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.Overclocking/Software
Our past experiences with Asus software have been great. Their software on motherboard specifically are well thought out and packed full of useful features. When I saw that Asus bundled software with the GTX 650 Ti, I was excited to see what they had to offer.
Starting with the installation, the software had an interesting look as well as the black and red Asus style.
Asus’s GPU Tweak software is compact and has everything you need right out in the open. You have GPU Clock, Memory Cloc, and Fan speed adjustments right on the home page in the normal mode. After poking in the settings I was also able to turn on a fourth adjustment slider for voltage as well. On the left side you have five on the fly graphs that track the GPU temperatures, Usage, VIDO Usage, FB, Usage, and GPU Voltage and more. You can adjust the fetch interval in the settings as well as turn off options you don’t want to monitor.
Asus packed in a live update option that you can check to make sure the software and your VBios are up to date.
The Settings tab has 5 tabs of its own to let you adjust the GPU Tweak software to your liking. I love that Asus lets you adjust your hotkeys as needed. This is especially important when paired with the recording tab. The GPU Tweak software has bundled in the ability to record while gaming. In the options you can check the resolution, FPS, sound options, and file format.
The last part of the software is the built in GPUz. Most of you have seen GPUz or at least CPUz. This variation loads with the GPU Tweak and has a theme matching the software.
After getting acquainted with the software, I jumped into overclocking the already factory overclocked Asus GX 650 Ti DirectCU TOP. Starting with the GPU clock, we cranked the GPU Voltage up just a small amount to the highest setting that Asus will let you go. From there we bumped the GPU clock up over and over again until it wouldn’t make a pass through 3DMark 11. The end result was 1170MHz, up over the 1033MHz the card came with. Next I went through the same process with the Memory clock to push it to its limit. I was able to move it from 5400 to 5754 total. At the end of the day, it was a nice overclock for a factory overclocked card.
