Today we shall review five graphics cards by ASUS, all of which are custom solutions.

Specifications

ASUS EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5

GPU: Radeon HD 6950 (Cayman) Interface: PCIe 2.0 x16 GPU clock rate (ROPs/shaders): 810/810 MHz (the standard is 800/800 MHz) Memory clock rate, physical (effective): 1250 (5000) MHz (standard) Memory bus: 256-bit Stream processors: 1408 Texture units: 88 (BLF/TLF/ANIS) ROP units: 32 Dimensions: 297x127x65 mm Board color: black Output connectors: DVI-I, DVI-D, 4 x DisplayPort 1.2 Multi-GPU mode: CrossFire X (hardware)

ASUS EAH6970 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5

GPU: Radeon HD 6970 (Cayman) Interface: PCIe 2.0 x16 GPU clock rate (ROPs/shaders): 890/890 MHz (the standard is 880/880 MHz) Memory clock rate, physical (effective): 1375 (5500) MHz (standard) Memory bus: 256-bit Stream processors: 1536 Texture units: 96 (BLF/TLF/ANIS) ROP units: 32 Dimensions: 297x127x65 mm Board color: black Output connectors: DVI-I, DVI-D, 4 x DisplayPort 1.2 Multi-GPU mode: CrossFire X (hardware)

ASUS ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5

GPU: GeForce GTX 560 Ti (GF114) Interface: PCIe 2.0 x16 GPU clock rate (ROPs/shaders): 900/1800 MHz (the standard is 822/1644 MHz) Memory clock rate, physical (effective): 1050 (4200) MHz (the standard is 1000 (4000) MHz) Memory bus: 256-bit Stream processors: 384 Texture units: 64 (BLF/TLF/ANIS) ROP units: 32 Dimensions: 228x111x37 mm Board color: black Output connectors: 2 x DVI-I, Mini HDMI Multi-GPU mode: hardware SLI

ASUS ENGTX570 DCII/2DIS/1280MD5

GPU: GeForce GTX 570 (GF110) Interface: PCIe 2.0 x16 GPU clock rate (ROPs/shaders): 800/1600 MHz (the standard is 732/1464 MHz) Memory clock rate, physical (effective): 1000 (4000) MHz (the standard is 950 (3800) MHz) Memory bus: 320-bit Stream processors: 480 Texture units: 60 (BLF/TLF/ANIS) ROP units: 40 Dimensions: 292x127x65 mm Board color: black Output connectors: 2 x DVI-I, HDMI, DisplayPort Multi-GPU mode: hardware SLI

ASUS ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS/1536MD5

GPU: GeForce GTX 580 (GF110) Interface: PCIe 2.0 x16 GPU clock rate (ROPs/shaders): 782/1564 MHz (the standard is 775/1550 MHz) Memory clock rate, physical (effective): 1002 (4008) MHz (standard) Memory bus: 384-bit Stream processors: 512 Texture units: 64 (BLF/TLF/ANIS) ROP units: 48 Dimensions: 292x127x65 mm Board color: black Output connectors: 2 x DVI-I, HDMI, DisplayPort Multi-GPU mode: hardware SLI

Design

Comparison with the reference design, front view

ASUS EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5	Reference AMD Radeon HD 6950

ASUS EAH6970 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5	Reference AMD Radeon HD 6970

ASUS ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5	Reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti

ASUS ENGTX570 DCII/2DIS/1280MD5	Reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570

ASUS ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS/1536MD5	Reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580

Comparison with the reference design, rear view

ASUS EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5	Reference AMD Radeon HD 6950

ASUS EAH6970 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5	Reference AMD Radeon HD 6970

ASUS ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5	Reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti

ASUS ENGTX570 DCII/2DIS/1280MD5	Reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570

ASUS ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS/1536MD5	Reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580

All five cards are custom products. At that, ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS/1536MD5 and EAH6970 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5 are designed for enthusiasts (and overclockers) and have a certain reserve in terms of power and come with two 8-pin supplementary power sockets each instead of one 6-pin and one 8-pin. Power converters of these cards have been revamped as well, more energy efficient parts are used, especially in GPU circuitry.

EAH6970 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5 and EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5 have 4 DisplayPort sockets each and support a more advanced version of AMD Eyefinity that lets you connect as many as four monitors simultaneously instead of the standard three. Also pay attention to a complex interface switching scheme of these two cards provided on a box screenshot below.

Maximum resolutions and frequencies:

• 240 Hz maximum refresh rate
• 2560 x 1600 @ 60Hz max. digital (DVI) resolution
• 2048 x 1536 @ 85Hz max. analog (VGA) resolution

All cards have supplementary power sockets: two 6-pin on ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5, one 6-pin and one 8-pin on EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5 and ENGTX570 DCII/2DIS/1280MD5, two 8-pin on ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS/1536MD5 and EAH6970 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5.

As I have already said, the latter two are designed for overclockers and come with a SmartDoctor utility that lets you increase frequencies and core voltages and monitor card status. As you can see, we managed to overclock ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS/1536MD5 to the great 947 (1894) MHz, and the resulting performance was just 10% less than that of the dual-GPU GTX 590. The result could've been better had memory chips been cooled along with the GPU.

As for EAH6970 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5, we managed to overclock its GPU to more than 1GHz, but a noticeable bandwidth limitation only allowed a 12% performance gain, even though GPU clock rate was raised by almost 15%.

Finally, we achieved 950 MHz GPU clock rate on EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5 by means of raising voltage, and performance almost reached that of HD 6970.

Unfortunaly, the utility didn't let us raise voltages on ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5 and ENGTX570 DCII/2DIS/1280MD5, so overclocking was limited.

Note that even though only about 5% of users overclock their graphics cards, we have such results on our diagrams, but only if tested products are factory-overclocked and guaranteed to work at higher clock rates.

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