If you are an avid reader, you have most likely seen countless Asus motherboard reviews and even a few audio products as well recently. Something that is a little rarer is having an Asus video card come through our office. When Asus contacted me asking if we wanted to take a look at their upcoming GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II TOP, there wasn’t even a hesitation. We have already taken a look at the reference GTX 650 Ti; this card on the other hand is nothing like it. Sure you have the same architecture, as you would expect. But the DirectCU II TOP is almost twice as long, has twice the cooling, and has a considerably different PCB even. It’s no off the shelf reference design, today we are going to dig in and see what all of that means for you when looking to buy a GTX 650 Ti.Packaging
When the Asus GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II TOP came in I had just finished working on our testing of the reference card from Nvidia. I was immediately curious about the size of the card after seeing its packaging. The box for this video card is about the same size as the GTX 580 Classifieds box to give you an example and that isn’t a small card.
I was impressed with the packaging’s art work as well. In the background you have a textured look with three hardcore claw marks across the box. You have the standard Geforce GTX 650 Ti branding as well as a few key features, most notably the word TOP overclocked edition printed on the box. This caught my eye because normally at best we would see a package with an overclocked sticker on most boxes to save money on packaging. Around back they have more details on the DirectCU II cooler, the cards ability to support four monitors, and the DIGI+ VRM. I like that they also have a diagram of the cards outputs and a list of examples of what will hook up to it, this is a small touch but helpful for someone who isn’t as knowledgeable checking it out in a store.
Inside the outside packaging there was a very classy box with a gold Asus logo in the middle. When you open it up you have yet another box. That box contains your software disc, manual, and all of the card's accessories. Below this box you have a layer of protective foam and then you finally have dug down to the card itself. It sits in a foam tray with a cutout in the shape of the card. Of course it comes in a static protective bag as well. All in all I don’t think there is any way this card can get damaged in shipping; it is well protected.
