20 replies to this topic

[cipher]

silentD11, on 26 June 2012 - 10:12 AM, said:

The MSI lightning, ASUS matrix/mars, gigabyte super OC all ship with a completely redone VRM and better cooling for it, that's why they cost more.

They generally come with more VRMs, but quality of mosfets or inductors doesn't necessarily improve. Sometimes you'll even see a lot of marketing hype and paint schemes to pretty-up the VRMs. It varies from one manufacturer and one model to another. Usually the biggest selling points are more VRMs, 3rd party cooling designs, and pre-set overclocks in the firmware. Sometimes there are some bells and whistles too, like MSI's monitoring of VRMs, ASUS's status LEDs, and clock/voltage switches, etc.

But I'd love for you to try to prove that the VRMs use "beefier" components verses reference. That's a laugh. Usually their components are covered up in sealer/paint so few bother to even verify this and take the manufacturer's marketing at their word.

We're getting off point from the original debate of 100% load on GPUs. Even with all of that aside, the non-reference cards are designed for better overclocking and cooler temps. That has little to do with 100% load on a GPU at stock speeds.

Edited by cipher, 26 June 2012 - 10:28 AM.