Asus has introduced a new series of graphics cards – the Strix series. This series of graphics cards look a lot like the DirectCU II series of cards, though they feature one key difference.
At first, Asus is releasing two GTX 780 Strix graphics cards, along with one Radeon R9 280. The first GTX 780 variant will come with stock GPU and memory clocks at 863 MHz base, 900 MHz under boost, and with memory clocked in at 6.0 GHz. The second version, the GTX 780 Strix OC, will carry clocks of 889 MHz base and 941 MHz Boost. Memory will remain at the reference 6.0 GHz. Note that both the GTX 780 Strix cards will also come with 6 GB of GDDR5 memory, rather than the standard 3 GB frame buffer.
Then we have the R9 280 Strix OC. This graphics card comes clocked at up to 980 MHz, with memory clocks sitting at 5.2 GHz. One might expect the card to also carry double the GDDR5 graphics memory at this point, however, it doesn't.
The key feature that the Strix series of graphics cards seems to carry with them is that they have a supposed "0 Decibel Fan." In reality, this doesn't mean that the fan doesn't make any noise, but rather that it won't actually spin up at all until the GPU temperature rises above 65 C. Beyond that, the coolers on both cards are still based on the DirectCU II coolers that we all know and love. If all goes well, you shouldn't hear any GPU noise when using your desktop environment, and depending on your environmental conditions and airflow, you shouldn't hear too much on light GPU loads either.
Pricing for the units is still unknown, though hopefully we'll know more about that soon.
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