A Closer Look

NVIDIA's thermal solution cools GPU, memory chips, and voltage regulation circuitry through its intricate base plate. The heatsink no longer uses a vapor-chamber base, which, while it helps NVIDIA reduce cost, also reduces thermal capacity slightly.


The new metal backplate looks fantastic. It serves to protect the card against damage during handling and installation. Since there is no important circuitry on the back, the effect on cooling is negligible.


You may remove part of the backplate to make space for airflow if you, for instance, installed cards adjacently in a triple-SLI configuration, or SLI on motherboards with 2-slot spacing.


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


NVIDIA put the cost-effective OnSemi NCP81174 voltage controller on their card, on its own little PCB. The controller has no support for I2C, so there is no advanced monitoring. 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 GM204 graphics processor brings the Maxwell architecture to the high-end. It is produced on a 28 nm process at TSMC, Taiwan, with a transistor count of 5.2 billion and a die size of 398 mm².