The release of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 780 and GTX 770 graphics cards in the last few weeks has provided add-in card (AIC) partners the chance to reinvigorate their line-ups in time for the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan.
As Taipei is the home city of most AICs, we saw numerous partner-produced cooling solutions when walking around the show. Gigabyte, for example, was keen on highlighting the reference-beating benefits of its WindForce 3X cooling that, it says, is capable of dissipating up to 450W of heat.
The upgraded WindForce 3X cooler is employed on the company's custom GTX 770, 780 and Titan cards, and Eva Chang ran us through a demonstration showing the efficiency of the so-called 'Triangle Technology.'
And while the GTX 770 and GTX 780 are shipped with the WindForce 3X cooler pre-fitted to the PCB, which is absolutely normal, we find it interesting that no AIC is allowed to ship Titan cards in anything other than reference form. Gigabyte gets around this Nvidia-imposed handicap by shipping a reference GTX Titan and its WindForce 3X cooler for the custom card package, and it warranties any problems caused by manual installation of the Gigabyte cooler. Sure seems like a strange way to do business.
