ASUS GeForce GTX 285 Matrix ROG Graphics Card
Video Cards & GPUs
NVIDIA GeForce GPU
ASUS has kicked the GTX 285 up a notch and given it a fancy new Matrix title. We find out if it’s really worth looking buying.
Published Sep 5, 2009 6:54 AM CDT | Updated Tue, Nov 3 2020 7:03 PM CST
Manufacturer: ASUS
14 minute read time
Introduction
The ASUS Matrix GTX 285 has really been a long time coming, noticed originally at Computex it was only going to be a matter of time before we got the hot little product in our hands. Following the Matrix naming scheme, the GTX 285 is the latest model to get welcomed into the lineup with open arms.
We have to wonder though after having a look at some of the features the card offers, is it simply just a standard GTX 285 that has been given a nice dress and a set of heels to hit the town with or is there really something there that’s going to grab our attention and help us warrant the $359. 99 USD price tag.
What we’ll do though before we get stuck into the card to see exactly what it looks like and has to offer is find out what’s going on in the package department. Once that’s done we’ll have a closer look at the card itself then dive into the clocks that are on offer. We’ll then really get into what matters and see how the card performs in our array of benchmarks before wrapping everything up.
So with that all said and done let’s check out the package and see if it’s going to be love at first sight.
The Package
The first note that we have to make is just how nice it is to see that ASUS has mixed it up with the box design; it’s good to see that they have decided to move away from the typical box design for this special Matrix model. The overall design has a really nice theme that does look great and grabs our attention.
We can see that across the top we have the Republic of Gamers logo while as we move down we have the model, which in this case is the Matrix GTX 285. Below that we have a little bit of a motto followed by the ASUS logo in the bottom corner.
Turning the box over we have a bit more detail on some of the power features that the ASUS GTX 285 offers and we also have a run down an explanation on some of the exclusive software that is included in the package.
Moving inside we have a pretty standard line up and included is the typical driver CD and quick user guide, also in true ASUS fashion we have a copy of the manual on CD, also included though is another manual on the new iTracker 2 software.
The cable department also doesn’t hold any real surprises — we’ve got a PCI-E to molex power convertor, component out dongle, DVI to VGA adapter along with a DVI to HDMI adapter and a SPIDF loopback cable which will help get sound through the HDMI assuming you choose to use it.
As for extras we’ve got a CD wallet, which is something we’ve seen many times from ASUS.
The Card
Coming in as part of the Matrix series means that the card is going to have its own cooling design. Like most GTX 285s we have a cooler that really manages to cover the card from top to bottom and left to right.
The bottom left does show us the ROG logo while the fan on the right side has the ASUS one, but apart from that there isn’t a whole lot else to be looking at.
The rear of the card has two PCI-E connectors, one an 6-pin and the other an 8-pin, closer to the front of the card we have two SLI connectors that give us the ability to run up to three of these cards together.
Something a bit fancy that we do have across the top is the ASUS Matrix logo, when the card is in your system depending on the amount of load the Matrix logo changes color with the help of some LEDs behind it. We start at green when the card is in safe mode and go all the way up to red when the card is under extreme load.
In the I/O department we have the standard connectors that we’ve become accustom to seeing — two Dual-Link DVI connectors along with a single TV-Out port. What we also have here though is a little connector that does look like a SPIDF audio jack, instead though it’s a button with the words «Safe Mode» written on it.
Something that you can do with this card is set clock rates to the BIOS, much like you could with a motherboard. While for the most part this sounds scary, the good news is that if you do mess it up by going too high, with a single click of the button you can go back to the default clock speeds. I have to admit I’m a bit skeptical on this feature, I’ll leave my thoughts on it for the final thoughts, though.
Specifications
Looking at the card you have to say to yourself, of course the model comes overclocked out of the box. With the look of the card, fancy new packaging and flash lights on the cooler, we expected some big numbers out of the model, unfortunately we did find ourselves slightly disappointed.
The core has been bumped up from the stock 648MHz to 662MHz, unfortunately that’s all, the shader clock remains at the default 1476MHz while the 1GB of GDDR3 memory comes in at 2484MHz DDR. With the way the card looks and how ASUS has gone about it we expected some more MHz with clocks that would resemble something in the TOP series of cards.
Test System Setup and 3DMark Vantage
Test System Setup
Processor(s): Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (190MHz x 20)
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Noctua)
Motherboard(s): GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)
Memory: 3 X 2GB OCZ Technology PC-12800 DDR-3 8-8-8-24 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)
Hard Disk(s): Western Digital 300GB Velicorapter (Supplied by Western Digital)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2 and Windows Vista SP1 64-bit
Drivers: NVIDIA ForceWare 190.38
Today we’ll be having a look at how the Matrix performs against a stock clocked ASUS GTX 285 while also seeing what kind of extra performance we get over the little brother to the GTX 285, the much loved GTX 275.
3DMark Vantage
Version and / or Patch Used: 1. 0.1
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/
Buy It Here
3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.
3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.
We can see straight off the mark the ASUS GTX 285 1GB Matrix gives us a small boost in performance when compared to the stock model.
Benchmarks — PT Boats: Knights of the Sea
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea
Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo
Developer Homepage: http://en. akella.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.pt-boats.net/
PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is a naval action simulator that places gamers in charge of a mosquito fleet of the Allied Forces, Russia or Germany during the height of World War II.
Using the latest Direct X 10 technology PT Boards — Knights of the Sea manages to apply a lot of stress to the components of today which in turn gives us quite an intensive benchmark.
Like Vantage we again see a bump in performance, but for the most part it’s nothing major.
Benchmarks — CINEBENCH R10
CINEBENCH R10
Version and / or Patch Used: Release 10
Developer Homepage: http://www.maxon.net/
Product Homepage: http://www.maxon.net
CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses your computer’s performance capabilities. MAXON CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software, CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.
MAXON CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances. The benchmark application makes use of up to 16 CPUs or CPU cores and is available for Windows (32-bit and 64-Bit) and Macintosh (PPC and Intel-based).
CINEBENCH shows us all three cards perform pretty similar with not much separating the pack.
Benchmarks — World in Conflict
World in Conflict
Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.0.5
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.massive.se
Product Homepage: http://www.worldinconflict.com
World in Conflict is a real-time strategy video game by Massive Entertainment and to be published by Sierra Entertainment for Windows (DX9 and DX10).
The game is set in 1989 where economic troubles cripple the Soviet Union and threaten to dissolve it. However, the title pursues a «what if» scenario where, in this case, the Soviet Union does not collapse and instead pursues a course of war to remain in power. It is an intensive new game is sure to put plenty of stress on even the latest graphics cards and we use the built-in benchmarking for our testing.
In the minimum department we can see a boot from the GTX 285 Matrix when compared to the stock clocked model, the gains begin to slow down as we climb in the resolution table, though.
Benchmarks — Crysis Warhead
Crysis Warhead
Version and / or Patch Used: Unpatched
Timedemo or Level Used: Airfield
Developer Homepage: http://www.crytek.com
Product Homepage: http://crysiswarhead.ea.com/
Buy It Here
Crysis Warhead updates and refines the gameplay of the original game through a sidestory plot involving Psycho, one of previous protagonist Nomad’s allies. The game is a parallel story that follows Sergeant Michael «Psycho» Sykes, a character from the original Crysis, as he faces his own trials and challenges on the other side of the island during the time period of the first game.
It also showcases a new, enhanced and optimized version of CryEngine 2 using full DX10 extensions and is the first game developed by Crytek’s Budapest studio.
We can see that performance between the two GTX 285s is very similar here.
Benchmarks — Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2
Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01
Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/
Buy It Here
The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A. I. and so much more.
Far Cry 2 shows us a small bump at the lower resolution, but as we climb up to 1920 and above, the gains become smaller and smaller.
Benchmarks — S.T.A.L.K.E.R. — Clear Sky
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. — Clear Sky
Version and / or Patch Used: 1.5.07
Timedemo or Level Used: Custom Timedemo
Developer Homepage: http://www.gsc-game.com/
Product Homepage: http://cs.stalker-game.com/en/
Buy It Here
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, is the stand-alone prequel for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, a first-person shooter computer game by Ukrainian developer GSC Game World.[3] The game consists of a roughly 50/50 mix of new areas and old, remodeled areas from the previous game. The X-ray graphics engine has been updated to version 1.5 and includes DirectX 10 support (later patch 1.5.06 included DirectX 10.1). Additionally, the AI received an overhaul to accommodate the new faction wars feature.
Here we see the same theme that we’ve seen all along, a small bump in performance at all resolutions.
Benchmarks — Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead
Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update
Timedemo or Level Used: Custom Timedemo
Developer Homepage: http://www.valvesoftware.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.l4d.com/
Buy It Here
Left 4 Dead uses the latest version of Valve’s Source engine, with improvements such as multi-core processor support and physics-based animation to more realistically portray hair and clothing, and to improve physics interaction with enemies when shot or shoved in different body parts. Animation was also improved to allow characters to lean realistically when moving in curved paths.
Rendering and artificial intelligence were scaled up to allow for greater number of enemies who can navigate the world in better ways, such as climbing, jumping or breaking obstacles. Lighting has been enhanced with new self-shadowing normal mapping and advanced shadow rendering that is important to convey information about the environment and player actions.
We can see a similar picture to what we’ve seen all along under Left 4 Dead.
Benchmarks — High Quality AA and AF
High Quality AA and AF
Our high quality tests let us separate the men from the boys and the ladies from the girls. If the cards weren’t struggling before they will start to now.
Far Cry 2
We continue to see a slight boost in performance thanks to the extra core MHz on offer from the Matrix GTX 285.
World In Conflict
We see very little difference between the two GTX 285s with the minimum giving us a 1FPS bump.
Left 4 Dead
We see an almost 4FPS increase under Left 4 Dead with these extreme settings on.
Benchmarks — World in Conflict — XP
World in Conflict
Version and / or Patch Used: 1. 0.0.5
Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test
Developer Homepage: http://www.massive.se
Product Homepage: http://www.worldinconflict.com
World in Conflict is a real-time strategy video game by Massive Entertainment and to be published by Sierra Entertainment for Windows (DX9 and DX10) and the Xbox 360.
The game is set in 1989 where economic troubles cripple the Soviet Union and threaten to dissolve it. However, the title pursues a «what if» scenario where, in this case, the Soviet Union does not collapse and instead pursues a course of war to remain in power. It is an intensive new game is sure to put plenty of stress on even the latest graphics cards and we use the built-in benchmarking for our testing.
Its weird to see that in the minimum department the Matrix card falls slightly back when compared to the stock model, the averages on the other hand are up.
Benchmarks — Far Cry 2 — XP
Far Cry 2
Version and / or Patch Used: 1. 01
Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long
Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/
Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/
Buy It Here
The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. and so much more.
At all resolutions we can see that the Matrix GTX 285 from ASUS gets a bump in performance, be it the minimum or average department.
Benchmarks — S.T.A.L.K.E.R. — Clear Sky — XP
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. — Clear Sky
Version and / or Patch Used: 1.5.07
Timedemo or Level Used: Custom Timedemo
Developer Homepage: http://www. gsc-game.com/
Product Homepage: http://cs.stalker-game.com/en/
Buy It Here
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, is the stand-alone prequel for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, a first-person shooter computer game by Ukrainian developer GSC Game World.[3] The game consists of a roughly 50/50 mix of new areas and old, remodeled areas from the previous game. The X-ray graphics engine has been updated to version 1.5 and includes DirectX 10 support (later patch 1.5.06 included DirectX 10.1). Additionally, the AI received an overhaul to accommodate the new faction wars feature.
Under Clear Sky the performance is a bit all over the place with the numbers being better in some areas and slightly worse in others.
Temperature and Sound Tests
Temperature Tests
With the TES 1326 Infrared Thermometer literally in hand we found ourselves getting real-world temperatures from the products we test at load (3D clock speeds).
There are two places we pull temperature from — the back of the card directly behind the core and if the card is dual slot and has an exhaust point we also pull a temperate from there, as seen in the picture.
It’s clear the new cooler does an excellent job of keeping temperatures down when compared to the stock cooler!
Sound Tests
Pulling out the TES 1350A Sound Level Meter we find ourselves quickly yelling into the top of it to see how loud we can be.
After five minutes of that we get a bit more serious and place the device two CM away from the fan on the card to find the maximum noise level of the card when idle (2D mode) and in load (3D mode).
As for noise levels we can see there isn’t much of a change with it sitting in line with the other video cards here.
Power Consumption Tests
Using our new PROVA Power Analyzer WM-01 or «Power Thingy» as it has become quickly known as to our readers, we are now able to find out what kind of power is being used by our test system and the associated graphics cards installed. Keep in mind; it tests the complete system (minus LCD monitor, which is plugged directly into AC wall socket).
There are a few important notes to remember though; while our maximum power is taken in 3DMark06 at the same exact point, we have seen in particular tests the power being drawn as much as 10% more. We test at the exact same stage every time; therefore tests should be very consistent and accurate.
The other thing to remember is that our test system is bare minimum — only a 7,200RPM SATA-II single hard drive is used without CD ROM or many cooling fans.
So while the system might draw 400 watts in our test system, placing it into your own PC with a number of other items, the draw is going to be higher.
It was interesting to see that power draw was a fair bit up on the Matrix, in both the load and idle department. With that said though the numbers aren’t exactly concerning.
Final Thoughts
The first thing we have to talk about before we wrap everything up is the new iTracker 2 software. This is ASUS’ own overclocking software that gives you the ability to adjust a whole array of features ranging from not only memory clocks but RAM timings. The good news is if you stuff something up in the process like your motherboard, you’re only a button away from being able to reset it.
The whole process of updating the BIOS though with higher clock speeds does seem like a bit of muck around, though. If you wanted something that was going to be faster out of the box, you’d probably simply be better off buying a GTX 285 TOP from ASUS or another company’s highly overclocked model for similar money.
The Matrix GTX 285 isn’t going to be for everyone and if you expect this video card to offer big clocks straight out of the box, you’re going to be disappointed. As far as the bundle goes, there isn’t really anything extra going on that we tend not to see from ASUS. While the iTracker 2 software is great, the ability to adjust timings are just going to freak some people out, and if all you want to do is adjust the core, shader and memory clock this can be done with other third party programs on stock clocked models that come in cheaper anyway.
The Matrix GTX 285 really comes with a whole lot of good bells and whistles, but most people are going to find the whistles and bells just aren’t loud enough. With that said though, it’s not all doom and gloom for the model, out of the box we do get a bump in the core clock which manages to give us a boost in performance and the cooler that ASUS offer is nothing short of excellent — we can see from our test that the load temperature on our card when compared to a stock one went down significantly.
Finishing this up, as we have said, the Matrix GTX 285 isn’t going to be for everyone — some people will love the ability to write their own clock rates and memory timings to the card thanks to the iTracker 2 software, others will also love the lower temperatures that the video card offers. At the end of it all, you have to really decide if these are features you want or not, with the GTX 285 being around for so long now we’ve got a lot of companies that offer higher out of the box clocks and just all round cheaper cards.
You’ll have to figure out if the Matrix GTX 285 from ASUS is the GTX 285 for you.
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Shawn Baker
Shawn takes care of all of our video card reviews. From 2009, Shawn is also taking care of our memory reviews, and from May 2011, Shawn also takes care of our CPU, chipset and motherboard reviews. As of December 2011, Shawn is based out of Taipei, Taiwan.
Specs ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3 graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3 (MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3)
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3 years
Long product name ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3 graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3
:
The short editorial description of ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3 graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3
MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3 — NVIDIA GeForce GTX285, 1024MB DDR3, PCI-E, DirectX 10
More>>>
ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3 graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3:
The official marketing text of ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3 graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3 as supplied by the manufacturer
ASUS Features
Super Hybrid Engine
Boost up to 14% GPU performance by reducing 15% power noise
iTracker2
The world’s only memory timing adjustment and BIOS burning/recovering function!
Extreme Cooler
12% Cooler and 46. 5% larger heat pipe coverage comparing to Generic Design!
5 Level LED indicator for real time H/W monitoring!
ASUS Splendid:
Watching movies on PC is as good as on Top-of-the-line consumer television.
ASUS Gamer OSD:
Real-time overclocking, benchmarking and video capturing in any PC game!
ASUS Smart Doctor:
Your intelligent hardware protection and overclocking tool.
Graphics GPU Features
NVIDIA® GeForce GTX285
PCI Express & PCI Express 2.0 support
Microsoft DirectX 10 and Shader Model 4.0 support
Graphics Plus PhysX Technology
Short summary description ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3 graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3:
This short summary of the ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3 graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3 data-sheet is auto-generated and uses the product title and the first six key specs.
ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3, GeForce GTX 285, 1 GB, GDDR3, 512 bit, 2560 x 1600 pixels, PCI Express 2.0
Long summary description ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3 graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3:
This is an auto-generated long summary of ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3 graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3 based on the first three specs of the first five spec groups.
ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3. Graphics processor family: NVIDIA, Graphics processor: GeForce GTX 285. Discrete graphics card memory: 1 GB, Graphics card memory type: GDDR3, Memory bus: 512 bit. Maximum resolution: 2560 x 1600 pixels. DirectX version: 10, Dual Link DVI. Interface type: PCI Express 2.0. Cooling type: Active
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Specs
Reviews
Specs
Processor
Graphics processor family
*
NVIDIA
Graphics processor
*
GeForce GTX 285
Maximum resolution
*
2560 x 1600 pixels
Memory
Discrete graphics card memory
*
1 GB
Graphics card memory type
*
GDDR3
Memory bus
*
512 bit
Ports & interfaces
Interface type
*
PCI Express 2. 0
TV-out
VGA (D-Sub) ports quantity
1
Ports & interfaces
DVI ports quantity
2
Performance
PhysX
DirectX version
*
10
Shader model version
*
4.0
HDCP
Dual Link DVI
*
Design
Cooling type
*
Active
Other features
Mac compatibility
HDMI
Reviews
Source | Testseek summary | Average rating |
---|---|---|
Updated: |
Uk has collected 19 expert reviews for ASUS MATRIX GTX285/HTDI/1GD3 graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1 GB GDDR3 and the average expert rating is 81 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use Uk to see all ratings, product awards and conclusions. Read the full review |
Source | Review comments | Score |
---|---|---|
ocaholic.ch.english Updated: |
With the Matrix GTX 285 Asus presents a G200 based card which is built using a completely customized PCB. The main focus of the Matrix card definitely is overclocking. The whole design has been made to suit even the highest demands. Although the GPU cl… General +-The single-GPU flagship from Asus convices with its features which aim at overclockers and pc-enthusiasts. With the Matrix Asus developed a high-end graphics card which is equipped with a non reference eight plus two phase power design. Nearl… |
|
atomicmpc.com.au Updated: |
When it was first released (now quite a long time ago), the GTX280 was an impressive bear of a card; ready to maul the face of the competition, with a touch of lemon to make it sting. The GTX285 was a slimmed-down version of very much the same beast, i… Fast enough, but you’d have to be silly to buy it… Read the full review |
|
overclockersclub.com Updated: |
When a performance video card series comes out, the performance is great for the masses and is something that will not be upgraded before the computer is obsolete. On the other hand, the reference releases only serve as an appetizer for the main cours. .. Performance, iTracker, Looks, Bling, Disaster recovery, Overclocking… OC margins with voltage… With the GTX285 getting a little long in the tooth and the next generation of video cards right around the corner, you have to wonder why you would make another high end model? Build it and they will come. Limited Edition cards with higher performance… Read the full review |
[M] Asus GTX 285 Matrix
Videocards/VGA Reviews
by leeghoofd
@ 2009-08-17
I was intrigued by this card and decided to put it head to head, not with all video cards out there, but against its reference design twin brother. I have been using a GTX 285 since its release and have been a pretty happy camper. But what extras this Asus card has to offer you want to check out!
- Introduction, specifications and first picturesCard, dressed and strippedCard presetsTime to put it to some testingAdding a cold winter breezeHeadgear and sweatpants onIn need of more voltage?To buy or not to buy?
ASUS, a technology-oriented company blessed with one of the world’s top R&D teams, is well known for high-quality and innovative technology. As a leading provider of 3C (computers, communications and consumer electronics) total solutions, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium. In 2006, the company shipped 55 million motherboards, which means one in three desktop PCs sold last year was powered by an ASUS motherboard. Our 2006 revenues reached US$16.5 billion, and is expected to garner US$23 billion in 2007. ASUS products’ top quality stems from product development. It’s like learning Chinese Kung-Fu; one must begin with cultivating the «Chi» and inner strength. Besides innovating cutting-edge features, ASUS engineers also pay special attention to EMI (electromagnetic interference), thermal, acoustics and details that usually go unnoticed to achieve complete customer satisfaction. ASUS notebooks are the first TCO’99-certified notebooks worldwide. The requirements for this honor include radiation emission control, energy (battery consumption), ecology (environment friendly) and ergonomics. To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, great products need to be complimented by speed-to-market, cost and service. That’s why all 100,000 over employees of ASUS strive for the «ASUS Way of Total Quality Management» to offer the best quality without compromising cost and time-to-market while providing maximum value to all customers through world-class services. With unyielding commitment to innovation and quality, ASUS won 2,168 awards in 2006, meaning on average, the company received over 5 awards everyday last year.
Previous reviews containing Asus videocards:
Introduction
The Nvidia GTX 285 has been released a long time ago and still remains one of the fastest single GPU cards out there. Friend and foe were surprised that Asus released yet another model in their GTX 285 lineup, since newer GPU’s have been announced for Q3. Being known for their ROG (Republic of Gamers) motherboard lineup, where Asus blends looks with special added features, components and adds extra OC ability. Know they seem to add graphic cards to that lineup too… With the release of the limited edition MARS card, which SLI’ed 285 GPU’s on one PCB, yet Asus had still something else up their sleeves. The latter being the card we are going to review today; the MATRIX GTX 285 HDTI/1GD3.
First the marketing chitchat and compared specifications:
(Click to enlarge)
(Click to enlarge)
BOX AND ACCESSOIRES
(Click to enlarge)
To sum it up what did Asus here to make this card stand out from the crowd ? To start with, they deviated from the reference design (which really has to be applauded) Secondly, Asus enhanced the cooling and PWM circuitry. There’s a build in a chip that allows monitoring, speed and voltage adjustments via a software tool called Itracker2. Last but not least they included a feature that allows you to burn ya settings into the card’s Vbios. With the I-tracker2 software you can switch between the 4 preset modes and the 4 do it yourself modes. Eg, when you found a good setting for daily clocks, one for benching, folding@home etc. ..
The packaging contains only the necessary ; the card, HDMI connector, digital vs analogue converter, sound cable, PCI-E power connector, the installation software bundle ( no games here lads ) and a leather CD/DVD map.
Let’s have a look at the card itself ->
- Introduction, specifications and first picturesCard, dressed and strippedCard presetsTime to put it to some testingAdding a cold winter breezeHeadgear and sweatpants onIn need of more voltage?To buy or not to buy?
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ASUS Matrix GTX 285 and Zotac GTX 285 Infinity Edition
- Introduction
- ZOTAC GeForce GTX 285 Infinity Edition
- ASUS MATRIX GTX 285
- Test bench
- Temperature conditions, overclocking
- Test methodology, test results
- Conclusion
This material is dedicated to two GeForce GTX 285 produced by Zotac and ASUS. The first one stands out among the one-faced reference clones with an installed water block (full-cover), the second — with a completely redesigned power system, an indication of operating modes and a slightly modified cooling system.
The video card comes in an orange and black cardboard box with a small oval window:
Video card package standard: a pair of power adapters, installation instructions, discs with drivers and game (Race Driver: GRID), two adapters (DVI-HDMI and DVI-D-Sub):
The video card itself, in fact, is an ordinary reference board with a DD-GTX285 water block installed on it:
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As you can see in the photo, the fittings can be installed on both the «front» and the «back» side. Chrome-plated metal plugs are screwed into empty holes:
It is worth talking about the fittings themselves in more detail. Those that came with the video card in the kit are designed for a hose with a diameter of 8/10 mm. Since tubes of a larger diameter (11/13 mm) were used in the bench water cooling system (SVO), it was not possible to use the regular ones. Fittings of suitable diameter had to be shortened slightly due to the small thickness of the derlin cover:
The water block itself is an irregularly shaped copper plate with milled recesses for large-sized elements on the «reverse». Cutter marks clearly visible:
Despite such “streaks”, the roughness is almost not felt to the touch. The round cutout for the video chip is best processed:
No traces of milling on the «front» side:
Each of the nine ribs is 1.5 mm thick, 3.5 mm high and 3 mm apart. The lid is made of dark derlin with a thickness of 5 mm and is tightened with a copper base with 14 screws, tightness is achieved using a rubber gasket.
The water block is attached to the video card with eleven screws with rubber rings:
Although, given the more than threefold difference in weight, it would be more accurate to say that the video card is attached to the water block. For this reason (the heavy weight of the whole structure) it is not advised to take a video card by the mounting bar: the entire load falls on a fifteen-millimeter segment between a pair of screws on the NVIO chip and the connector housings.
As mentioned above, the PCB of the video card is fully consistent with the reference design:
For this reason, we will not describe the board in detail.
The water block is in contact with the elements of the video card at twenty points: a video chip, 16 memory chips, an NVIO chip and a pair of power switches in the converters near the mounting bracket. Apparently, due to the negligence of the previous «temporary owners» of the video card (I think everyone noticed the stained front side), there were no thermal pads between the power elements in the video chip power converter circuit and the water block.
A GPU imprint on a copper base cannot be called good, but such pressure is quite enough for normal heat removal from the video processor. «Soft» installation of the water block through rubber washers does not always give good pressure, but it is justified — the manufacturer seeks to protect the video card from failure if the bolts are tightened too much.
The distance between the water block and the memory chips is slightly less than a millimeter, which makes it possible to use thick thermal paste instead of «disposable» thermal pads without worsening the temperature regime of the chips. A thick (1.5 mm) thermal pad was used for the chokes.
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 285 Infinity Edition specifications are:
The frequency of the video chip has been significantly increased: instead of the nominal 648 / 1476 MHz, it operates at 722 / 1584 MHz, which is 11.4 / 7.3% increase, respectively. The memory frequency is also increased relative to the nominal: 1350 MHz instead of the standard 1242 MHz. Based on the marking of microcircuits, we can conclude that the nominal operating frequency for them is 1300 MHz.
ASUS MATRIX GTX285 packed in a large black/purple carton:
The package will be richer than the Zotac product: in addition to disks with drivers, utilities, installation instructions and adapters, there is a leatherette case, a discount coupon, an S/PDIF cable:
Dimensions and appearance of ASUS MATRIX GTX285 resembles the reference version of the card, except that the external design of the cooling system casing has changed, an «add-on» has been added at the end and a metal plate on the back of the video card:
End «superstructure» — logo MATRIX indicator, responsible for informing the user about the loading of the video chip during operation:
Its design is simple: under the acrylic diffuser there is a small printed circuit board with two groups of LEDs, 4 in each:
The indicator is fixed on the casing of the card cooling system, the cable loop is passed along the inner perimeter:
The CO itself has changed slightly compared to the reference version:
For comparison: the reference cooler, bottom view, and the heatsink with the shroud removed.
Differences found under the fan. Due to the need for active cooling of semiconductor power elements in the power circuit, the aluminum base is slightly modified compared to the reference:
Power elements are also installed on the reverse side of the printed circuit board, and are in contact with the aluminum plate through thermal rubber:
The turbine responsible for blowing the radiator differs from the one installed on the reference cooling system only in the shape of the base and in color:
The manufacturer of both models is Protechnic, the models are distinguished by two symbols: MTG8012YB-W20 (reference) and MTG8012Y R — O 20 (Matrix). The «B» has changed to «R» due to the color, and the letter after the dash seems to indicate the number of turbine attachment points.
Pay attention to the printed circuit board. To illustrate the differences, under the photos of PCB Matrix are the corresponding pictures of the reference version.
It can be seen that the changes affected not only the power subsystem, but also the area around the NVIO chip — the wiring has changed significantly, the area for the unsoldered element has disappeared, the Winbond W83L786G microcircuit has been added.
The power subsystems of both video cards are invited to consider in more detail:
|
|
ASUS GTX 285 MATRIX |
Reference GTX 285 |
We have two different voltage converters to power the GPU. The first one, which is on the ASUS GTX 285 MATRIX, is built on the basis of a chip
uP6208
, the second, soldered on reference copies, on ISL6327. The number of phases is also different: in the first case there are eight of them (for each phase, 4 power switches soldered on both sides of the printed circuit board), in the second — six (2 power switches for each phase). The video memory on the MATRIX GTX 285 is powered by a separate two-phase converter based on the uP6205.
Reworking DC-DC converters was done by ASUS engineers in order, firstly, to make the output voltage more «clean» and stable even under heavy loads, and, secondly, to be able to control it from under the OS. This is done by the iTracker proprietary program:
In addition to controlling the GPU supply voltage (possible maximum is 1.3 V), you can also change the frequencies of the video chip and memory, program the fan operation, control video memory timings, create your own settings profiles, and so on. It’s nice to see that ASUS engineers took a responsible approach to the development of the utility — on the one hand, it is not overloaded with a mass of rarely used functions, and on the other hand, it does not give the impression of a motley «beauty» written in a couple of evenings, a common feature of proprietary software.
With such serious «bells and whistles», the clock frequency of the graphics processor (GPU) is very slightly overestimated — 662 MHz versus 648 MHz (slightly more than 2%), and the shader unit and video memory operate at nominal 1476 and 1242 MHz, respectively:
The move, in general, is clear — the user is given the opportunity to feel like an enthusiast himself, to find the maximum stable frequency for the video processor and memory . ..
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Video card Asus Matrix GTX285: white crow
Author:
Vader
Date:
11/23/2009
All photos of the article
Introduction
The year 2009 is coming to an end and it can hardly be called a good year for Nvidia — the company has been losing ground all year under the relentless onslaught of the graphics division of Advanced Micro Devices. First, the release of the Radeon HD 4890 and Radeon HD 4770 in the spring, and then a crushing blow in the form of the announcement of the next-generation Radeon HD 5×00 graphics architecture in the fall, while Nvidia’s only weapon is still not the most successful G200b core from an economic point of view. Yes, GeForce GTX 295 is still the fastest graphics card, but its advantage over the Radeon HD 5870 is small, but the latter is devoid of all the disadvantages of dual-processor solutions, and at the same time it is endowed with DirectX 11 support, which makes it a much more attractive choice in the eyes of potential buyers.
Whether Nvidia will be able to adequately respond to AMD’s attacks, we have yet to find out — the announcement of the GeForce 300 family is scheduled for the end of November. So far, the only choice for those who for some reason do not want to mess with ATI Radeon solutions and, at the same time, do not want to put up with the disadvantages of a homogeneous multi-GPU, but at the same time need high performance, remains the GeForce GTX 285. This the video adapter shows good results in games and, in addition, has PhysX support, which AMD solutions cannot boast of for obvious reasons; besides, Nvidia’s support for GPGPU is better so far, although the arrival of the fifth generation ATI Radeon threatens to change that.
I must say that the vast majority of the GeForce GTX 285 are exact copies of the Nvidia reference card, or rather, they are produced at contract facilities by order of Nvidia itself, and then sent to the company’s partners. The contribution of the latter to the production chain is not too great — often it is only a branded sticker on the casing of the cooling system and, less often, factory overclocking, as, for example, in the case of the EVGA GeForce GTX 285 SSC. This does not make such cards worse, especially since a single source of production means tighter control over the quality of manufactured products, but in themselves they are not very interesting for reviewers, who can only look for differences in packaging and bundles of such products.
All the more interesting against the background of the identical, like twins, video adapters to meet an exception, which, without exaggeration, can be called Asus Matrix GTX285. The Matrix family is positioned by the manufacturer as solutions designed for advanced gamers and overclocking enthusiasts. First of all, Matrix cards differ from ordinary video adapters in the use of specially designed printed circuit boards and unique designs of cooling systems, as well as the presence of a special set of software and hardware designed to expand overclocking capabilities, in particular, to provide the user with GPU and memory voltage control. To date, the Matrix GTX285 is the oldest and most productive Asus video adapter in the Matrix family. We invite our readers to get to know him better.
Asus Matrix GTX285: packaging and bundle
The manufacturer positions this product as an exclusive solution based on the G200b, and he carefully worked not only on the design of the video adapter itself, but also on its face, which a potential buyer will face — that is, on packaging design. The box itself is not as big as some of the Asus products we’ve described so far, but its design is, in our opinion, top-notch. One can only find fault with the dark color scheme, however, we believe that Asus designers did the right thing — the positioning of the product excludes the use of flashy, frivolous colors.
There is no information on the box other than the name of the video adapter itself, however, its front side is a hinged flap, under which a window is found through which you can see the video adapter itself, as well as a lot of advertising information praising the advantages of the Asus Matrix GTX285 with might and main over a conventional GeForce GTX 285 variant using Nvidia’s reference PCB design and cooling system. Unfortunately, useful technical information, such as the type and amount of video memory, is not here either — it can only be found on the back of the box, made in small print in several languages, but there is still no information about GPU and memory clock speeds.
In fact, the beautiful box described above is a cover — inside it there is another one, made of thick black cardboard with gold embossing; one of the Asus products we reviewed earlier, the EAh5890 video adapter, was packaged in a similar way. Most of the space of this box is occupied by a polyurethane foam tray, in which the video adapter is securely fixed, additionally placed in an antistatic bag, next to it there is a compartment with cables and adapters, and under the tray you can find another flat box with accessories. The complete list of these accessories is as follows:
Republic of Gamers branded sticker
Leatherette CD case
Not a bad set for a product positioned as a unique solution for gamers and overclockers, however, the presence of at least one popular game in the kit could improve without In addition, a good impression of the configuration of the Asus Matrix GTX285.
The iTracker 2 utility, which is used to overclock and monitor Asus Matrix GTX285 parameters, deserves a separate short story.
Unlike many utilities supplied by other graphics card manufacturers and focused solely on overclocking, iTracker 2 also allows you to manage GPU and video memory voltages to a certain extent, fine-tune the fan speed control system, monitor temperatures, create profiles, and even fine-tune memory timings. Moreover, iTracker 2 can be called a «hardware utility», since it allows you to flash changed settings directly in the BIOS of the video adapter, as well as restore the card’s performance after an unsuccessful flashing operation. We have not seen such functionality in utilities from other manufacturers. Only the slightly clumsy, in our opinion, design of the utility can cause complaints, but not the range of its capabilities — the latter is unusually wide. Of course, iTracker 2 requires the appropriate hardware on board a graphics adapter and therefore only works with Asus Matrix series cards, but this is just to be expected — the Gigabyte GamerHUD utility behaves in a similar way.
So, according to the results of this chapter, the Asus Matrix GTX285 gets a high mark for packaging and equipment, however, the main exam is yet to come. We’re going to find out how unique the video adapter itself is, whether it’s an overclocker’s dream, and what it’s capable of in real-world gaming.
Asus Matrix GTX285 Design and Specifications
The Asus Matrix GTX285 looks a lot different from the Nvidia reference card, as much as you can with a radial fan cooling system with a solid plastic shroud. But even this shroud immediately catches the eye with its relief, the red «Republic of Gamers» logo and the protrusion at the top, which will be discussed below. The fan also attracts attention with a bright red impeller, unusual for solutions based on older Nvidia chips. At the back, the Asus product is distinguished by the presence of a metal plate, which the reference version of the GeForce GTX 285 lacks.
Asus Matrix GTX285 (left), EVGA GeForce GTX 285 reference design (right)
But, of course, the most interesting thing lies under the cooling system, which we did not fail to dismantle. At first glance, the cards look very similar, but if you take a closer look, it becomes clear that the design of the Matrix GTX285 PCB was developed by Asus almost from scratch; this is especially true for the GPU and memory power subsystems. For example, one of the first differences that catches the eye is the lack of a contact pad for the DisplayPort translator chip.
Asus Matrix GTX285 (left), EVGA GeForce GTX 285 reference design (right)
graphics core power and two-phase — memory. While developing a unique version of this video adapter, Asus decided to strengthen the power supply system in order, apparently, to increase its overclocking potential. As a result, the Matrix GTX285 has an extra pair of phases in the GPU power regulator circuit. Asus claims that the new circuitry reduced ripple in the Matrix GTX285’s power supply by 15%, but unfortunately, without the right hardware, we can’t verify that claim.
Each of the ten phases, even those related to the memory power regulator, contains four power MOSFETs, which, in our opinion, looks like overkill even for the overclocker version of the GeForce GTX 285, but, as you know, you can’t spoil the porridge with butter , and such circuitry has only one serious drawback — increased cost.
The above picture clearly shows that the power transistors are served by uP6281 drivers manufactured by uPI Semiconductor, and the controllers are chips from the same manufacturer — uP6208 and uP6205. The first of these is an advanced 12-phase controller designed primarily for use in modern motherboards. The most interesting feature for us and potential Asus Matrix GTX285 owners is software power management, which means the ability to adjust the voltage of the graphics core using software without resorting to dangerous methods like hardware modification of power circuits. Another chip, uP6205, is responsible for controlling the memory power regulator. Additional power is connected to the board via two connectors, one of which is eight-pin, and an eight-pin cable is required, although this limitation can be bypassed by a simple jumper that closes the two extreme «ground» contacts.
An interesting, but practically useless, in our opinion, feature of the Matrix GTX285 is the ability of the card to indicate the load level using colored LEDs located just in the above-mentioned ledge on the cooling system casing. From the end, it looks like this:
During operation, the inscription «Matrix» can be highlighted in different colors, indicating the level of GPU load. In normal mode, it glows green, but as the load increases, the color of the glow changes to blue, then passing through blue and purple to red, indicating the maximum load. The feature is more decorative than useful, but it looks pretty nice in cases with a transparent window, and their owners are just the target audience for which the Matrix GTX285 was created.
The memory subsystem consists of 16 Hynix GDDR3 H5RS5223CFR-N3C chips arranged in a 1 GB bank with a 512-bit access bus. The same chips with a capacity of 512 Mbps (16Mx32) are used in the reference version of the GeForce GTX 285. The model with the N3C suffix is the fastest in this line. It is designed for a supply voltage of 2.05 V and a frequency of 1300 (2600) MHz. The reference value for the regular GeForce GTX 285 is 1242 (2484) MHz, and although the Asus Matrix GTX285 is not a regular card, its memory operates at the same frequency, providing a peak subsystem bandwidth of 158. 9GB/s, which is slightly better than the ATI Radeon HD 5870. Looking ahead, we can say that the attempt to overclock the memory was quite successful, but more on that below.
Core is regular G200b; the marking matches the one seen earlier and reads G200-350-B3. This copy was produced in the 7th week of 2009, around the beginning of February. The well-known GPU-Z utility correctly determined the manufacturing process, the number of transistors, the die area and the core configuration, but displayed the revision number as B1 instead of the B3 printed on the die cover.
The core configuration is standard: 240 unified shader processors, 80 TMUs and 32 RBEs, but the frequencies are somewhat different from the reference values. The computing domain operates at a frequency of 1476 MHz, and the main one at a frequency of 662 MHz. Thus, only the main domain was overclocked, and even then only slightly, from the reference 648 to 662 MHz. Such, so to speak, factory overclocking does not allow us to hope for any serious increase in performance, however, we will test the abilities of the Asus Matrix GTX285 in this field in the next chapter of our review.
The Asus product is equipped with a standard set of interface connectors, including two dual-link DVI-I ports and a universal seven-pin analog video output port. In addition, the board has two usual «combs» of the MIO interface, which, given the positioning of the Matrix GTX285, is justified — it is likely that someone will want to assemble a 3-way SLI system from three such cards. As our research has shown, such a three-processor system can often show better results than a four-processor variant based on two GeForce GTX 295, at least due to the larger amount of local video memory available to applications. In addition, there is a “Safe Mode” button on the mounting plate, which is part of the “fool-proof system”. In case of incorrect BIOS flashing or BIOS flashing with frequencies exceeding the overclocking potential of this instance of the Matrix GTX285, pressing this button will automatically return to the factory BIOS version with default frequencies. This can make life easier and save a lot of time and nerves for the unlucky or too hasty overclocker.
The described technology is implemented using two SST25VF512 flash memory chips, next to them is the Winbond W83L786G chip, through which advanced monitoring capabilities inherent in Asus Matrix GTX285 are implemented.
The Asus Matrix GTX285 cooling system is not a revelation and is another variation on the Nvidia reference design, differing from it only in some details.
These details include the use of heat pipes of a larger diameter — 8 versus 6 millimeters in the reference version, a large area of the copper base in contact with the cover of the heat spreader of the graphics core and other material of thermal pads that provide heat removal from the memory chips, the NVIO chip and power transistors of the power stabilizer. The picture also shows the insides of the proprietary load monitoring system described above. They are a small printed circuit board with colored LEDs soldered on it, connected to the board via a cable that ends in a six-pin connector. As for the fan, it uses the same model as Nvidia’s reference cooling system, but with a different impeller color.
In general, we could not find anything extraordinary in the Asus Matrix GTX285 cooling system, however, it should cope with its task, at least no worse than Nvidia’s reference design. With these words, we conclude the theoretical part of our review and move on to the most interesting practical section for most readers. Asus Matrix GTX285: thermal conditions, noise and overclocking . Of course, we could not pass by this rather loud statement without checking it with practice — the only criterion of truth. Here are the results:
As you can see, instead of increased cooling efficiency, we even observe its slight drop, especially in idle mode — the temperature of the graphics core is as much as 5 degrees higher than in the case of using the reference version of the GeForce GTX 285. Under load, the difference is much less significant, but also here the Asus Matrix GTX285 is two degrees behind its prototype. These measurements cannot be called precise, because we used a regular working system assembled in the Chieftec LBX-01 case, and not a special temperature chamber. It should be noted that the vast majority of those who may be interested in this graphics card also plan to use it in normal conditions for games and daily activities, and not engage in an accurate study of the effectiveness of the cooling system. Nevertheless, despite some lagging behind the reference system, the Asus Matrix GTX285 cooling system did its job quite well — the card worked absolutely stably both in normal mode and in overclocking mode with an increase in the GPU supply voltage, even during very long tests.
The next item on our program is the study of the noise characteristics of the Asus Matrix GTX285. This product is mainly aimed at overclocking enthusiasts who are rarely concerned with making their systems completely silent, but perhaps Asus has managed to improve the already good noise performance of the GeForce GTX 285 reference variant? We carried out a standard noise measurement procedure using our Velleman DVM1326 digital sound level meter. With a background noise level in the laboratory at a distance of 1 meter from a working test platform equipped with a passively cooled video card, which is 43 dBA, the following results were obtained:
Asus Matrix GTX285 really confirmed its «extreme nature» — firstly, the vaunted ten-phase power system failed — under load, its chokes began to emit a clearly audible squeak, and secondly, the power supply of the system, for some unknown reason, increased the speed of rotation of its fans. The latter surprised us a lot, because the Enermax Galaxy DXX EGX1000EWL cannot be called a weak power supply, and the GeForce GTX 285 is a card capable of loading it to such an extent. Either we got a defective instance of the Matrix GTX285, or this behavior is caused by some feature of the implementation of its power subsystem. In addition, we note that when the system is started and turned off, the card emits an additional signal using a buzzer installed on the board.
Finally, the sweetest dish for today is overclocking, albeit with a slight increase in the GPU supply voltage. The Asus iTracker 2 bundled utility allows you to set this parameter to 1.2 V, which we used. It was decided to leave the memory timings alone, as an option that could do more harm than good, although, for sure, there are overclocking enthusiasts who are ready to spend tens of hours finding the optimal combination of these settings, which allows them to squeeze out a few more megahertz.
So, after numerous attempts, we found the frequencies of the graphics core and memory, at which the card worked stably and passed the entire test cycle without a single failure:
The main and shader domains of the GPU are only slightly higher than the result previously achieved on the EVGA GeForce GTX 285 SSC without any extreme means, which amounted to 720/1624 MHz. This is just a good, but by no means extraordinary result.
The memory pleased us a little more: with an increase in its supply voltage from the nominal 2. 050 V to 2.135 V, we managed to reach a frequency of 1461 (2922) MHz. For the reference version of the GeForce GTX 285, our similar achievement was only 1400 (2800) MHz. The operation of the memory at a frequency of 1461 (2922) MHz with a 512-bit access bus means a peak throughput of the entire subsystem at the level of 187 GB/s. — the figure is more than impressive, and, besides, it significantly exceeds that of the Radeon HD 5870, although it is inferior to the characteristics of dual-processor cards from ATI and Nvidia.
Since the Asus Matrix GTX285 was originally designed with overclocking in mind, and we managed to achieve good results in this field, we conducted an additional cycle of tests at 740/1625 MHz for the GPU and 1461 (2922) MHz for the memory. It’s time to acquaint our readers with the results of testing the Matrix GTX285 in the field.
Test platform configuration and testing methodology
As usual, the Asus Matrix GTX285 gaming performance study was conducted on a universal test platform with the following configuration:
Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition processor (3. 2GHz, 6.4 GT/s QPI)
Gigabyte GA-EX58-Extreme (Intel X58) motherboard
Corsair XMS3-12800C9 memory (3x2GB) , 1333 MHz, 9-9-9-24, 2T)
Maxtor MaXLine III 7B250S0 hard drive (250 GB, SATA-150, 16 MB buffer)
Enermax Galaxy DXX EGX1000EWL power supply (power 1 kW)
Monitor Dell 3007WFP (30″, maximum resolution 2560×1600@60Hz)
Microsoft Windows 7 RTM 64-bit
Other settings: default
Nvidia GeForce:
Texture filtering — Quality: High quality
Texture filtering — Trilinear optimization: Off
Vertical sync: Force off
Antialiasing — Gamma correction: On
Antialiasing — Transparency: Multisampling0188 Multi-display mixed-GPU acceleration: Multiple display performance mode3D FPS:
Call of Duty: World at War
Crysis Warhead
Enemy Territory: Quake WarsAsus Matrix GTX285 was competed by the following graphics cards:
Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 (G200b, 648/1476/2484 MHz, 240 SP, 80 TMU, 32 RBE, 512-bit memory bus, 1024 MB GD)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 275 (G200b, 633/1404/2484 MHz, 240 SP, 80 TMU, 28 RBE, 448-bit memory bus, 896 MB GDDR3)
ATI Radeon HD 5870 (RV870, 850/850/4800 MHz , 1600 SP, 80 TMU, 32 RBE, 256-bit memory bus, 1024 MB GDDR5)
ATI Radeon HD 4890 (RV790, 850/850/3900 MHz, 800 SP, 40 TMU, 16 RBE, 256-bit memory bus, 1024 MB GDDR5)Wherever possible, standard 16x anisotropic filtering was supplemented with 4x MSAA anti-aliasing. Activation of anti-aliasing was carried out either by the means of the game itself, or, in their absence, was forced using the appropriate settings of the ATI Catalyst and Nvidia GeForce drivers.
In-game tools were used to obtain performance data, with the requirement to record original test clips when available. If the built-in testing tools allowed, data was recorded not only on the average, but also on the minimum performance. In all other cases, the Fraps 2.9 utility was used..8 in manual mode with a three-time test pass with fixation of the minimum values and subsequent averaging of the final result.
Game tests: Call of Duty: World at War
Starting from version 1.3, the game allows you to record and play demos, but, unfortunately, the minimum performance is not fixed.
Even overclocking with a software increase in the GPU voltage gives rather modest results, only allowing the described product to compete with the Radeon HD 4890 in resolutions up to 1920×1200 inclusive. Rivalry with the new generation of ATI GPUs is out of the question. However, the Matrix GTX285 has one sure victory — at 2560×1600 it looks clearly better than the Radeon HD 4890, especially in overclocked mode.
Game tests: Crysis Warhead
Already in the next test, however, the Matrix GTX285 performs very well, in overclocked mode it is second only to the Radeon HD 5870. True, there is an exception, and this is a resolution of 2560×1600, where even overclocking does not help the card based on G200b to catch up with Radeon HD 4890.
Game tests: Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
For more complete data, the built-in average performance limiter is disabled. Since built-in benchmarks are used, there is no information on minimum performance.
Overclocking really invigorates the tested Asus card, giving it a rare opportunity to outperform the Radeon HD 5870 in the first two resolutions, but starting from 1920×1200, the brainchild of AMD restores the status quo, and at 2560×1600 the gap widens even more. In general, despite such an impressive result, there is no practical point in overclocking in Quake Wars, even if you have a monitor with a diagonal of 30 ″ — the difference between 70 and 9You will not be able to see 0 frames per second due to the average performance being forcibly limited to 30 frames per second.
Gaming benchmarks: Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2 is a much more modern game, and it’s no surprise that AMD’s new flagship takes first place in it. However, it is worth noting that overclocking the Matrix GTX285 gives good results, allowing this card to come close to the Radeon HD 5870 at a resolution of 2560×1600. The lag is only 5%, and the minimum performance of the Asus product is even higher, which makes it an excellent choice for this particular shooter.
Game tests: Left 4 Dead
The game is based on the Source engine and has built-in testing tools, which, unfortunately, do not provide information about the minimum performance.
If not for the Radeon HD 5870, the Asus Matrix GTX285 could claim to be the best single-socket graphics card. But even without this, overclocking with a software increase in the GPU voltage brings good results in the form of an average performance of 80 frames per second at a resolution of 2560×1600, which is more than enough even for the most demanding gamer.
Game Test: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
No «Sun rays», «Wet surfaces» and «Volumetric smoke» options or full screen anti-aliasing to improve performance. Testing is carried out in the «Enhanced full dynamic lighting» (DX10) mode, for ATI cards the DirectX 10.1 mode is additionally enabled
Overclocking gain compared to the Nvidia reference card is 12-16%, depending on the resolution. In this mode, the Matrix GTX285 almost manages to achieve acceptable performance at a resolution of 1920×1200; we are talking mainly about the minimum performance, but, in general, software power management of the graphics core does not open up new opportunities, or we got a copy of the card that was not the most successful in terms of overclocking potential.
Game tests: Street Fighter IV
The overall picture is similar to that observed in Quake Wars: at low resolutions, the overclocked Asus card successfully fights the Radeon HD 5870, but then the new architecture inevitably takes over. However, the performance of all test participants will be more than enough for owners of the largest monitors.
Game tests: Resident Evil 5
In Resident Evil 5, the hero of our review, being overclocked, keeps even more confidently, almost keeping up with the Radeon HD 5870 even at a resolution of 1920×1200, and only at 2560×1600 the lag becomes significant, about 11 %. True, in practice, no player will be able to feel it directly during the game, without looking at the numbers obtained as a result of testing.
Game tests: Fallout 3
A more or less significant difference in the performance of the overclocked Matrix GTX285 and Radeon HD 5870 can only be seen at a resolution of 2560×1600, but from the point of view of a player interested in the gameplay, and not Fraps numbers, there is no difference, and the usual GeForce GTX 285 is quite enough for this mode.
Game tests: Need for Speed: Shift
At 1280×1024, the Asus card, being overclocked, can boast of a victory over the Radeon HD 5870, but already at 1680×1050 the latter restores “historical justice”, and then the gap in favor of the new architecture is only is growing. It is worth noting that overclocking the Matrix GTX285 can be of practical use at 2560×1600 due to a good increase in the minimum performance.
Game Tests: Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.
For testing, the tools built into the game are used, unfortunately, they do not provide for fixing the minimum indicators. Support for DirectX 10.1 features is enabled for ATI solutions
Due to incompatibility of H.A.W.X. with the Adaptive AA algorithms used in AMD solutions, they cannot fully compete with Nvidia solutions. In this field, the Asus Matrix GTX285 is unbeatable, except for the dual-processor GeForce GTX 295. The increase in performance during overclocking is 7-9% at resolutions up to 1920×1200 inclusive and reaches 15% at 2560×1600.
Game tests: BattleForge
DirectX 11 support was enabled for the Radeon HD 5870. As you can see, it was not possible to detect a significant visual difference, and the difference between the «High» and «Very High» detail modes is not very large.
It’s a paradox, but, as we have already noted, the GeForce GTX 285 seems to be the preferred choice for BattleForge because of the significantly higher minimum values that make the gameplay much more comfortable. Overclocking the Matrix GTX285 does not bring dividends noticeable to the naked eye, but still allows you to get some, about 12-16%, an increase in average performance.
Game tests: World in Conflict: Soviet Assault
Surprisingly, overclocking the Asus card allows it to outperform the Radeon HD 5870 in almost all resolutions, including 2560×1600. The gap is small, about 5-8%, but the fact remains that the old architecture won over the new one, despite the overwhelming superiority of the latter in terms of computing power! Both cards demonstrated acceptable performance at resolutions up to 1290×1200 inclusive.
Semi-synthetic tests: Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
To minimize CPU impact, 3DMark Vantage uses an «Extreme» profile for testing, using 1920×1200 resolution, FSAA 4x, and anisotropic filtering. To complete the picture of performance, the results of individual tests from now on are taken at the entire range of resolutions.
Despite PhysX support, the overclocked Asus card can’t keep up with the Radeon HD 5870 with its 1600 ALUs. However, overclocking with raising the voltage of the graphics core allows you to achieve a good increase in points.
The results of individual tests do not reveal anything new, except that in the second test at a resolution of 1680×1050, the overclocked Asus Matrix GTX285 is less than one frame per second behind the Radeon HD 5870. Obviously, the Nvidia G200 architecture has actually exhausted its potential, and even when overclocked, it can no longer compete on equal terms with the new AMD/ATI architecture.
Conclusion
In general, the Asus Matrix GTX285 performed well, although, of course, it lost to AMD’s new single-processor flagship, the Radeon HD 5870. However, the goal was not to directly compare this card with the new generation solution; rather, we focused on identifying the unique features inherent in the Matrix GTX285 — and those were found. The Asus graphics development team has really managed to create a truly original version of the GeForce GTX 285 and give it features that are missing from the vast majority of other G200b-based cards on the market today.
First of all, what makes this product unique is the very fact that it belongs to the Matrix series, which automatically means extended options for managing card parameters. They include not only overclocking, but also monitoring of all parameters, GPU and memory voltage control, fine tuning of the memory subsystem, as well as the ability to flash a user-defined combination of settings in the BIOS with the ability to recover in case of failure. All this makes the Asus Matrix GTX285 an extremely attractive choice for any user who likes to experiment with the «stuffing» of his computer, and in the described case, experiments are also safe, unlike, say, hardware modification of the video adapter’s power circuits.
In particular, we were able to achieve a 12 to 14% performance boost for the Matrix GTX285 over the Nvidia reference card on average without too much difficulty, just by taking advantage of iTracker 2 capabilities. slightly inferior to the Radeon HD 4890 in some resolutions and tests, in particular, in Call of Duty: World at War and BattleForge .
Recall that another copy of the Matrix GTX285 can show both better and worse results in terms of overclocking — in this case, as you know, a lot depends on banal luck.
However, speaking about a barrel of honey, we, unfortunately, cannot but mention a fly in the ointment, whether by accident or intentionally — but got into this barrel. The problem is not that the card showed slightly lower cooling efficiency and a slightly higher noise level than the reference version of the GeForce GTX 285. But the squeak of the power regulator chokes for the version of the GeForce GTX 285, which claims to be elite, as well as the strange behavior of the test power supply , caused by the installation of the Matrix GTX285 in the system, is clearly a significant drawback. We don’t know if this behavior is typical for all Asus Matrix GTX285 or whether it is a consequence of the fact that we had a faulty or pre-sale copy of the card in our hands, however, elementary honesty requires that the noticed shortcomings be listed in the «flaws» section.
Nevertheless, I would like to end the review on an optimistic note — the Asus Matrix GTX285 is a really interesting version of the GeForce GTX 285, endowed with a lot of additional features that make it especially attractive for overclockers. Although with the advent of the Radeon HD 5800 it is no longer possible to call it a top-class solution, this is a very extraordinary product that can certainly find its buyer.
Asus Matrix GTX285: pros and cons
Pros:
High performance in modern games
Wide range of FSAA modes
Minimal FSAA impact on performance
GPU PhysX acceleration support
HD-IF5 video output hardware support 9018 PD5 video output hardware support via HDMI
GPU and memory software power management support
Ability to manually adjust memory timingsHigher noise than reference design
ExpensiveAttack of the Clones: Testing ATI Radeon HD 58xx in CrossFireX mode
DirectX HD 11 to the masses: 55 ATI Radeon HD 11 and HD 5770
The Phantom Threat: ATI Radeon HD 5850review Asus Matrix GTX285 graphics card: white crow
Author:
Vader
Date:
11/23/2009
All photos of the articleIntroduction
As 2009 draws to a close, it can hardly be called a good year for Nvidia — the company has been losing ground all year under the relentless onslaught of Advanced Micro Devices’ graphics division. First, the release of the Radeon HD 4890 and Radeon HD 4770 in the spring, and then a crushing blow in the form of the announcement of the next-generation Radeon HD 5×00 graphics architecture in the fall, while Nvidia’s only weapon is still not the most successful G200b core from an economic point of view. Yes, GeForce GTX 295 is still the fastest graphics card, but its advantage over the Radeon HD 5870 is small, but the latter is devoid of all the disadvantages of dual-processor solutions, and at the same time it is endowed with DirectX 11 support, which makes it a much more attractive choice in the eyes of potential buyers.
Whether Nvidia will be able to adequately respond to AMD’s attacks, we have yet to find out — the announcement of the GeForce 300 family is scheduled for the end of November. So far, the only choice for those who for some reason do not want to mess with ATI Radeon solutions and, at the same time, do not want to put up with the disadvantages of a homogeneous multi-GPU, but at the same time need high performance, remains the GeForce GTX 285. This the video adapter shows good results in games and, in addition, has PhysX support, which AMD solutions cannot boast of for obvious reasons; besides, Nvidia’s support for GPGPU is better so far, although the arrival of the fifth generation ATI Radeon threatens to change that.
I must say that the vast majority of the GeForce GTX 285 are exact copies of the Nvidia reference card, or rather, they are produced at contract facilities by order of Nvidia itself, and then sent to the company’s partners. The contribution of the latter to the production chain is not too great — often it is only a branded sticker on the casing of the cooling system and, less often, factory overclocking, as, for example, in the case of the EVGA GeForce GTX 285 SSC. This does not make such cards worse, especially since a single source of production means tighter control over the quality of manufactured products, but in themselves they are not very interesting for reviewers, who can only look for differences in packaging and bundles of such products.
All the more interesting against the background of the identical, like twins, video adapters to meet an exception, which, without exaggeration, can be called Asus Matrix GTX285. The Matrix family is positioned by the manufacturer as solutions designed for advanced gamers and overclocking enthusiasts. First of all, Matrix cards differ from ordinary video adapters in the use of specially designed printed circuit boards and unique designs of cooling systems, as well as the presence of a special set of software and hardware designed to expand overclocking capabilities, in particular, to provide the user with GPU and memory voltage control. To date, the Matrix GTX285 is the oldest and most productive Asus video adapter in the Matrix family. We invite our readers to get to know him better.
Asus Matrix GTX285: packaging and bundle
The manufacturer positions this product as an exclusive solution based on the G200b, and he carefully worked not only on the design of the video adapter itself, but also on its face, which a potential buyer will face — that is, on packaging design. The box itself is not as big as some of the Asus products we’ve described so far, but its design is, in our opinion, top-notch. One can only find fault with the dark color scheme, however, we believe that Asus designers did the right thing — the positioning of the product excludes the use of flashy, frivolous colors.
There is no information on the box other than the name of the video adapter itself, however, its front side is a hinged flap, under which a window is found through which you can see the video adapter itself, as well as a lot of advertising information praising the advantages of the Asus Matrix GTX285 with might and main over a conventional GeForce GTX 285 variant using Nvidia’s reference PCB design and cooling system. Unfortunately, useful technical information, such as the type and amount of video memory, is not here either — it can only be found on the back of the box, made in small print in several languages, but there is still no information about GPU and memory clock speeds.
In fact, the beautiful box described above is a cover — inside it there is another one, made of thick black cardboard with gold embossing; one of the Asus products we reviewed earlier, the EAh5890 video adapter, was packaged in a similar way. Most of the space of this box is occupied by a polyurethane foam tray, in which the video adapter is securely fixed, additionally placed in an antistatic bag, next to it there is a compartment with cables and adapters, and under the tray you can find another flat box with accessories. The complete list of these accessories is as follows:
Republic of Gamers branded sticker
Leatherette CD caseNot a bad set for a product positioned as a unique solution for gamers and overclockers, however, the presence of at least one popular game in the kit could improve without In addition, a good impression of the configuration of the Asus Matrix GTX285.
The iTracker 2 utility, which is used to overclock and monitor Asus Matrix GTX285 parameters, deserves a separate short story.
Unlike many utilities supplied by other graphics card manufacturers and focused solely on overclocking, iTracker 2 also allows you to manage GPU and video memory voltages to a certain extent, fine-tune the fan speed control system, monitor temperatures, create profiles, and even fine-tune memory timings. Moreover, iTracker 2 can be called a «hardware utility», since it allows you to flash changed settings directly in the BIOS of the video adapter, as well as restore the card’s performance after an unsuccessful flashing operation. We have not seen such functionality in utilities from other manufacturers. Only the slightly clumsy, in our opinion, design of the utility can cause complaints, but not the range of its capabilities — the latter is unusually wide. Of course, iTracker 2 requires the appropriate hardware on board a graphics adapter and therefore only works with Asus Matrix series cards, but this is just to be expected — the Gigabyte GamerHUD utility behaves in a similar way.
So, according to the results of this chapter, the Asus Matrix GTX285 gets a high mark for packaging and equipment, however, the main exam is yet to come. We’re going to find out how unique the video adapter itself is, whether it’s an overclocker’s dream, and what it’s capable of in real-world gaming.
Asus Matrix GTX285 Design and Specifications
The Asus Matrix GTX285 looks a lot different from the Nvidia reference card, as much as you can with a radial fan cooling system with a solid plastic shroud. But even this shroud immediately catches the eye with its relief, the red «Republic of Gamers» logo and the protrusion at the top, which will be discussed below. The fan also attracts attention with a bright red impeller, unusual for solutions based on older Nvidia chips. At the back, the Asus product is distinguished by the presence of a metal plate, which the reference version of the GeForce GTX 285 lacks.
Asus Matrix GTX285 (left), EVGA GeForce GTX 285 reference design (right)
But, of course, the most interesting thing lies under the cooling system, which we did not fail to dismantle. At first glance, the cards look very similar, but if you take a closer look, it becomes clear that the design of the Matrix GTX285 PCB was developed by Asus almost from scratch; this is especially true for the GPU and memory power subsystems. For example, one of the first differences that catches the eye is the lack of a contact pad for the DisplayPort translator chip.
Asus Matrix GTX285 (left), EVGA GeForce GTX 285 reference design (right)
graphics core power and two-phase — memory. While developing a unique version of this video adapter, Asus decided to strengthen the power supply system in order, apparently, to increase its overclocking potential. As a result, the Matrix GTX285 has an extra pair of phases in the GPU power regulator circuit. Asus claims that the new circuitry reduced ripple in the Matrix GTX285’s power supply by 15%, but unfortunately, without the right hardware, we can’t verify that claim.
Each of the ten phases, even those related to the memory power regulator, contains four power MOSFETs, which, in our opinion, looks like overkill even for the overclocker version of the GeForce GTX 285, but, as you know, you can’t spoil the porridge with butter , and such circuitry has only one serious drawback — increased cost.
The above picture clearly shows that the power transistors are served by uP6281 drivers manufactured by uPI Semiconductor, and the controllers are chips from the same manufacturer — uP6208 and uP6205. The first of these is an advanced 12-phase controller designed primarily for use in modern motherboards. The most interesting feature for us and potential Asus Matrix GTX285 owners is software power management, which means the ability to adjust the voltage of the graphics core using software without resorting to dangerous methods like hardware modification of power circuits. Another chip, uP6205, is responsible for controlling the memory power regulator. Additional power is connected to the board via two connectors, one of which is eight-pin, and an eight-pin cable is required, although this limitation can be bypassed by a simple jumper that closes the two extreme «ground» contacts.
An interesting, but practically useless, in our opinion, feature of the Matrix GTX285 is the ability of the card to indicate the load level using colored LEDs located just in the above-mentioned ledge on the cooling system casing. From the end, it looks like this:
During operation, the inscription «Matrix» can be highlighted in different colors, indicating the level of GPU load. In normal mode, it glows green, but as the load increases, the color of the glow changes to blue, then passing through blue and purple to red, indicating the maximum load. The feature is more decorative than useful, but it looks pretty nice in cases with a transparent window, and their owners are just the target audience for which the Matrix GTX285 was created.
The memory subsystem consists of 16 Hynix GDDR3 H5RS5223CFR-N3C chips arranged in a 1 GB bank with a 512-bit access bus. The same chips with a capacity of 512 Mbps (16Mx32) are used in the reference version of the GeForce GTX 285. The model with the N3C suffix is the fastest in this line. It is designed for a supply voltage of 2.05 V and a frequency of 1300 (2600) MHz. The reference value for the regular GeForce GTX 285 is 1242 (2484) MHz, and although the Asus Matrix GTX285 is not a regular card, its memory operates at the same frequency, providing a peak subsystem bandwidth of 158. 9GB/s, which is slightly better than the ATI Radeon HD 5870. Looking ahead, we can say that the attempt to overclock the memory was quite successful, but more on that below.
Core is regular G200b; the marking matches the one seen earlier and reads G200-350-B3. This copy was produced in the 7th week of 2009, around the beginning of February. The well-known GPU-Z utility correctly determined the manufacturing process, the number of transistors, the die area and the core configuration, but displayed the revision number as B1 instead of the B3 printed on the die cover.
The core configuration is standard: 240 unified shader processors, 80 TMUs and 32 RBEs, but the frequencies are somewhat different from the reference values. The computing domain operates at a frequency of 1476 MHz, and the main one at a frequency of 662 MHz. Thus, only the main domain was overclocked, and even then only slightly, from the reference 648 to 662 MHz. Such, so to speak, factory overclocking does not allow us to hope for any serious increase in performance, however, we will test the abilities of the Asus Matrix GTX285 in this field in the next chapter of our review.
The Asus product is equipped with a standard set of interface connectors, including two dual-link DVI-I ports and a universal seven-pin analog video output port. In addition, the board has two usual «combs» of the MIO interface, which, given the positioning of the Matrix GTX285, is justified — it is likely that someone will want to assemble a 3-way SLI system from three such cards. As our research has shown, such a three-processor system can often show better results than a four-processor variant based on two GeForce GTX 295, at least due to the larger amount of local video memory available to applications. In addition, there is a “Safe Mode” button on the mounting plate, which is part of the “fool-proof system”. In case of incorrect BIOS flashing or BIOS flashing with frequencies exceeding the overclocking potential of this instance of the Matrix GTX285, pressing this button will automatically return to the factory BIOS version with default frequencies. This can make life easier and save a lot of time and nerves for the unlucky or too hasty overclocker.
The described technology is implemented using two SST25VF512 flash memory chips, next to them is the Winbond W83L786G chip, through which advanced monitoring capabilities inherent in Asus Matrix GTX285 are implemented.
The Asus Matrix GTX285 cooling system is not a revelation and is another variation on the Nvidia reference design, differing from it only in some details.
These details include the use of heat pipes of a larger diameter — 8 versus 6 millimeters in the reference version, a large area of the copper base in contact with the cover of the heat spreader of the graphics core and other material of thermal pads that provide heat removal from the memory chips, the NVIO chip and power transistors of the power stabilizer. The picture also shows the insides of the proprietary load monitoring system described above. They are a small printed circuit board with colored LEDs soldered on it, connected to the board via a cable that ends in a six-pin connector. As for the fan, it uses the same model as Nvidia’s reference cooling system, but with a different impeller color.
In general, we could not find anything extraordinary in the Asus Matrix GTX285 cooling system, however, it should cope with its task, at least no worse than Nvidia’s reference design. With these words, we conclude the theoretical part of our review and move on to the most interesting practical section for most readers. Asus Matrix GTX285: thermal conditions, noise and overclocking . Of course, we could not pass by this rather loud statement without checking it with practice — the only criterion of truth. Here are the results:
As you can see, instead of increased cooling efficiency, we even observe its slight drop, especially in idle mode — the temperature of the graphics core is as much as 5 degrees higher than in the case of using the reference version of the GeForce GTX 285. Under load, the difference is much less significant, but also here the Asus Matrix GTX285 is two degrees behind its prototype. These measurements cannot be called precise, because we used a regular working system assembled in the Chieftec LBX-01 case, and not a special temperature chamber. It should be noted that the vast majority of those who may be interested in this graphics card also plan to use it in normal conditions for games and daily activities, and not engage in an accurate study of the effectiveness of the cooling system. Nevertheless, despite some lagging behind the reference system, the Asus Matrix GTX285 cooling system did its job quite well — the card worked absolutely stably both in normal mode and in overclocking mode with an increase in the GPU supply voltage, even during very long tests.
The next item on our program is the study of the noise characteristics of the Asus Matrix GTX285. This product is mainly aimed at overclocking enthusiasts who are rarely concerned with making their systems completely silent, but perhaps Asus has managed to improve the already good noise performance of the GeForce GTX 285 reference variant? We carried out a standard noise measurement procedure using our Velleman DVM1326 digital sound level meter. With a background noise level in the laboratory at a distance of 1 meter from a working test platform equipped with a passively cooled video card, which is 43 dBA, the following results were obtained:
Asus Matrix GTX285 really confirmed its «extreme nature» — firstly, the vaunted ten-phase power system failed — under load, its chokes began to emit a clearly audible squeak, and secondly, the power supply of the system, for some unknown reason, increased the speed of rotation of its fans. The latter surprised us a lot, because the Enermax Galaxy DXX EGX1000EWL cannot be called a weak power supply, and the GeForce GTX 285 is a card capable of loading it to such an extent. Either we got a defective instance of the Matrix GTX285, or this behavior is caused by some feature of the implementation of its power subsystem. In addition, we note that when the system is started and turned off, the card emits an additional signal using a buzzer installed on the board.
Finally, the sweetest dish for today is overclocking, albeit with a slight increase in the GPU supply voltage. The Asus iTracker 2 bundled utility allows you to set this parameter to 1.2 V, which we used. It was decided to leave the memory timings alone, as an option that could do more harm than good, although, for sure, there are overclocking enthusiasts who are ready to spend tens of hours finding the optimal combination of these settings, which allows them to squeeze out a few more megahertz.
So, after numerous attempts, we found the frequencies of the graphics core and memory, at which the card worked stably and passed the entire test cycle without a single failure:
The main and shader domains of the GPU are only slightly higher than the result previously achieved on the EVGA GeForce GTX 285 SSC without any extreme means, which amounted to 720/1624 MHz. This is just a good, but by no means extraordinary result.
The memory pleased us a little more: with an increase in its supply voltage from the nominal 2. 050 V to 2.135 V, we managed to reach a frequency of 1461 (2922) MHz. For the reference version of the GeForce GTX 285, our similar achievement was only 1400 (2800) MHz. The operation of the memory at a frequency of 1461 (2922) MHz with a 512-bit access bus means a peak throughput of the entire subsystem at the level of 187 GB/s. — the figure is more than impressive, and, besides, it significantly exceeds that of the Radeon HD 5870, although it is inferior to the characteristics of dual-processor cards from ATI and Nvidia.
Since the Asus Matrix GTX285 was originally designed with overclocking in mind, and we managed to achieve good results in this field, we conducted an additional cycle of tests at 740/1625 MHz for the GPU and 1461 (2922) MHz for the memory. It’s time to acquaint our readers with the results of testing the Matrix GTX285 in the field.
Test platform configuration and testing methodology
As usual, the Asus Matrix GTX285 gaming performance study was conducted on a universal test platform with the following configuration:
Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition processor (3. 2GHz, 6.4 GT/s QPI)
Gigabyte GA-EX58-Extreme (Intel X58) motherboard
Corsair XMS3-12800C9 memory (3x2GB) , 1333 MHz, 9-9-9-24, 2T)
Maxtor MaXLine III 7B250S0 hard drive (250 GB, SATA-150, 16 MB buffer)
Enermax Galaxy DXX EGX1000EWL power supply (power 1 kW)
Monitor Dell 3007WFP (30″, maximum resolution 2560×1600@60Hz)
Microsoft Windows 7 RTM 64-bit
Other settings: defaultNvidia GeForce:
Texture filtering — Quality: High quality
Texture filtering — Trilinear optimization: Off
Vertical sync: Force off
Antialiasing — Gamma correction: On
Antialiasing — Transparency: Multisampling0188 Multi-display mixed-GPU acceleration: Multiple display performance mode3D FPS:
Call of Duty: World at War
Crysis Warhead
Enemy Territory: Quake WarsAsus Matrix GTX285 was competed by the following graphics cards:
Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 (G200b, 648/1476/2484 MHz, 240 SP, 80 TMU, 32 RBE, 512-bit memory bus, 1024 MB GD)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 275 (G200b, 633/1404/2484 MHz, 240 SP, 80 TMU, 28 RBE, 448-bit memory bus, 896 MB GDDR3)
ATI Radeon HD 5870 (RV870, 850/850/4800 MHz , 1600 SP, 80 TMU, 32 RBE, 256-bit memory bus, 1024 MB GDDR5)
ATI Radeon HD 4890 (RV790, 850/850/3900 MHz, 800 SP, 40 TMU, 16 RBE, 256-bit memory bus, 1024 MB GDDR5)Wherever possible, standard 16x anisotropic filtering was supplemented with 4x MSAA anti-aliasing. Activation of anti-aliasing was carried out either by the means of the game itself, or, in their absence, was forced using the appropriate settings of the ATI Catalyst and Nvidia GeForce drivers.
In-game tools were used to obtain performance data, with the requirement to record original test clips when available. If the built-in testing tools allowed, data was recorded not only on the average, but also on the minimum performance. In all other cases, the Fraps 2.9 utility was used..8 in manual mode with a three-time test pass with fixation of the minimum values and subsequent averaging of the final result.
Game tests: Call of Duty: World at War
Starting from version 1.3, the game allows you to record and play demos, but, unfortunately, the minimum performance is not fixed.
Even overclocking with a software increase in the GPU voltage gives rather modest results, only allowing the described product to compete with the Radeon HD 4890 in resolutions up to 1920×1200 inclusive. Rivalry with the new generation of ATI GPUs is out of the question. However, the Matrix GTX285 has one sure victory — at 2560×1600 it looks clearly better than the Radeon HD 4890, especially in overclocked mode.
Game tests: Crysis Warhead
Already in the next test, however, the Matrix GTX285 performs very well, in overclocked mode it is second only to the Radeon HD 5870. True, there is an exception, and this is a resolution of 2560×1600, where even overclocking does not help the card based on G200b to catch up with Radeon HD 4890.
Game tests: Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
For more complete data, the built-in average performance limiter is disabled. Since built-in benchmarks are used, there is no information on minimum performance.
Overclocking really invigorates the tested Asus card, giving it a rare opportunity to outperform the Radeon HD 5870 in the first two resolutions, but starting from 1920×1200, the brainchild of AMD restores the status quo, and at 2560×1600 the gap widens even more. In general, despite such an impressive result, there is no practical point in overclocking in Quake Wars, even if you have a monitor with a diagonal of 30 ″ — the difference between 70 and 9You will not be able to see 0 frames per second due to the average performance being forcibly limited to 30 frames per second.
Gaming benchmarks: Far Cry 2
Far Cry 2 is a much more modern game, and it’s no surprise that AMD’s new flagship takes first place in it. However, it is worth noting that overclocking the Matrix GTX285 gives good results, allowing this card to come close to the Radeon HD 5870 at a resolution of 2560×1600. The lag is only 5%, and the minimum performance of the Asus product is even higher, which makes it an excellent choice for this particular shooter.
Game tests: Left 4 Dead
The game is based on the Source engine and has built-in testing tools, which, unfortunately, do not provide information about the minimum performance.
If not for the Radeon HD 5870, the Asus Matrix GTX285 could claim to be the best single-socket graphics card. But even without this, overclocking with a software increase in the GPU voltage brings good results in the form of an average performance of 80 frames per second at a resolution of 2560×1600, which is more than enough even for the most demanding gamer.
Game Test: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
No «Sun rays», «Wet surfaces» and «Volumetric smoke» options or full screen anti-aliasing to improve performance. Testing is carried out in the «Enhanced full dynamic lighting» (DX10) mode, for ATI cards the DirectX 10.1 mode is additionally enabled
Overclocking gain compared to the Nvidia reference card is 12-16%, depending on the resolution. In this mode, the Matrix GTX285 almost manages to achieve acceptable performance at a resolution of 1920×1200; we are talking mainly about the minimum performance, but, in general, software power management of the graphics core does not open up new opportunities, or we got a copy of the card that was not the most successful in terms of overclocking potential.
Game tests: Street Fighter IV
The overall picture is similar to that observed in Quake Wars: at low resolutions, the overclocked Asus card successfully fights the Radeon HD 5870, but then the new architecture inevitably takes over. However, the performance of all test participants will be more than enough for owners of the largest monitors.
Game tests: Resident Evil 5
In Resident Evil 5, the hero of our review, being overclocked, keeps even more confidently, almost keeping up with the Radeon HD 5870 even at a resolution of 1920×1200, and only at 2560×1600 the lag becomes significant, about 11 %. True, in practice, no player will be able to feel it directly during the game, without looking at the numbers obtained as a result of testing.
Game tests: Fallout 3
A more or less significant difference in the performance of the overclocked Matrix GTX285 and Radeon HD 5870 can only be seen at a resolution of 2560×1600, but from the point of view of a player interested in the gameplay, and not Fraps numbers, there is no difference, and the usual GeForce GTX 285 is quite enough for this mode.
Game tests: Need for Speed: Shift
At 1280×1024, the Asus card, being overclocked, can boast of a victory over the Radeon HD 5870, but already at 1680×1050 the latter restores “historical justice”, and then the gap in favor of the new architecture is only is growing. It is worth noting that overclocking the Matrix GTX285 can be of practical use at 2560×1600 due to a good increase in the minimum performance.
Game Tests: Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.
For testing, the tools built into the game are used, unfortunately, they do not provide for fixing the minimum indicators. Support for DirectX 10.1 features is enabled for ATI solutions
Due to incompatibility of H.A.W.X. with the Adaptive AA algorithms used in AMD solutions, they cannot fully compete with Nvidia solutions. In this field, the Asus Matrix GTX285 is unbeatable, except for the dual-processor GeForce GTX 295. The increase in performance during overclocking is 7-9% at resolutions up to 1920×1200 inclusive and reaches 15% at 2560×1600.
Game tests: BattleForge
DirectX 11 support was enabled for the Radeon HD 5870. As you can see, it was not possible to detect a significant visual difference, and the difference between the «High» and «Very High» detail modes is not very large.
It’s a paradox, but, as we have already noted, the GeForce GTX 285 seems to be the preferred choice for BattleForge because of the significantly higher minimum values that make the gameplay much more comfortable. Overclocking the Matrix GTX285 does not bring dividends noticeable to the naked eye, but still allows you to get some, about 12-16%, an increase in average performance.
Game tests: World in Conflict: Soviet Assault
Surprisingly, overclocking the Asus card allows it to outperform the Radeon HD 5870 in almost all resolutions, including 2560×1600. The gap is small, about 5-8%, but the fact remains that the old architecture won over the new one, despite the overwhelming superiority of the latter in terms of computing power! Both cards demonstrated acceptable performance at resolutions up to 1290×1200 inclusive.
Semi-synthetic tests: Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
To minimize CPU impact, 3DMark Vantage uses an «Extreme» profile for testing, using 1920×1200 resolution, FSAA 4x, and anisotropic filtering. To complete the picture of performance, the results of individual tests from now on are taken at the entire range of resolutions.
Despite PhysX support, the overclocked Asus card can’t keep up with the Radeon HD 5870 with its 1600 ALUs. However, overclocking with raising the voltage of the graphics core allows you to achieve a good increase in points.
The results of individual tests do not reveal anything new, except that in the second test at a resolution of 1680×1050, the overclocked Asus Matrix GTX285 is less than one frame per second behind the Radeon HD 5870. Obviously, the Nvidia G200 architecture has actually exhausted its potential, and even when overclocked, it can no longer compete on equal terms with the new AMD/ATI architecture.
Conclusion
In general, the Asus Matrix GTX285 performed well, although, of course, it lost to AMD’s new single-processor flagship, the Radeon HD 5870. However, the goal was not to directly compare this card with the new generation solution; rather, we focused on identifying the unique features inherent in the Matrix GTX285 — and those were found. The Asus graphics development team has really managed to create a truly original version of the GeForce GTX 285 and give it features that are missing from the vast majority of other G200b-based cards on the market today.
First of all, what makes this product unique is the very fact that it belongs to the Matrix series, which automatically means extended options for managing card parameters. They include not only overclocking, but also monitoring of all parameters, GPU and memory voltage control, fine tuning of the memory subsystem, as well as the ability to flash a user-defined combination of settings in the BIOS with the ability to recover in case of failure. All this makes the Asus Matrix GTX285 an extremely attractive choice for any user who likes to experiment with the «stuffing» of his computer, and in the described case, experiments are also safe, unlike, say, hardware modification of the video adapter’s power circuits.
In particular, we were able to achieve a 12 to 14% performance boost for the Matrix GTX285 over the Nvidia reference card on average without too much difficulty, just by taking advantage of iTracker 2 capabilities. slightly inferior to the Radeon HD 4890 in some resolutions and tests, in particular, in Call of Duty: World at War and BattleForge .
Recall that another copy of the Matrix GTX285 can show both better and worse results in terms of overclocking — in this case, as you know, a lot depends on banal luck.
However, speaking about a barrel of honey, we, unfortunately, cannot but mention a fly in the ointment, whether by accident or intentionally — but got into this barrel. The problem is not that the card showed slightly lower cooling efficiency and a slightly higher noise level than the reference version of the GeForce GTX 285. But the squeak of the power regulator chokes for the version of the GeForce GTX 285, which claims to be elite, as well as the strange behavior of the test power supply , caused by the installation of the Matrix GTX285 in the system, is clearly a significant drawback. We don’t know if this behavior is typical for all Asus Matrix GTX285 or whether it is a consequence of the fact that we had a faulty or pre-sale copy of the card in our hands, however, elementary honesty requires that the noticed shortcomings be listed in the «flaws» section.
Nevertheless, I would like to end the review on an optimistic note — the Asus Matrix GTX285 is a really interesting version of the GeForce GTX 285, endowed with a lot of additional features that make it especially attractive for overclockers. Although with the advent of the Radeon HD 5800 it is no longer possible to call it a top-class solution, this is a very extraordinary product that can certainly find its buyer.