Asus Strix GTX 750 Ti OC Has Low-Noise Solution

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By Niels Broekhuijsen
published

Asus Strix GTX 750 Ti OC turns off its fans when running cool.

Just before Computex, Asus announced its Strix series: two cards, a GTX 780 and an R9 280. These are quite high-end parts, and those of us hoping for cheaper cards with the Strix features had to wait, until now.

The new Asus Strix GTX 750 Ti OC graphics card comes with the same cooling concept: a DirectCU II cooler, with fans that will switch off when temperatures are low. The fans will spin down when the GPU temperature is below 50°C, according to Asus, which also claims that you’ll be able to play Counter-Strike Online without having the fans spin up. Even when the fans spin up, they won’t make that much noise.

Clock speeds are set at 1124 MHz base, with a GPU Boost frequency of 1202 MHz. The card comes with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory, which runs at an effective speed of 5400 MHz over a 128-bit memory interface.

Hopefully Asus will expand the lineup of Strix cards. We’d like to see more mid-range and high-end options. While entry-level cards can sometimes be passively cooled, we simply cannot expect that from high-end cards. Allowing the fans to switch off at lower temperatures is an acceptable compromise for most.

The Strix GTX Ti OC will be available worldwide by the end of July.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

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9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • 2Be_or_Not2Be
    At low speeds, the fans on the video cards aren't really noticeable. So I don't really care as much if you turn them off or not.

    It's when you have a graphically intensive game that your video card's fans start to really spin. I want to see more innovation that can allow for effective cooling at either minimal speeds or can somehow diminish the noise they make.
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    I want to see more innovation that can allow for effective cooling at either minimal speeds or can somehow diminish the noise they make.

    Well, the biggest difficulty is the small space with which to work. There are some triple-slot cards that take up so much space because of the cooling solution, but I feel bad enough losing one slot on my motherboard to the GPU fans, let alone two slots or even more. I don't know the demographics on this, but I feel like I'm in the majority of people that use their gaming rig also for work, not just gaming. And as such, I need those slots for other devices and not just have them blocked by huge GPU coolers.

    I saw a video on YouTube of a man who modded a Hyper 212 onto a graphics card, and the cooling performance was incredible. But it also took up, y'know, a Hyper 212's worth of space. That kind of size for a CPU cooler is fine because system builders generally buy CPUs without the stock cooler, or just toss out the stock cooler, and then purchase a heatsink and fan based on their constraints inside their chosen case. But that kind of customizability is just not what the GPU market is set up for. So that's why we get these solutions that we're accustomed to. Because they fit in the very small amount of space without sacrificing access to motherboard components, and replacing the cooler would be an incredible hassle besides.

    That could change, and I hope it does, but the CPU cooler market is so huge because everyone needs a CPU in their computer, and many feel compelled for an aftermarket cooler. But not everyone needs a graphics card, let alone also feels compelled to change the cooler.
    Reply
  • 2Be_or_Not2Be
    I want to see more innovation that can allow for effective cooling at either minimal speeds or can somehow diminish the noise they make.

    Well, the biggest difficulty is the small space with which to work. There are some triple-slot cards that take up so much space because of the cooling solution, but I feel bad enough losing one slot on my motherboard to the GPU fans, let alone two slots or even more. I don't know the demographics on this, but I feel like I'm in the majority of people that use their gaming rig also for work, not just gaming. And as such, I need those slots for other devices and not just have them blocked by huge GPU coolers.

    Now you've made me curious - what other items would you need for work that would take up extra slots? Maybe if you were an audio/video engineer, I could see that you might have a PCIe sound card or even a video capture card. But what else would you need?
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    Now you've made me curious - what other items would you need for work that would take up extra slots? Maybe if you were an audio/video engineer, I could see that you might have a PCIe sound card or even a video capture card. But what else would you need?

    Sound card, SATA card (cheap one to host optical drives because my onboard SATA slots are all occupied with storage), Wi-Fi card, USB 3.0 card (needed another internal header). That leaves me with one slot open next to my graphics card. I theoretically could fit a triple-slot cooler, but then the neighboring card would be blocking the fans and that's not ideal at all.

    Doesn't take a lot to really need all the PCI slots I can get. I personally don't want to lose two or three slots to a GPU cooler just to save some noise. And I certainly don't want to build a second computer to dedicate to just gaming.
    Reply
  • RCguitarist
    My MSI card is silent at it's 0C-55C fan speed of 40%, so the card turning the fans off isn't a feature I would ever need. I usually can start hearing the GPU fans at about 60% fan speed.
    Reply
  • 2Be_or_Not2Be
    13740459 said:
    Now you've made me curious - what other items would you need for work that would take up extra slots? Maybe if you were an audio/video engineer, I could see that you might have a PCIe sound card or even a video capture card. But what else would you need?

    Sound card, SATA card (cheap one to host optical drives because my onboard SATA slots are all occupied with storage), Wi-Fi card, USB 3.0 card (needed another internal header). That leaves me with one slot open next to my graphics card. I theoretically could fit a triple-slot cooler, but then the neighboring card would be blocking the fans and that's not ideal at all.

    Doesn't take a lot to really need all the PCI slots I can get. I personally don't want to lose two or three slots to a GPU cooler just to save some noise. And I certainly don't want to build a second computer to dedicate to just gaming.

    Hmm... maybe you need an upgrade to a new H97 board with built-in Wi-Fi and more USB 3.0 slots. A number of the H-series boards give you 6 SATA slots, which is a nice exchange for not having overclocking if you really need a lot of storage. Different ones also have better built-in sound, if you want that.

    My overall point was just for more innovation in cooling solutions for graphics cards. I would say that I don't want a triple-slot cooler, but something that consumes only two slots (normal for most higher performing cards anyway) would be fine. That would hopefully fit mini-ITX as well.
    Reply
  • photonboy
    Anybody else think this card is FUGLY?
    Reply
  • photonboy
    Also...
    I wonder if they could design a card with two fans but have the fan near the exhaust act as a BLOWER style to move as much air out the rear exhaust but have the other fan act as normal pushing air down over the card and heatsink.
    Reply
  • NeurAxaL
    Doesent gpu tweak already kind of do this when you put the fans on 'auto'?
    Reply