Asus GTX 660Ti DirectCU II TOP Graphics Card Review

Through Asus’ graphics card range, there are a number of marked model types that draw a keen eye, most notably their ROG range that comes in as the pinnacle of their ranges for both motherboards and graphics. One of the other model types that is becoming increasingly popular is any card topped with a DirectCU II cooler, but there is one more model that slots right in-between these two, filling that gap between consumer and enthusiast.

The TOP line of graphics cards is not a marketing trick to think you’re getting a product that can talk-the-talk but not walk-the-walk, in-fact that is far from the truth. Whilst a TOP marked card and a standard DirectCU II card look identical and in most cases the cards are identical to look at, right down to the PCB, the difference comes in the GPU selection with a more stringent set of tests and a higher level of certification and validation. Any card that doesn’t pass any stage of testing gets passed onto the non-TOP model lines.

Like a professional overclocker selecting chips for a world record attempt, only the top performing cards, and only a few of them at that, make the grade and can pass onto the validation stage to ensure that the previous stage was performed precisely. The cards are further processed in batches under overclocking, high load and high temperature conditions to push them to their limits.

Whilst all this may seem like a lengthy process, what you have to consider is that a TOP graphics card before taken out of the box has been to the GPU’s equivalent of hell and back making sure that it is worth of being classed as a TOP level card by all standards.

We have looked at a TOP selected graphics card from Asus before, with a GPU core over from the red team at its heart, but now its time to see how a chip from the green team – NVIDIA –  fares in our benchmark tests with a 660 Ti at the base of this card.