4/12/2014 06:14:00 PM
dannzfay
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX Titan Black graphics card is the best single-GPU board that NVIDIA has up for sale at the moment, and the best single-GPU board period, according to quite a few people. Gigabyte's latest version of it is pretty odd though.
We say that not because the board is factory overclocked, which it is, but that's something we'll look at later on. No, we say that the new video card is peculiar because it ships with two coolers instead of one. The card itself has the stock model, with a single fan and the well-known grey and black shroud, covering a card-length heatsink. However, the box also contains the WindForce 3X cooling system, which can withstand a TDP (thermal design power) of 600W. Normally, an OEM would install its custom cooler on the board and ship the product like that, but Gigabyte did not do so here. Instead, you, the buyer, will have to replace the stock one with the WindForce 3X. We're not totally sure why Gigabyte chose this router, but it could be one of those things involving NVIDIA's policies and whatnot.
Once a video card is launched, NVIDIA, like AMD for that matter, sometimes dictates a period during which OEMs aren't allowed to change the design. That means they can't launch boards with custom PCBs and coolers, although they can ship the coolers separately. The Gigabyte GeForce GTX Titan Black with WindForce 3X could, in this instance, be an example of this. Key word being "could." From what we saw in the past, NVIDIA did not, in fact, forbid partners from changing the design. EVGA's collection of five different GTX Titan Black adapters is as good a piece of evidence, as you could find for that.
So we don't really get why Gigabyte would sell this product bundle, especially since the factory overclock on the board almost demands a superior cooler. Speaking of which, the newcomer runs at a GPU frequency of 1,111 MHz, which is 31 MHz above the 980 MHz stock clock. Because of that, the video card, with its 2,880 CUDA cores, 384-bit memory interface and 6 GB of GDDR5 VRAM will be even more ludicrously overpowered. It's a wonder that Gigabyte didn't have to replace the 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors with a pair of 8-pin ones. The connector set (dual-DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs) is the one feature that was left alone. Gigabyte's newest GTX Titan Black video card bears the name of GV-NTITANBLKGHZ-6GD-B and should be up for pre-order at €910 / $1,000.
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| Gigabyte GTX Titan Black with WindForce 3X 600W cooler Image credits to Gigabyte |
