|
ASUS ENGTX295 and ENGTX285 TOP |
|
|
|
Written by Nebojsa Todorovic
|
|
Monday, 25 May 2009 |
|
Page 1 of 4  Few months ago we reviewed GeForce GTX285 and GTX 295. GTX 295 was fastest graphics card that you could find at that moment and GTX 285 was “strange” model that could get negative or positive criticism depending on what are you searching for. Since then, situation on the graphics card market has changed. GeForce GTX 285 got serious competitor in form of Radeon HD 4890 that isn’t in same price range but it offers similar performance levels which make this card much more interesting choice for many gamers. Of course it is not too farfetched that AMD (ATI) will soon launch HD 4890X2 that should be fastest graphics card at that moment. Depending on moment at which ATI will present HD 4890X2, NVIDIA will have longer or shorter period in which will have faster graphics card on the market. While we wait for “summer heat” to come, we will present you two ASUS graphics cards based on fastest NVIDIA GPUs.
ASUS ENGTX285 TOP
TOP in the name of this model says enough about this graphics card. This model is overclocked by manufacturer and came in characteristic package that isn’t full of additional accessories as we are used to. There was no additional software but then again the price of this model isn’t that high. Graphics card has referent cooling system which means that this card looks as any other GTX 285 with exception of ASUS sticker on it. Cooling system is efficient, silent and not too hot in regular conditions. Beneath that cooler is located GT200b GPU made in 55nm manufacturing process which resulted in lower thermal dissipation and power consumption. GPU has 240 Stream Processors, 80 Texturing Units and 32 ROPs. It supports the same technologies as all previous similar models but we will mention DirectX10.0, Shader Model 4.0 and OpenGL 2.1 support.
|
|
|
Memory bus is 512bit wide and uses GDDR3 memory that is set at slightly higher frequencies compared to referent model: 2600MHz. It is clear that ASUS used 0.77ns memory modules. On the backplate we found two DVI and one S-Video connector along with LE diode that signals when enough power is coming to this graphics card. Power connector are two 6-pin power molex connectors which makes it very easy to provide enough power for this card compared to earlier models that used one 8-pin and one 6-pin power molex connector. Overclock result is not great but we would be very unfair if we wouldn’t say that it was adequate. Main problem is that this card is already set at 670MHz for GPU and 1.55GHz for Steam Processors. Our model reached 720MHz for GPU and 2800MHz for memory which doesn’t sound as much, but believe us, you will be more than satisfied with performance levels at those frequencies.
|
Graphics cards 
