A Closer Look

Palit's thermal solution uses a large copper base to soak up heat generated by the GPU. The heatsink also cools memory chips and voltage regulation circuitry, as indicated by the thermal pads visible in the picture above.


The card requires two 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors. This configuration is good for up to 375 W of power draw.


You will find voltage measurement points near the back of the PCB. The PCB also includes two solder locations for variable resistors, which would allow you to adjust PLL and memory voltage. A little red sticker covers the component required to enable the "OV UNLOCK", and if it's gone, your warranty will be gone too.


Palit uses an OnSemi NCP4208 voltage controller. It provides voltage control and basic monitoring via I2C.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by skHynix and carry the model number H5GQ2H24AFR-R2C. They are specified to run at 1750 MHz (7000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


NVIDIA's GK110 graphics processor was first introduced as a Tesla-only product for powering demanding GPU compute applications. NVIDIA is now also selling it as a GeForce GPU. It uses 7.1 billion transistors on a die size we measured to be 561 mm². The GPU is produced on a 28 nanometer process at TSMC, Taiwan.

Please note that the GPU on the GTX 780 Ti is marked "B1", whereas previous cards used "A1". Whether this is really an updated GPU or simply a different label is not known. NVIDIA has not discussed A1 vs. B1 GPUs with the press.