Gigabyte GTX 780 Ti GHZ Edition Review, Super Overclock is now sleeker and cooler!

A Closer Look at the Gigabyte GTX 780 Ti GHz Edition

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The 780 Ti GHz edition card I received had no retail packaging as it is actually an early production sample and in order to get it in hand for testing we opted to forego waiting for packaging being completed.

The Windforce cooler looks the same as the 780 card we looked at a short time ago with the metal frame and tri fan configuration.

The rear of the card carries a special backplate for the GHz edition which adds to the style of the card along with protecting key components on the rear of the PCB.

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The display connectivity is about standard for what we have seen on the Kepler based lineup

• 2x DVI
• 1x HDMI
• 1x Displayport

This all digital connector arrangement allows for maxing out the GPU with up to 4 displays and even a surround plus accessory display array should the need arise.

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Here you see that the custom PCB GTX 780 Windforce OC offers dual 8 Pin PCIe connectors for some serious power capability, This allows for pretty much a maximum amount of power for the 780 card which normally comes in at a single 8 pin and a single 6 pin to feed the GPU so this extra capability should give some headroom to work with when overclocking the card.

The Dual SLI fingers are in place ready to run up to a 4 Way SLI configuration which is insane knowing how powerful a single 780 Ti is I could not imagine a game which could utilize this level of graphics horsepower.

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Removing the cooler from the GHz edition card shows the design and even the considerations made in the design side of things. First up you can see reliefs cut into the fin array for onboard components, now Gigabyte could have taken the easy route and just made the fin arrya thinner to clear all components but by allowing the fin array to extend downward in the areas where the components were shorter allows for more cooling surface area which means better overall temps when using the card in real world usage such as gaming.

The base where the cooler meets the GPU is a copper plate which allows for the heat of the GPU to meet all of the heatpipes evenly rather than hoping the GPU will contact all of the heatpipes and possibly lose come cooling capability due to poor or little contact surface area.

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Looking at the VRM on the GHz edition card you can see that unlike the reference Nvidia model which is a 6 Phase solution the GHz model is an 8 Phase which allows for more power capability and better power stability under heavy loaded usage and even more overclocking room.

Knowing the performance numbers and frequencies achieved by the GHz edition I found it a bit funny that the inductors were labeled “Magic” as it almost seems like a bit of magic was sprinkled on this card to reach a retail solution with warranty at these clock speeds for such a crazy powerful solution.