Introduction, Specifications and Packaging
The Nvidia GTX 750 Ti is a great graphics card but the reference design that we reviewed was lacking a little something. I am hoping that today ASUS can bring some improvements to the table with the ASUS GTX 750 Ti OC graphics card we are looking at. With this graphics card ASUS are using their “Direct CU II style design”, however, this is not actually a Direct CU II product. This is because ASUS have not chosen to use any heat pipes at all – that’s right, not heat pipes. We’re hoping that this won’t affect cooling performance too much but we’ll have to wait until the test results before that can be determined. ASUS have added a pair of their fans which they claim provide twice the airflow and a three times reduction in noise over the reference design.
ASUS have also equipped better than reference power components which they claim offer 2.5X longer lifespan and also operate at lower temperatures which should improve the efficiency of the graphics card.
Specifications Analysis
The ASUS GTX 750 Ti OC, as the name would suggest, comes with an overclock out of the box of 52/65MHz on the GPU core. The memory is left at the stock 5400 MHz effective. The price takes a slight jump over the current de facto GTX 750 Ti price of $160 (that’s despite reference pricing of $150) to $170, so ASUS think that their overclock and custom cooler is worth a $10 premium – I suppose that isn’t awfully unreasonable but I have become accustomed to seeing custom cooled cards hitting reference pricing so I’m dubious as to why ASUS feel the need to charge this kind of premium when they have already cheaped out on heat pipes on the cooler!
Packaging and Bundle
The front of the packaging shows the main ASUS features which are that it has dual fan cooling, is an OC edition card and has Super Alloy power components.
The back details those in more detail if you’re interested. Or you can find a more extended write up on the official product page here.
The included items are basic, just a driver/utility CD and speed setup guide.
The only issues with this VGA around OC’ing them lies on the heath sinker for the VRAM. They are cooled by air thereby if you OC’ way too much (like 400 to 700 Mhz) after a little even while GPU lies at 40-50 celsius, you’ll get artifacts.
What it is needed it’s a direct cooling unit for the VRAM aswell.