A Closer Look

Gigabyte's cooler uses four heatpipes, all of which are double the length for maximum heat transfer. The heatsink also cools memory chips and voltage regulation circuitry, which eliminates the need for a second heatsink to cool these components.


Power delivery requires two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors. This configuration is specified for up to 225 W power draw.


Gigabyte uses an OnSemi NCP81174 voltage controller, the same as on the NVIDIA GTX 960 reference design. It is a cost-effective solution without support for I2C, which makes advanced monitoring impossible. Its VID-based voltages can be monitored and controlled through NVIDIA's driver.


The GDDR5 memory chips are by Samsung and carry the model number K4G41325FC-HC28. They are specified to run at 1750 MHz (7000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


NVIDIA's new GM206 graphics processor brings the Maxwell architecture to the mainstream. It is produced on a 28 nm process at TSMC, Taiwan, with a transistor count of 2.9 billion and a die size of 228 mm².