The Republic of Gamers (RoG) brand from Asus stands for high performance gaming oriented hardware. And Asus wants to extend its RoG GPU line up to slightly affordable levels with the result being the Striker Platinum GTX 760. The first RoG product we reviewed was the Maximus IV Hero motherboard, which we thoroughly enjoyed. While we have already reviewed the stock GTX 760 from NVIDIA, we decided to put the Striker through its paces to see if it brings anything new to the table. We have also tested the Asus MARS 760 which combines 2 GTX 760s in a single card and is also part of the Asus RoG series.
[divider]
Specification of the MARS 760
The card comes with increased memory (4GB) over the stock solution and a Core Clock overclock of 10% over the stock GTX 760. The chip is the 28nm GK104 unit with1152 CUDA cores. The Memory clock is unchanged for the 6008 MHz of the stock GTX 760. Asus has used Hynix GDDR5 memory in this card.
The dimensions of the two slot card are roughly 28.7cm x 15.2cm x4 cm and it features a ROG branded Asus DirectCU II cooler with two 92mm fans, each with a distinctive look. This is an excellent cooler design, though the angular shape of the casing can cause problems when screwing in the card. The card has a red ROG light strip and two PCI-E connector lights which glow when the card is in operation. It also comes with a Load Indicator strip with an Asus ROG logo that glows blue, orange or red as per the load being low, medium or high respectively.
The rear panel has one DVI-D connector, one DVI-I connector, one HDMI connector and one DisplayPort connector. The top of the card is also covered by a heat sheath. The card is rather wide compared to the stock GTX 760. It also has two SLI connectors, one of which is a little hard to reach courtesy of the angled casing.
The launch price for the Striker Platinum GTX 760 is ₹27,500 and it’s launched on April 17, 2014 worldwide.
Build Quality and Packaging
The card comes neatly packaged in a box with a flip cover that boasts about its unique features. One must then go through another cardboard box and multiple layers of Styrofoam to glimpse the card itself. A smaller cardboard box contains the Driver CD, Quick installation Guide, a 2x6pin to 1x8pin PCI-E power adapter and a 2way SLI Bridge connector. All the exposed connectors on the card come with their own little plastic protection covers.
The build quality of the card is excellent as one might expect from an Asus ROG branded product. The Brushed metal finish of the heat sheath goes splendidly well with the smooth black PCB. The DirectCU II cooler design is quite efficient at keeping the card cool quite silently as well. One minor glitch we faced with our test sample was that the Load Indicator seemed to go from Blue to Green to Orange as the load changed, but never to Red as the documentation indicated. The other issues lie with the stylishly angular design of the card’s casing which can prove a hindrance in some cases as mentioned earlier.
[divider]
Testing Methodology
We tested the Striker Platinum GTX 760 not only for the average Frames per Second(FPS) but also for the 99th Percentile Frame time which tells us about the performance of the GPU within the second. Within the Second testing is useful to understand micro-stutter which can render a game unplayable despite FPS being high. Fraps 3.5.99 allowed us to calculate both.
Since the card slots in between Mid-Range and Top End GPUs, we decided to use highest possible settings in our benchmark games and compare with Top End GPUs. We tried to disable CPU dependent settings or minimise their impact where possible. VSync and frame buffering were disabled for testing. All tests were run at 1920×1080 on a single monitor configuration.
Test System:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE C3 @ 3.8GHz
Motherboard: ASRock 970 Extreme 3
RAM: 2x4GB G.Skill Sniper CL9 1600MHz, 2x2GB G.Skill Ripjaws CL9 1600MHz
PSU: Corsair TX650 650W (for STRIKER PLATINUM GTX 760), Seasonic S12II Bronze 620W (for others)
HDD: 2xSeagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB, 1xWesten Digital Red 3TB
OS: Windows 8.1 x64
NVIDIA Driver: 334.67 (Beta Driver) for GTX 770, MARS 760
NVIDIA Driver: 337.50 (Beta Driver) for Striker GTX 760
AMD Driver: 14.3 Beta 1 (Beta Driver)
While this system may not look like a purpose built test rig, we decided to use a normal usage PC so as to better reflect real world scores of the card. The games were also tested with a few applications like Antivirus, Browser, VOIP tool and others running in the background to get a realistic usage scenario. All HDDs were thoroughly defragmented prior to usage. Due to lack of equipment we were unable to conduct acoustic and power testing. Note that the 337.50 driver improves performance for several games but when comparing with older drivers on this card, we noticed gains of barely 2% on our chosen benchmark games.
3DMark 11 Firestrike
3Dmark is an artificial Benchmarking tool whose Firestrike Test is very thorough on DirectX 11cards powering High-end PCs. The full test run for Firestrike includes 2 GPU only tests, a CPU dependent Physics Test and a Combined Graphics and Physics Test. The Tool is also useful for stress testing a GPU when run on loop.
Given that we are looking for the Performance of the Card itself, one should look at the Graphics score and the FPS for Graphics tests 1 and 2. The Physics and Combined tests are CPU dependent which is the limiting factor of our test rig.
Batman: Arkham Origins
Batman Arkham Origins is a game that’s been supported by NVIDIA and utilises their PhysX technology to handle physics. We used highest possible settings. PhysX was also set to Enhanced. We ran the inbuilt benchmark tool with a FRAPS timed run of 120 seconds. Since this benchmark was picked mainly to showcase the NVIDIA exclusive PhysX performance, one should ignore the AMD card results which are generated sans PhysX.
The Striker Platinum GTX 760 keeps the game playable even with all the settings set to their maximum values. With PhysX turned off, the card can improve easily by 20-30fps which accounts for the AMD card’s higher values, though we benchmarked this game to specifically compare the PhysX performance. The Striker Platinum GTX 760’s performance is quite above par when compared with a stock GTX 760 and it does manage to keep up with the other Top End cards in this game.
The 99th Percentile graph shows tight frametimes with the noticeable spikes being caused by transitions in the benchmark’s scenes. No microstuttering was observed in our crisp looking run.
Battlefield 4
Battlefield 4 uses the Frostbite 3 engine to push the visual processing boundaries of current hardware. Since Mantle is only for AMD cards, we ran the DX11 version with the highest possible settings. The game offers no benchmark tool, so we used areas from the first single player campaign mission for the FRAPS run.
The STRIKER PLATINUM GTX 760 surprises us with its performance, being only 2-3 fps off the GTX 770 and R9 290 in this game. This might be partly thanks to performance improvements on the newest NVIDIA drivers, but is commendable nonetheless. It also manages to beat the Dual GPU MARS 760 on the 99th percentile frametime.
The densely packed frametime graph has no noticeable spike indicating butter smooth frame rendering and fluid gameplay. The FPS does show spikes and valleys but vsync and lower settings should smoothen that.
Bioshock Infinite
The Unreal Engine 3 powered Bioshock Infinite really pushed the boundaries of visual effects achievable with the ageing engine. It comes with a built in benchmark mode which runs for a lower time period than the standard 120s we used in other tests.
Curiously while the card lags significantly from its higher end opponents in average FPS, it beats them all in the 99th percentile frametime and maintains a higher minimum FPS. Given that it can max out the game and still stay over 60FPS, the card is a stellar performer for its price.
The frametime graph flows somewhat tightly spaced, though there are quite a few spikes in some areas. While the FPS curve in these areas looks ok, there was noticeable microstuttering in the benchmark run.
Company of Heroes 2
Relic’s Company of Heroes 2 is a tough nut to crack for quite a few GPUs, though it’s dependent on CPUs to a great degree as well. We used highest possible Settings with Physics turned off and Low AA for the short 45s benchmark run the game offers.
The game is CPU dependent and doesn’t seem to support SLI so the MARS was effectively running as a single GTX 760 with 2GB VRAM. In comparison, the Striker Platinum GTX 760 seems to benefit from the increased VRAM posting better FPS and 99th percentile frametimes, but still being unable to maintain a playable FPS.
While the frametimes are close for most of the graph, there are some spikes where the game appeared quite choppy. Since the FPS wasn’t in playable territory, microstuttering was the least of our worries. Lowering the settings and better optimisation should improve the FPS.
Crysis 3
CryEngine 3 was built to push the PC Hardware to its limits with Crysis 3 and deliver Maximum Eye Candy. We used the highest possible settings for the purpose of our test. The test run consisted of a section of the first mission for 120s as the game surprisingly offers no benchmark tool.
Crysis 3 taxes the card so much that it can’t even maintain a playable frame rate, nor can its older sibling, the GTX 770. Lowering the settings should help maintain playable FPS. The 99th percentile frametime is also much higher than the others. The game seems to be optimised better for the AMD card.
The game shows a lot of spikes not only on the frametime graph, but also on the FPS graph. Since the FPS wasn’t in the playable region for most part, the microstuttering wasn’t our biggest hindrance.
Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3 is a visually impressive game that lacks a benchmark mode. We used highest possible settings and the test run consisted of a 120s sample from the game’s single player campaign where we spent some time goofing off in the open world. (Pssst: Far Cry 4 is in the works, and is set in our very own Himalayas, for those interested)
The card manages to keep the game barely playable and has a significantly higher 99th percentile frametime. Optimisation for the AMD card seems better in this game.
The relative smoothness of the frametime graph with barely a couple of noticeable spikes bodes well for the card’s rendering performance. There wasn’t any microstuttering though dips in FPS to unplayable levels were the major cause for concern.
GRID 2
GRID 2 from Codemasters is one of the few games in our test suite that has no allegiance to either NVIDIA or AMD, which makes it a neutral candidate to better judge the GPU’s performance. We used highest possible Settings to run the benchmark tool offered by the game.
While the game is GPU vendor neutral, making it a better performance comparison guide, the Striker Platinum GTX 760 manages to keep it above a smoothly playable 60 fps and is not far off from the others in the 99th percentile frametime.
No microstuttering marred our benchmark run as can be seen from the densely packed frametime graph although the variation in FPS was sometimes noticeable.
Sleeping Dogs
While the game is ageing, Sleeping Dogs is still a stunner when it comes to running benchmarks. We pushed the settings to highest possible and ran the game’s built in benchmark run.
This AMD optimised game was quite rough with our card whose performance was significantly lower than the others though not unexpected for its market position. It wasn’t too far off from the GTX 770 though.
The game shows major spikes in the areas where it transitions between scenes in the benchmark but has a fairly constant run in those scenes. Microstuttering wasn’t noticeable in the run which seems to get a FPS dip in the indoor areas.
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider introduced us to a new Lara with fabled TressFX hair that behaves a lot more realistically than the pre-rendered mop we were used to. However the card does not seem to cope well with this technology and we had to drop it in our test run. We used highest possible settings with TressFX on. The Test run was shorter since the benchmark tool offered by the game runs for less than out 120s target time.
TressFX makes the game unplayable with the Striker Platinum GTX 760 and also results in a high 99th percentile frametime. The game is AMD optimised though. Turning TressFX off significantly improves performance.
The game stays below the playable FPS for most part and has consistent spiking in the frametime graph indicating some microstuttering.
Total War: Rome II
Total War: Rome II is another CPU heavy game that offers significant visual goodness. It offers a benchmark tool that focuses more on GPU power though and that is what we used for our test run of 120s. We set the game to Extreme and Unit Size to Small so as to reduce the impact of the CPU. Unlimited Video Memory was off so the game could scale down visual settings if it reached a bottleneck.
While the new NVIDIA driver claimed major gains in this game, we were unable to notice much difference. Vegetation Alpha seems to be the bane of the Green team’s cards causing dips to single digits. The Striker Platinum GTX 760 falls just short of averaging a playable FPS but has a surprisingly lower 99th percentile frametime than other NVIDIA cards. The MARS 760 was used as a single GTX 760 by the game as it failed to support SLI, and the Striker Platinum GTX 760’s performance is a significant improvement on that.
The spikes in the frametime seem to follow a dense pattern rather than being isolated, which implies no microstuttering, but rather a heavy dip in the FPS. It is confirmed to be the case on inspecting the FPS graph.
[divider]
Acoustics
Our acoustics testing consisted of trying to determine how noticeable the noise output from the card was, when kept in a case at 1m distance with the side panel closed, as it might be in a real world scenario. Noise is a very relative characteristic that depends not only one the person hearing, but also the background noise of their surroundings. During the course of our testing, we found that the card barely went over 50% fan speed even at full load, which made barely noticeable noise. Even the 32% idle speed is rather quiet and at times quieter than the other PC components. However, setting the fans at 100% rpm makes for quite a noisy beast and can be distracting when heard above the sound from the speakers when playing music, video or a game. Given that this setting was never reached in actual usage scenarios, Asus’s cooler design is quite laudable.
Temperatures
At idle the card hovered in the 38°-40°C range with an ambient temperature of 36°C. What was interesting though was that even after stress testing for a significant amount of time, the card’s maximum reported temperature was 77°C. And this remained unchanged even with our overclock. This tight control over the temperatures makes us wonder if the cooler design is overkill for the card. Asus has done a really good job with its DirectCU II design on this one.
Power
The card requires a minimum 600W PSU with a12V rating of 36A, and comes in a 8 pin + 6pin power connector configuration which rates it at 250W. The card requires a significantly beefy PSU for overclocking.
Overclocking
The card has a factory overclock on the Core and Boost clocks of some 10% over the stock GTX 760 while the memory clock is unchanged. We were able to push it even further with a maximum stable overclock of some 75 MHz on the core and 600 MHz on the memory using Asus’s GPU tweak utility. The VRAM can be pushed even further with MSI’s afterburner with the Hynix chips proving stellar overclockers. The FPS difference after our overclock was some3-4fps on average.
Feature Set
Asus bundles its GPU tweak utility for easy overclocking of the card. With NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience, the card can support features like Shadowplay and game streaming but the card’s LEDs cannot be controlled.
[divider]
Conclusion
The Striker Platinum GTX 760 is another custom card using the GTX 760 base which has a good balance of performance for its price. The card’s appeal to existing GTX 760 owners would be limited though as it’s not a significant upgrade. It should however prove an attractive solution for new buyers thanks to its improved performance. Asus fans will probably like to brag about its RoG label.
The pricing of the card as compared to a stock GTX 760 is quite higher, but we feel the build quality and the overclocking potential merits it. Also the card comes with the premium of the RoG tag, which hasn’t been applied to higher mid-range gpus till now. The Card’s excellent DirectCU II cooler keeps it quiet and thermally stable even under extreme loads and the build quality is top notch.
The card has some issues with the practicality of its stunning angular design, but these are limited only to its installation and removal. Asus’s own GPU tweak utility does seem inadequate in unlocking the full overclocking potential of the card and it’s advisable to use MSI Afterburner for this purpose.
The card is a good overclocker and a stellar performer for its price. For this we award it the iLL Gaming Gold and Editor’s Pick awards.
We are extremely grateful to Asus for providing us with a test sample for reviewing ahead of the card’s release on April 17, 2014.
[divider]
What’s iLL
+Excellent cooler design
+Great Overclocker
+Stellar performance for the price
What’s not
-Angular design makes for tedious installation
-Enters an already saturated market for the card
