CES 2011: Video Card Monsters
This time, interesting pieces came from the workshops of ASUS and EVGA.
At this year’s CES, ASUS and EVGA each unveiled a huge video card. The former manufacturer based a Radeon 6970, replacing its reference radiator with a DirectCU II solution, which takes up not two but immediately three card slots. From the CaymanXT graphics processor, three 8mm heat pipes conduct heat to the aluminum ribbing, which is fitted with two air vents. The Asus EAH6970 DirectCU requires the connection of two 8-pin PCI-E cables for trouble-free operation. This is one of the reasons why the product has a very good tuning potential. On the back, the video outputs can be clearly seen, where, in addition to two DVIs, there are four standard-size 1.2 DisplayPorts.
The other monster comes from the EVGA workshop, which is nothing more than an NVIDIA card with a Dual-GPU architecture. The role of the two graphics processors is likely to be played by the GPU labeled GF114, as it is almost impossible with the GF110 to create such a card due to its high power consumption and heat generation. It can be seen in the pictures that there are eight 1 gigabit memory cards on the back of the product. They are GDDR5 standard, marked K4G10325F and made by Samsung. Supposedly the same is true on the other side, meaning that a GPU gets 1024 MB of memory. The presence or connection of the two 8-pin PCI-E cables is, of course, also a requirement here. A three-fan solution with two card slots is responsible for cooling. There are three DVI and one HDMI on the back.
