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Gigabyte GeForce GTX Titan Black: Do-It-Yourself Cooler Swap

Gigabyte GeForce GTX Titan Black: Do-It-Yourself Cooler Swap
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Nvidia doesn’t allow its partners to sell the GeForce GTX Titan Black with proprietary cooling. However, Gigabyte now offers a GHz Edition of the card that comes bundled with its WindForce solution, which you can install on the overclocked board yourself.

We didn't review Nvidia's GeForce GTX Titan Black when it launched. The company didn't see fit to sample press. And understandably, really, since the Titan Black is largely the same as a 780 Ti with 6 GB of memory and the GK110's full FP64 performance. GeForce GTX Titan Black does sport slightly more aggressive reference clock rates. Its base frequency is 889 MHz to the 780 Ti's 875 MHz. Typical GPU Boost is stated at 980 MHz versus 928. But they both sport similar coolers, display outputs, and graphics card power ratings. 

Take a look over at Newegg, and you'll find an out-of-stock Asus model matching Nvidia's specification, an out-of-stock EVGA board at the same price point, but overclocked slightly, and a water-cooled EVGA card selling for $300 more and boasting an even more aggressive overclock. Really though, it's hard to see the value in a GeForce GTX Titan Black at $1400 when Radeon R9 295X2s are selling for $100 more.

Gigabyte takes a somewhat different approach to its GeForce GTX Titan Black GHz Edition (how's that for a mouthful?). The company hits the same 1006 MHz base and 1111 MHz typical GPU Boost frequencies as EVGA's $1400 Hydro Copper Signature card. But it does so with air cooling. Pop the top on the packaging and you'll see that Gigabyte ships you a reference Titan Black, per Nvidia's requirements. However, you also get the components needed for a built-it-yourself adventure.

Apparently, Gigabyte went with the old adage that rules are meant to be broken (or, in this case, bent really far). You see, Nvidia doesn’t allow its partners to modify the reference cooling solution, so Gigabyte decided to send the modified cooler along for you to install yourself on the already-overclocked graphics card. 

You can still expect to pay dearly for the privilege of owning Gigabyte's take on the Titan Black (it's currently available in Europe and Asia; we're waiting to hear back from Gigabyte on whether it'll ever show up in the U.S.). At least you also get the thrill of tearing the top off of a flagship graphics card and replacing its thermal solution, though. Our aim today is to figure out if the operation is worthwhile. 

First, we'll take a peek into the pricey box. Gigabyte provides an abundance of opulent accessories.

In addition to the reference GeForce GTX Titan Black, we find an HDMI cable, a mouse pad, two four-to-six-pin power adapters, a VGA adapter, a driver CD, and the cooling kit that caught my eye to begin with. Gigabyte’s new WindForce 600 cooler employs a number of changes that we'll dig into.

ModelGeForce GTX Titan BlackGigabyte GeForce GTX Titan Black GHz Edition
GeForce GTX 780 TiGeForce GTX Titan
ChipGK110-430-B1GK110-430-B1GK110-425-B1GK110-400
Shader Units
2880288028802688
SIMD/Texture Units
15/24015/24015/24014/224
ROPs4848
4848
GPU Base Clock Frequency889 MHz
1006 MHz
876 MHz
837 MHz
GPU Boost Clock Frequency
980 MHz
1111 MHz
928 MHz
876 MHz
Computing Power SP (GFLOPS)56456399
53454709
Computing Power DP (GFLOPS)188221342231570
Graphics Memory Transfer Rate
3500 MT/s
3500 MT/s
3500 MT/s
3004 MT/s
Memory Bus
384-bit384-bit
384-bit384-bit
Bandwidth (GB/s)336336
336288.4
Memory Size (GB/s)66
36
PCIe Power Connectors
6 + 8-pin
6 + 8-pin6 + 8-pin6 + 8-pin
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  • 0 Hide
    op8 , 9 June 2014 08:25
    so for single card gaming 780ti is still the gamers choice. and Titan black only good for compute and/or if using SLI for multi-monitor/4K needs.
  • 0 Hide
    Marco Washa , 9 June 2014 15:51
    Imho 780ti is a little bit too much for gaming XD
    gtx 770 is good enough for all nowaday :) 
  • 0 Hide
    Oliver Queen , 9 June 2014 23:54
    Marco, 770 is only a rebranded 680 as far as I can see. They are basically the same card. The GTX 770 is a little bit better in terms of core clock, memory clock and gpu boost 2.0 and it is based on the same GK104 GPU/chip.

    The gtx780 & 780ti have the newer technology afaik.
  • 0 Hide
    Plusthinking Iq , 10 June 2014 07:54
    love the new cooler, pair this with a maxwell 880 soon, 190w tdp and 600w cooler makes for a great experience.