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September 23, 2008 by Lawrence Lee
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Product
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Asus ENGTX260/HTDP/896M
PCI-E Video Card |
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Manufacturer
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ASUSTeK |
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Street Price
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~US$300 |
As PC game technology advances, GPU manufacturers have done well to keep up.
It seems every few months or so, a new batch of graphics cards are unveiled
by ATI or nVidia with performance shaming predecessors barely a year old. As you can
expect, the amount of power needed to drive these cards scale up as well;
it doesn't help that some are now even equipped with two processors. They have
also become very large physically, that it is has become necessary
to check dimensions against the case prior to purchase. Nobody blinks when they see a graphics
card equipped with loud dual slot coolers — in fact, it is the hallmark
of a powerful GPU.
But is it possible to have an excellent gaming system, and have it quiet, or
better yet silent as well? With extensive modifications, of course, but what
about straight out of the box? For those obsessed with silent computing, adding
a high-end graphics card without some kind of quiet, third party cooler, is
propesterous. Many of us assume that the stock cooler will be woefully inadequate
and most of the time, we're right.
Asus has a line of "silent" graphics card, though the ENGTX260 we'll
be looking at today is not marketed as such and just by looking at it, our gut
says it's just another loud, angry card. Anecdotal evidence however says it
is in fact a pretty quiet card, but is it? And more importantly, is it SPCR
quiet?
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ENGTX260 box: Completely out of place on the cover art is a fetching Asian archer... the kind
of girl who would dig anyone with an Asus graphics card?
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A parade of packaging.
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We have always chided Asus for their excess packaging, but this particular
box was ridiculous. There's a box to hold the accesories, a box to hold the
card, and two hollow filler-boxes to keep everything from firmly in place because
the outside box is larger than necessary.
|
|
| Graphics Engine |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 |
| Bus Standard |
PCI Express 2.0 |
| Video Memory |
DDR3 896MB |
| BUS |
PCI Express x16 |
| Engine Clock |
576 MHz |
| Shader Clock |
1.242 GHz |
| Memory Clock |
1.998 GHz ( 999 MHz DDR3
) |
| RAMDAC |
400MHz |
| Memory Interface |
448-bit |
| CRT Max Resolution |
2048 x 1536 |
| DVI Max Resolution |
2560 x 1600 |
| D-Sub Output |
Yes x 1 (via DVI to D-Sub
adaptor x 1 ) |
| DVI Output |
Yes x 2 (DVI-I) |
| HDTV Output (YPbPr) |
Yes |
| HDCP Support |
Yes |
| TV Output |
Yes (YPbPr to S-Video and
Composite) |
| Adapter/Cable Bundled |
1 x DVI to D-Sub adaptor
1 x HDTV-out cable
1 x Power cable |
| Software Bundled |
ASUS Utilities & Driver |
| Notes |
Special bundled: 1. CD
Leather Wallet 2. Leather Mouse Pad
The card size is 4.376 inches x 10.5 inches |
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