Unboxing: ASUS GTX 960 Turbo (Special Edition)

Shiny-white armor is not exclusive to flagship components.  If you thought you needed deep pockets to have a themed build and join the SLI club, ASUS GTX 960 Turbo begs to differ.  For those of you looking to add a high-powered HTPC in the living room or create a compact mod, this runs cool, quiet, and goes equally well with either a black & red setup or a black & white setup.

[gallery include="" size="medium" link="file" template="file-gallery" columns="2"]

Inside the outer box contains the usual classy ASUS box you can add to the collection you have accumulated over the years.  Apart from the ASUS GTX 960 Turbo sitting snugly in its protective foam, you will find a user’s guide, and a software disc containing the driver and GPU Tweak.

[gallery include="" size="medium" link="file" template="file-gallery" columns="2"]

Inspired by body armor and beetles, ASUS GTX 960 Turbo uses a wing-shaped curve design on the cover to symbolize protection and strength.  

[gallery include="" size="medium" link="file" template="file-gallery" columns="2"]

As the successor to the GTX 760, the ASUS GTX 960 Turbo packs the super power-efficient Maxwell processor architecture, but utilizes the new GM206 GPU built on the 28nm process which is the first to feature HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding), rather than the GM204 found in its big brothers; GTX 970 and GTX 980. The ASUS GTX 960 Turbo packs 1024 CUDA cores, 16 streaming multiprocessors, 32 ROP units and 64 texture units. With a 1,190MHz factory-overclocked GPU base clock (+5.6% from 1,127MHz) and a 1,253MHz GPU boost clock (+6.3% from 1,178MHz) in OC mode. It is fitted with 2 GB of high-speed 7GHz (effective) GDDR5 video memory with a 128-bit bus; which is balanced given Nvidia Maxwell’s highly efficient use of memory bandwidth.

The dual-slot card is packing a dual-link DVI port, an HDMI 2.0 port, and opting for a trio of DisplayPort 1.2 ports.

An exclusive Dual-Intake Blower design increases dissipation area by 10%, allowing the card to run 10% cooler than reference.  The larger 75mm blower is similar to the one used in the Titan X (65mm). The design was made especially to run in SLI (multiple GPUs) where airflow is lacking between the cards. 

[gallery include="" size="medium" link="file" template="file-gallery" columns="2"]

 If you take off the cooler, you will find a 5-phase Super Alloy Power design including: Super Alloy Chokes to decrease buzzing, Super Alloy MOS for 30% higher voltage threshold to overclock even further, Super Alloy Capacitors improves overall stability and longevity (by up to two and a half times!) compared to traditional capacitors.  On the back of the card there are dedicated SAP CAPs to maximize overclocking headroom.

[gallery size="medium" link="file" template="file-gallery" columns="2" ids=""]

ASUS GTX 960 Turbo uses a single 6-pin power connector, providing cleaner cable management, and has a convenient connection indicator LED to let you quickly see if the power cable is plugged in properly.

GPU Tweak also includes a customized version of the XSplit Gamecaster streaming tool and a free one-year free XSplit Premium license (worth US$99.95). XSplit Gamecaster lets you record and share on-screen action over the internet in real time, so you can relive your glories and share them with your friends.  The ASUS customized version incorporates exclusive features such as In-Game GPU Monitor and GPU Tweak Profiles.

 

In search for a new look, SLI goodness and a bargain? ASUS GTX 960 Turbo has you covered.