Asus Matrix GTX285 SLI on Intel Core i7 975XE

WHILE THE ATI HD5870 LAUNCH stole the graphics headlines this past month, Nvidia is still doing pretty well with the GTX285, its flagship single GPU solution based on the GT200b chip.

Or, to be more precise, the major OEMs are putting out their own vastly improved versions to boost performance of the chip prior to the somewhat (*cough*) delayed arrival of Nvidia's next generation GT300 GPU series. Most of them, like Asus, Gigabyte and EVGA, have created optimised custom versions combining higher-bin GPUs with improved board design, better components, faster memory and usually a complete cooling replacement. And, oh yes, proper utilities for avid gamers to manage performance - and hopefully stability - in real time as they play.

The only problem is that, in both the Nvidia and ATI camps, such advanced solutions are seemingly allowed to appear only half a year or more after the actual reference card arrives, which is often too little, too late.

This is the Asus Matrix GTX285, probably the fastest GTX285 card around. It's a completely redesigned board with Japanese capacitors, lower GPU power noise, and real-time voltage and overclocking control, combined with a brand new 8mm thick dual heatpipe cooling system and a GPU settings reset button on the back. Here we have not one, but two of them in SLI, running on the Core i7 975XE, the top end Intel desktop CPU and the Asus Rampage II Extreme, the top end Asus desktop mainboard. To complete the test setup we used 12GB of Kingston DDR3-2000 Core i7 compatible memory.

The Asus card doesn't look remotely like any other GTX285 unit. The cooling system is larger and even visually looks more robust, yet the temperature on the GPU was between 11 and 14 degrees cooler, even when overclocked. So, the Asus ROG graphics team did some nifty design wizardry there, something I hope Nvidia will appreciate to have available right at the GT300 launch, in view of the ATI competition at the present moment.

So, rather than stick to the typical GPU speed here, I went straight with 705MHz GPU speed and correspondingly sped up memory at GGRD3-2523 and shader clocks at 1572 MHz, then ran the usual 3Dmark Vantage in both Performance and Extreme modes. I have adjusted the voltages for the GPU and memory up a little bit, but nothing extreme. I was keen to see how far it will go above the generic GTX285, and how close to the new ATI Radeon HD5870, which, by the way, seems to overclock well too.

Here are the "Performance" results:

And "Extreme" results:

Not bad at all. We are getting easily 10 per cent above the regular GTX285 here, and this can go higher if more risque with the voltage and frequency settings. And that's what I tried right away, pushing the GPU clock to 715 MHz, Shader clock to 1612 MHz and memory to GDDR3-2562 speed, with just a bit more voltage push up. Here are the "Extreme" results for 3Dmark Vantage at 715MHz GPU:

I have to say, it was also fun watching the card's Matrix logo change its colour as the CPU load increased, all the way from blue to bright red during the Extreme run on 3Dmark Vantage.

In Short
In summary, Asus's ROG and graphics teams did a wonderful job creating the Matrix GTX285, and it works well in tandem with the firm's ROG Rampage 2 Extreme, currently one of the most overclockable Core i7 mainboards. Now, I'd just wonder what an overclocked 6-core Gulftown Westmere CPU with 12MB cache could do. Keep in mind that the PCIe buses can also be overclocked somewhat for even greater bandwidth between the GPUs and the CPU.

Now, if Nvidia let the vendors build such cards at chip launch time, it might gain quite a competitive edge versus ATI, I reckon. It's a shame to not dare to go beyond the 'reference card only' model early, rather than at the end of the chip lifecycle when all the attention is on the upcoming stuff. Same applies to Asus's even higher end MARS card, which otherwise is a dual-GPU 2x285 customised - albeit overpriced - masterpiece, and which should have been out there instead of the GTX295 in the first place. µ

The Good:
Fastest Nvidia single GPU card around, stunning design, good overclocking.

The Bad:
Nvidia should have done a 2GB memory version.

The Ugly:
It was a tad late.

Bartender's Report:
8/10