A Closer Look

NVIDIA's heatsink may look simple on the outside, but as the second picture shows it is an elaborate construction that cools GPU, memory and voltage regulation circuitry at the same time.
One thing that I noticed is that the cooler emits a strong smell of solvents when the card is loaded. This is not the typical "new graphics card" smell, but something more like glue. Even after a week of testing, it has not completely gone away, but gotten much less intense.


The card requires two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors. This configuration is good for up to 225 W of power draw. NVIDIA claims that this stacked power connector configuration is better, but I personally don't like it. It makes plugging cables in and out more difficult and the bottom connector is rotated by 180° from what we are used to.


Three of these INA219 power monitor chips are located on the board (the third one is on the other side). These provide voltage, current and power monitoring for 12V PCI-E power, and both 6-pin power connectors. They are used to provide realtime power consumption numbers to the driver, which will then use that info to enable dynamic overclocking and ensure the board does not go above its rated TDP.


NVIDIA has chosen to use a Richtek RT8802A voltage controller on their card. This is a fairly simple controller which does not offer any monitoring features or software voltage control. Voltages are controlled via VID pins that are directly connected to the GPU.
Also note how the chip sits on its own little PCB, which could hint that this is a modular design that will accept different, more advanced controllers, too.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Hynix, and carry the model number H5GQ2H24MFR-R0C. They are specified to run at 1500 MHz (6000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


NVIDIA's new GK104 graphics processor introduces the company's brand-new Kepler architecture. It is NVIDIA's first chip to be produced on a 28 nanometer process, at TSMC Taiwan. The transistor count is 3.54 billion.