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8Pack takes EVGA 780Ti Kingpin Edition through Air and LN2 testing!!

OcUK Staff
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With my favourite pass time being taking hardware to the absolute limit. I was more than happy to be given the opportunity to test a card designed with the pursuit of benching records as I primary criteria. Enter EVGA's Kingpin Edition Nvidia 780 Ti. This card has a no compromise design with massively over engineered PWM and an uprated Classified style cooler to start off the very impressive list of features. Extra to the Classified cooler the KPE Ti has a full backplate sporting the Kingpin logo this back plate adding to rigidity and improving cooling even further.

For the gamer this card offers very high clocks out of the box and for the bench marker switch to LN2 Bios attach your EVbot and you have limitless options. This includes tuning PWM frequency for Core and mem as well as totally removing OCP/OVP and controlling Core, Mems and PLL volts.

Interestingly this is the only high end production Ti available with Samsung memory. Samsung IC was chosen by Kingpin when designing the card for both its efficiency and its performance at both ambient and sub zero temperatures. Any other IC needs around 50mhz more to match the performance of Samsung whilst Samsung does not typically exhibit cold bug issues. So memory clocks on air can also remain high on Ln2 cooling. What this mean in real world terms is if for example a hynix card doing 2000mhz memory will be matched by Samsung doing 1950mhz.

Lets now take a look at the card:



and here it is making high frame rates in my test rig:





The card comes with the Digital Multi Meter cables as standard so you can monitor voltages constantly. I set up as always to test the card at 1.21v under load which is my standard over clocking test voltage for Air cooling. You will also notice this card needs 3 PCI X connectors. 1 x 6 pin and 2 x 8 Pin feeding the card with serious juice.

Lets now see how the card performed through the 8Pack torture suite.

Test System
Intel 4930K
ASUS RIVE BE Motherboard
16GB DDR3 Team Group
Antec 1200w PSUWin7 64 Bit Pro
Nvidia Driver 335.23

Heaven Valley


Heaven


Fire Strike


Fire Strike X


3D Mark 11


As you guys can see from the results the KPE Ti reached the best overclock on the core I have seen of any card I have tested so far on Air cooling with 1340mhz Core clock being totally stable. The mems also reached a good 1975mhz which with Samsung IC's efficiency is equivalent to 2025 on any other Ti.

Interns of cooling late 60's - early 70's was what could be seen during most benchmark runs. Peak temp I saw throughout testing was 74C. This cooler does an excellent job while remaining quiet in operation. Its 3C worse than the DC2 by ASUS but this is a very small margin indeed.

To summarise the air cooled overclocked results of the KPE 780Ti by EVGA are the best of any Ti I have tested. This is a very fiercely contested segment of the market with many hero products from several respected brands so well done Kingpin and well done EVGA. The only real reservation I have about this product is the quantities EVGA can supply, otherwise this product comes with my recommendation.

Lets look now at Xtreme cooling performance!! I actually tested the card on Ln2 before air lol so keen was I to put it to the sword.

Here is the card prepared for Ln2. With its unique VRM only heatsink which is a great idea and the Vaseline treatment to stop condensation!





and pics of the card on test.



(Forgot the probe cables so improvised with tape ;))

Here is the first result 3D mark Vantage single card World Record with EVGA 780 Ti KPE at 1875mhz Core clock and 1900 memory clocks



http://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/5007791

and HWbot link: http://hwbot.org/submission/2544972...___performance_geforce_gtx_780_ti_75964_marks

This card is rocking on Air and Flying on LN2!!!! More LN2 testing to follow...................
 
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About darn time! That looks like one of the better KPEs out there too. I can't help but wonder how good my wonder twins would be on LN2 if they can go 1550 MHz on Valley no problem at 45 C core temps.
 
Nice work 8pack , Hopefully this uprated cooler will work its way onto the rest of the classified range at some time
 
I dont use beta for reviews and I know the driver I used gives consistent results as I have tested it a lot.

I can bench heaven yeah but I wont be doing it at max clocks as on LN2 it is not on HWbot so has no purpose to me as a Pro Overclocker.
 
Nice work 8pack , Hopefully this uprated cooler will work its way onto the rest of the classified range at some time

Don't see why not. Certainly a meatier offering with backplate and also improved RAM and VRM heatsinks.
 
If my Matrix card doesn't make it's way to me in the next week or so I might ring Overclockers, Cancel it, Get a refund and and buy one of these from EVGA's store, Looks quite interesting.
 
Air cooling for me was better than DC2 by a small margin. Cooler on KPE is not quite as good like 3-4C difference again very close.

LN2 cooling my DC2 is better. Although I need to test KPE more. No Ln2 at work at mo dewar is broke!!!
 
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Out of interest, what sort of temperatures do you see when using LN2 or don't you even bother checking?
I know it's gonna be cold (cuz of the ice and stuff) but due to the clock I'm guessing you're running a lot of VCore, so just wondering if the temps are still quite high?
 
Out of interest, what sort of temperatures do you see when using LN2 or don't you even bother checking?
I know it's gonna be cold (cuz of the ice and stuff) but due to the clock I'm guessing you're running a lot of VCore, so just wondering if the temps are still quite high?

Different cards prefer different temps, then you have the memory that might not like the cold as much. I can't remember what temps pack says he uses though :p

All I know it's not -190.

Edit:
From what i can see, most 290X cards tend to cold bug around the -40 mark, and the 780ti likes around the -120.
I'm sure the pack will come in here and give you actual real answers though :D
 
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This card liked about -125 full load. With 780Ti you need to test all temps from -110 to -145 loaded. a lot of the mems don't like so cold but the core does. So the hair dryer is needed angled down the card to warm the mems up. 1.575- 1.6v ish load for 1875 core on this card.

Several cards still run below -150 but the driver throttles them a state known as cold slow.
 
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