three 8-pin PCI-Express power cables for operation. This power configuration is good for up to 525 W of power draw.


A BIOS switch is available on the card, acting as safeguard against problems during BIOS flashing. It also provides a second BIOS that enables dual-link DVI output.


The card uses two CHiL voltage controllers that have been rebranded by ASUS. They feature software voltage control and monitoring.


The PEX8747 48 lane PCI-Express Gen 3 Bridge chip is the latest in PLX's arsenal of PCIe bridge chip solutions. It provides full bandwidth to each of the Tahiti GPUs.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Hynix and carry the model number H5GQ2H24AFR-R0C. They are specified to run at 1500 MHz (6000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


AMD's Tahiti graphics processor introduced the GCN shader architecture. It is also the first GPU to be produced on a 28 nm process at TSMC. The transistor count is 4.31 billion.