ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II Review & Gaming Benchmarks

The Overall End User Experience 

At the end of the day, there are two very important factors that really mean a lot when it comes to making a buying decision regarding a video card. Those things are this: Were you satisfied with the performance? and did your gaming experience improve by way of the product you have just purchased? If those tow things occurred you have had a grand experience. From the moment I got the box in my hand from FedEx there has been nothing to that has made me say to myself, hey man I wish there was more. The box looks cool and can now be displayed on a shelf for bragging rights, but I am getting ahead of myself here.

The box came via the FedEx hottie, which is always nice and the first thing I did was take it into my test lab to begin my testing and get started. I am the type of guy who has a bunch of cables from all the stuff we buy and test so for me not coming with any cables is no big deal, but for some the limited content may be a bummer if they need any adapters or such to get up and going. Since my testing includes resolutions of 2560X1440 my testing needs to use either a Display Port or Dual-Link DVI cable to allow the higher resolution and HDMI is currently only at 1920X1080.  Most monitors nowadays however usually comes with the correct cable so if you have a monitor you more than likely, have a cable to match it.

The card is longer than a reference based card sizing in at 11.3 ” x 5.8 ” x 1.6 ” Inches and required both a 6-pin and 8-pin connector, as well as taking up 2 slots inside the case. There is an adapter for the 8-pin connector in case your PSU does not have the proper connections, but mine did so for me again no problem.  I used the Dual-Link DVI cable to connect the ASUS DirectCU II GTX780 card to my monitor. I started back up my PC, first installed the drivers, then GPU Tweak and after another quick restart everything was golden.  I played a variety of games at both the 1920X1080p resolution and then again at 2560X1440 and the card showed no signs of unstable behavior or problems with any game, or online game portal such as STEAM, Origin, etc. I tried to turn the settings up as high as possible in every game to get the best visual experience possible.  Usually good cooling is associated with high noise levels as the fast fan speeds generate a lot of sound trying to move all that air, but the DCII GTX780 ran surprisingly quiet, and out of the box its almost quiet. Only when both fans are cranked up can you even hear the fan blade noise when the card is inside the case.

Everything for me was a positive experience form the moment I opened my door to the time I finally shut down my PC and went to sleepy time. Since the card has such excellent fan timings and cooling the Boost speeds of the card were much better than any reference based card I have ever seen, and it still remained relatively cool even when overclocked by 200MHz. I have had the card running in my machine for 2 weeks now and I am very satisfied with its overall performance. The only thing to give a comment on is the very thin box content, some users may need cable and/or adapters and if that is you make sure to just buy what you need before ordering the card. At the end of my gaming day my personal experience with the ASUS GeForce GTX780 DirectCU II version leaves me satisfied as nowhere during my day was I forced to deal with any issues or disappointments. Boost speeds and overclocking could only be improved by way of liquid cooling as the DirectCU II cooling apparatus sets the card apart making it one of the absolute best GTX780 cards you can get for your system.  The new ASUS DirectCU II GeForce GTX780 is a solid Editor’s Choice in the High-End video card division

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