EVGA's "Classified K|NGP|N" line has become the company's solution for extreme overclockers, similar to MSI's "Gaming" and "Lightning" card differentiations. The new GTX 780 Ti (which we broke-down over here) stands as the best video card for gaming right now, outpacing nVidia's more developer-focused TITAN and AMD's R9 290X.
EVGA has scrapped the reference design for the 780 Ti and opted for their own ACX-enabled active cooling solution. The 780 Ti natively runs at a TDP of 250W, but because overclocking increases wattage sent through the device, EVGA had to design with high power consumption in mind. This means improving the on-card VRM, cooling, and ability to accept higher wattage.
The K|NGP|N 780 Ti, named after an overclocker who helped design the card, can accept up to 450W of power to the GPU (2x8-pin + 6-pin power, or 3 total cables). To help clean the voltage, we have a 14+3 phase power design (14 phases for the GPU, 3 for the on-card RAM). You can read more about how a VRM works over here. To put things into perspective, most 780 Ti cards I've seen on the market are using a 10-phase power design for the GPU; theoretically, EVGA's additional four power phases and other design elements will clean the voltage more thoroughly, reducing the chance for vDroop in extreme overclocking scenarios.
(Above: First, the 14+3 phase power VRM is shown; second, we see the separate PWM baseplate, 3x power connectors, and a multimeter check point).
EVGA's ACX cooling solution is also mounted to the card, using 2x100mm push fans instead of the single blower fan in the stock design. The company has also included a custom PWM baseplate to help reduce thermals generated by the PWM during power cleaning and modulation. EVGA also advertises "enhanced" PLL circuitry (we're not sure of the specifics); PLL circuits, or phase-locked loops, are used for all sorts of clock-related tasks on motherboards and video cards. Generally, we see them in use as frequency multipliers and demodulators. EVGA's enhanced design will presumably allow for higher stable clocks.
The 780 Ti by EVGA also includes XOC (which stands for eXtreme Overclock) voltage modulation points, giving greater control over voltage tuning to the end-user.
Anyone taking overclocking on this card seriously (and if you're buying it, you should be) will also want some means to monitor the card's status. There are on-card multimeter points in the form of a DMM (Digital Multimeter) adapter and a status LED for voltage status checking of each rail, similar to MSI's voltage checker points on the GD65 board.
The card is not yet available for purchase, but has a pre-purchase sign-up online over here.
- Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke.