A Closer Look

We have seen the ASUS DirectCU II cooler on many cards before. It uses three heatpipes, two of which are double length, to keep the card cool.


The card requires a single 6-pin PCI-Express connector. This power configuration is good for up to 150 W of power draw.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Samsung, and carry the model number K46G20325FD-FC03. They are specified to run at 1500 MHz (6000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


ASUS rebranded the voltage controller with their own Digi+ brand. My best guess is that this is a rebranded CHiL 8228 voltage controller which supports voltage control via I2C, provides comprehensible monitoring features, and is also well supported in most overclocking software today.


NVIDIA's new GK106 processor is produced on a 28 nm at TSMC, Taiwan. The transistor count is 2.54 billion.