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This ENGTX-285 TOP unit is factory over-clocked and is a brilliant choice for anybody looking for a graphics solution that especially packs a solid punch.
I recently had the opportunity to try out the ASUS ENGTX-285 TOP GPU for a bit and have to say that the overall experience was quite enjoyable. When opening the product for the first time you are greeted by what can only be described as a luxury package that gives you the feeling of opening up something very special and luxurious if one can put it that way. The packaging is sturdy and this is one box you won't mind holding onto or even put on display wherever you keep your gear.
The graphics card is intended for enthusiast gamers and the contents will reflect it. Even though the black boxing inside the outer sleeve is similar to that you will find on the GTX-260 packaging from ASUS and others in the 200 series of cards you will not be let down by the amount of connector options that greets you inside.
The GeForce GTX 285 features two dual-link, HDCP-enabled DVI-I outputs for connection to analog and digital PC monitors and HDTVs, a 7-pin analog video-out port that supports S-Video directly, plus composite and component (YPrPb) outputs via an optional (and included) dongle.
Basic features:
Bus Support:
•PCI Express 2.0
•PCI Express x16 Backwards Compatible
3D Acceleration:
•Microsoft DirectX10 support
•Unified Shader Model 4.0
•OpenGL 2.1
Compatibility:
•HDTV Ready (using dongle adapter)
•Vista Ready
•SLI and 3-Way SLI Ready
•HDCP Ready
•DVI Audio (using digital audio connection)
•Dual Link Dual DVI
•RoHS Compliant
If you are a home cinema fanatic you will be happy to know that this GPU supports Nvidia's PureVideo technology which basically takes video processing responsibilities away from your CPU to give you faster and crisper rendering on various codecs.
Some facts about the GT200 Graphics Processing Unit:
•1.4 Billion transistors
•Local 16k shared memory
•670 MHz Graphics engine clock speed
•240 Graphics processor cores
•1550 MHz graphics processor clock speed
•400 MHz RamDAC
•Max. Resolution @ 2560 x 1600
•True 128-bit floating point high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting with 16x full- screen anti-aliasing
•Double precision 64-bit floating point computation support
•2nd Generation NVIDIA Unified Architecture
•Supports future 10-bit color and 120 MHz LCD panels
This card is actually no toy at all when you consider the performance factor. I put it into a high end motherboard running Windows 7 with an i7 920 CPU and ASUS Rampage II Gene motherboard just for kicks and the experience was solid all around. It will give you a noticeable performance boost over its smaller brothers like the GTX-260, which I also happened to play with at the same time. Some reviewers say the card is quiet but the question you will ask yourself is compared to what is it quiet. It is a performance card and it is not that quiet at all. It isn't disturbingly noisy either and at least could not pick up pitch noises under stress testing but still believe this to be a hit and miss issue for these cards. Some can be pitchy during performance and some aren't. In the testing unit this was not the case and it was an enjoyable experience to install and use.
One thing you need to consider when buying in this range is that the card is bulky. You might have to literally make room for it in order to make it fit your chassis. It is better to rather buy a big chassis than to fiddle around too much. Some motherboard will have tough to reach SATA ports for instance once you have this monster inserted. I found this to be a small but fixable problem when I tested it on an ASUS P5Q-EM motherboard for instance. Putting this card into even an average motherboard will have you see a massive difference in graphics performance on the system and I can seriously recommend it to anybody with a little bit of cash to burn. Game play on the card was blissful with games like Crysis - Warhead running at full resolution comfortably at decent frame rates. In-game graphics are drastically improved with this card over say the GTX-260 for instance with special effects and environmental effects like wind blowing, water and everything appearing much more realistic. This is a given for a card of this caliber
The GTX 285 also includes NVIDIA CUDA technology built-in to deliver "Graphics Plus" capabilities such as:
•GPU-accelerated NVIDIA PhysX gaming effects (Mirror's Edge, Cyrostasis, UT3, GRAW2, Warmonger, and many more coming soon)
•NVIDIA GeForce 3D Vision stereoscopic 3D gaming
•High-speed CUDA-enabled HD video transcoding and/or filtering (Elemental Badaboom, CyberLink PowerDirector, Arcsoft Total Media Theater, TMPGenc xPress, MotionDSP Carmel)
•Lightning-fast and smooth image processing (Adobe CS4)
•Distributed Computing (Folding@home, SETI@home, BOINC Platform, GPUGrid, Einstein@home).
The latter is an interesting aspect to it because if you are interested in programs like the ones mentioned you will be happy to see the performance contribution this card can make to processing radio frequencies from space for instance in the search for extra terrestrial life. Who knows this card may even be responsible for decoding our first communication from outer space.
This ENGTX-285 TOP unit is factory over-clocked and is a brilliant choice for anybody looking for a graphics solution that especially packs a solid punch. It beats ATI's Radeon HD 4870 X2 in frame rate benchmarks using Crysis Warhead for instance. This is not a subtle card!
Expect to pay around R4900 for the card in decent computer shops.
I recently had the opportunity to try out the ASUS ENGTX-285 TOP GPU for a bit and have to say that the overall experience was quite enjoyable. When opening the product for the first time you are greeted by what can only be described as a luxury package that gives you the feeling of opening up something very special and luxurious if one can put it that way. The packaging is sturdy and this is one box you won't mind holding onto or even put on display wherever you keep your gear.
The graphics card is intended for enthusiast gamers and the contents will reflect it. Even though the black boxing inside the outer sleeve is similar to that you will find on the GTX-260 packaging from ASUS and others in the 200 series of cards you will not be let down by the amount of connector options that greets you inside.
The GeForce GTX 285 features two dual-link, HDCP-enabled DVI-I outputs for connection to analog and digital PC monitors and HDTVs, a 7-pin analog video-out port that supports S-Video directly, plus composite and component (YPrPb) outputs via an optional (and included) dongle.
Basic features:
Bus Support:
•PCI Express 2.0
•PCI Express x16 Backwards Compatible
3D Acceleration:
•Microsoft DirectX10 support
•Unified Shader Model 4.0
•OpenGL 2.1
Compatibility:
•HDTV Ready (using dongle adapter)
•Vista Ready
•SLI and 3-Way SLI Ready
•HDCP Ready
•DVI Audio (using digital audio connection)
•Dual Link Dual DVI
•RoHS Compliant
If you are a home cinema fanatic you will be happy to know that this GPU supports Nvidia's PureVideo technology which basically takes video processing responsibilities away from your CPU to give you faster and crisper rendering on various codecs.
Some facts about the GT200 Graphics Processing Unit:
•1.4 Billion transistors
•Local 16k shared memory
•670 MHz Graphics engine clock speed
•240 Graphics processor cores
•1550 MHz graphics processor clock speed
•400 MHz RamDAC
•Max. Resolution @ 2560 x 1600
•True 128-bit floating point high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting with 16x full- screen anti-aliasing
•Double precision 64-bit floating point computation support
•2nd Generation NVIDIA Unified Architecture
•Supports future 10-bit color and 120 MHz LCD panels
This card is actually no toy at all when you consider the performance factor. I put it into a high end motherboard running Windows 7 with an i7 920 CPU and ASUS Rampage II Gene motherboard just for kicks and the experience was solid all around. It will give you a noticeable performance boost over its smaller brothers like the GTX-260, which I also happened to play with at the same time. Some reviewers say the card is quiet but the question you will ask yourself is compared to what is it quiet. It is a performance card and it is not that quiet at all. It isn't disturbingly noisy either and at least could not pick up pitch noises under stress testing but still believe this to be a hit and miss issue for these cards. Some can be pitchy during performance and some aren't. In the testing unit this was not the case and it was an enjoyable experience to install and use.
One thing you need to consider when buying in this range is that the card is bulky. You might have to literally make room for it in order to make it fit your chassis. It is better to rather buy a big chassis than to fiddle around too much. Some motherboard will have tough to reach SATA ports for instance once you have this monster inserted. I found this to be a small but fixable problem when I tested it on an ASUS P5Q-EM motherboard for instance. Putting this card into even an average motherboard will have you see a massive difference in graphics performance on the system and I can seriously recommend it to anybody with a little bit of cash to burn. Game play on the card was blissful with games like Crysis - Warhead running at full resolution comfortably at decent frame rates. In-game graphics are drastically improved with this card over say the GTX-260 for instance with special effects and environmental effects like wind blowing, water and everything appearing much more realistic. This is a given for a card of this caliber
The GTX 285 also includes NVIDIA CUDA technology built-in to deliver "Graphics Plus" capabilities such as:
•GPU-accelerated NVIDIA PhysX gaming effects (Mirror's Edge, Cyrostasis, UT3, GRAW2, Warmonger, and many more coming soon)
•NVIDIA GeForce 3D Vision stereoscopic 3D gaming
•High-speed CUDA-enabled HD video transcoding and/or filtering (Elemental Badaboom, CyberLink PowerDirector, Arcsoft Total Media Theater, TMPGenc xPress, MotionDSP Carmel)
•Lightning-fast and smooth image processing (Adobe CS4)
•Distributed Computing (Folding@home, SETI@home, BOINC Platform, GPUGrid, Einstein@home).
The latter is an interesting aspect to it because if you are interested in programs like the ones mentioned you will be happy to see the performance contribution this card can make to processing radio frequencies from space for instance in the search for extra terrestrial life. Who knows this card may even be responsible for decoding our first communication from outer space.
This ENGTX-285 TOP unit is factory over-clocked and is a brilliant choice for anybody looking for a graphics solution that especially packs a solid punch. It beats ATI's Radeon HD 4870 X2 in frame rate benchmarks using Crysis Warhead for instance. This is not a subtle card!
Expect to pay around R4900 for the card in decent computer shops.