It’s not uncommon that you’ve seen one card and you’ve seen them all, for example ASUS’s DirectCU II cooling design carries a common trait across their ROG and STRIX series graphics card but the TURBO range did create a “speed bump” in an otherwise routine release. What’s attractive about the Turbo is that it’s cooling system with a white shroud encasing the entire graphic card and the shape is almost as reference coolers, a very attractive one.
Here’s how it looks like from the top, notice that the PCI-E power connector is located away from the front, well that’s because the PCB is short.
At the front, the shroud is closed entirely. The design is such that the blower pushes air all the way to the I/O area.
Here’s the back of the graphic card. The plastic shroud is secured by 3 screws and a clip.
The blower fan is an additional piece that’s attached to the main piece of the shroud by 4 screws.
Here’s the graphic card itself without the shroud.
What I thought interesting was that there’s an angled plate between the blower and the heatsink. It not only directs the moving air to the fins but it also blocks air movement towards the GPU chip under the heatsink, this means no dust accumulation under the heatsink.
And lastly we have the I/O ports.
Here’s the GPU-Z reading of the card.
And for those interested, here’s the ASIC reading.
More details at the official product page.
Test Setup
Processor | Intel Core i5-4670K |
RAM | AVEXIR Blitz 2x 4GB 1600Mhz DDR3 |
Motherboard | ASRock Z87 Extreme4 |
Cooler | NZXT Kraken X31 |
Monitor | Dell UP3214Q |
Power Supply | FSP AURUM S 700W |
Casing | NZXT S340 |
Operating System | Windows 10 64bit |
Overclocking
The GTX 960 Turbo was quite impressive when it comes to overclocking headroom.
I managed to add 75Mhz to the Core speed and 500Mhz to memory speed, the 1190 / 1753 card ran flawlessly at 1265 / 2253 even without any change on voltage.
Benchmarks
Unigine Heaven 4.0
*NOTE : Details are set to maximum.
*NOTE : AA disabled in 4K test.
Card | 1080p (avg) |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo | 33.2 |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo Overclocked | 36.3 |
PowerColor R9 380 4GB | 35.7 |
Sapphire R9 380 2GB | 36.5 |
AMD R9 270X | 27.9 |
Metro Last Light
Card | 1080p (avg) |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo | 55.0 |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo Overclocked | 59.8 |
PowerColor R9 380 4GB | 56.5 |
Bioshock Infinite
Settings are at
2 – UltraDX11_DDOF | 2 – Custom | 1 – 16:9 | 4 – FullHD / 4K
Card | 1080p (avg) |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo | 75.04 |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo Overclocked | 82.07 |
PowerColor R9 380 4GB | 80.67 |
Shadow of Mordor
Settings : Set to ULTRA, V-sync off.
Card | 1080p (avg) |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo | 46.62 |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo Overclocked | 45.72 |
PowerColor R9 380 4GB | 51.49 |
Grand Theft Auto V
Settings : Every option to the MAX setting available.
Card | 1080p (avg) |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo | 23.4 |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo Overclocked | 27.31 |
PowerColor R9 380 4GB | 27.35 |
The overclocking made no difference on games like Shadow of Mordor, I suspect this is due to the VRAM limitation but as for the other games there’s a general increase in performance with the boost in core speed.
Temperature
Furmark Burn-in Test was used to stress the card. Fan settings are at Auto. Room set to ~25c.
Card | Idle(°C) | Load (°C) |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo | 36 | 77 |
ASUS GTX 960 Turbo Full RPM | 27 | 56 |
The fan hovers at around 41% on AUTO settings where the audio level is acceptable, once it hits higher RPM the noise is like a hairdryer as expected from one with such design. Being of a plastic shroud that’s larger than the PCB and only mounted on 3 points, the shroud may rattle if improperly secured.
Power Consumption
The stress was done with Furmark Burn-in Test. Power consumption reading was taken from the watt-meter, actual power draw by the entire system from the wall point. I’m using an FSP Aurum S 700W with 90% efficiency and the estimated system power draw (CPU, not including GPU) during Furmark test is 60w.
Card | ASUS GTX 960 Turbo |
Furmark Burn-in | 222 |
Estimated Actual System Draw | 199 |
Estimated Card Power Draw | 139 |
The power draw seems a little higher than expected but I don’t think it’s a cause of concern.
The Verdict
The ASUS Turbo GeForce GTX 960 2GB retails at RM 888, this special edition cooler looks attractive and being easy to dismantle means it’s great for case-modding and maintenance, the only downside being that it might rattle at certain RPM.
You’ll get even more performance out of the card if you are willing to put some effort into overclocking. I only wish that the card comes with 4GB VRAM setup, that’ll definitely up the ante when it comes to performance.