Review: Asus GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC

Conclusion

The market for £500-plus graphics cards is by definition pretty small. Readers contemplating dropping this kind of money on a single card want it all: supreme performance, great looks, lots of overclockability, low noise and excellent temperatures, at the very least.

Asus' GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC hits almost all of these notes with aplomb. We're unlikely to see any other manufacturer 'out-engineer' the Asus beastie, which scores highly in a number of areas, but a couple of factors stop it from being the perfect GTX 780.

When performance is very much the name of the game, Asus is too conservative with the out-of-the-box frequencies, leading to numbers that are, on average, lower than three other GTX 780s we've tested in the last month. Then there are the potential issues of price and availability; we're probably not going to see it on the correct side of £600 when it launches, thus making it significantly more expensive than the faster competition.

Asus has a great concept on its hands with the £600 DirectCU II, so we urge the company to increase the shipping frequencies to match the likes of EVGA and Palit. Should it do this and come in at £550, the component giant might just have the very best GTX 780 on its hands.

Bottom line: beautifully built and overclocking like a dream, Asus needs to revisit out-of-the-box frequencies and pricing in order to make its GTX 780 OC a must-have product.

The Good

Superbly built
Overclocks like a dream
Cool and very quiet
Titan-like performance for less money

The Bad

HEXUS Where2Buy

TBC.

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