The ASUS EAH 4870 Matrix 512

It is often said that here in the Philippines, we are always behind or sometimes don't even get cards like this this. Well, I recently got my hands on some ASUS EAH 4870 Matrix cards, take note, "some", because they did send me two of them. I was very excited to try it out so let me not keep you waiting:

The Box and what's inside:

You are greeted with a slick-black knight's sword and shield with the integrated video card definitely made to appeal to those serious gamers out there.



When you flip open the front cover of the box, you will see a detailed explanation of how the HYBRID COOLING SYSTEM Works. The 4870 Matrix comes sports itself the ASUS's HYBRID COOLER TECHNOLOGY. When running 2D applications only which consume very little GPU power, the fans will not turn. It automatically detects the GPU's temps and as soon as it can sense heat from the GPU, it will run one fan first then as it get's hotter, the second fan goes on. As soon as temps drop, the fans automatically shutdown and the process just repeats itself. When playing 3D games though, don't worry, both fans turn on right away and turn themselves off when cooled down. It also defines ASUS's Super Hybrid Engine:
ASUS’ exclusive Super Hybrid Engine (SHE) technology showcases its intelligence via a two-fold process. First gathering detailed information about the GPU loading and temperature, memory and power IC; SHE then calculates an optimized solution for the best performance. All of this happens in real time, without requiring any tinkering from users—making it easy to achieve multi-level GPU and memory voltage adjustments for the ultimate graphics performance or maximum energy savings.

Aside from that you will also see highlights on it's itracker software.
iTracker Offers Users One-click Control over Graphics Card Performances

The iTracker feature is a component of ASUS’ exclusive SHE technology, and offers four default profiles for gamers who desire one-click control over their graphics card’s performance: Optimized Mode, Gaming Mode, Power Saving Mode, and Default mode. This handy application is also able to display real-time graphics card information that includes the GPU/shader/memory clock, GPU/memory voltage, GPU loading, GPU/memory/power IC/ambient temperature, and fan speed—serving as a one-stop, complete system information portal. In addition, the fifth profile—User Defined Mode—enables real-time adjustments to the GPU/shader/memory clock, GPU/memory voltage, and fan speeds to suit different individual requirements.



Inside the box you will find, of course the beautiful Republic of Gamers branded 10.5" Video Card with its cool Dual Fan design. Manual DVD, Driver DVD, DVI to VGA adapter, DVI to HDMI Adapter and an analog to Y/Pb/R converter. To my surprise, the Crossfire cable link was missing but luckily, after telling ASUS Philippines, they immediately sent us two Crossfire Link connectors to complete the package and ensured us that all release version of these cards came with the crossfire connectors.


Now looking more closely at the rear part of the card you will see that one of the DVI ports is yellow in color. This signifies that when you plug an HDMI Cable here via the accompanying DVI to HDMI adapter, you will get digital and analog audio out. So if you monitor has speakers built in then you will definitely get sound on those speakers. You will also notice that the card is think, but dont worry it is not thick enough to be a hindrance on the second PCIe Slot.

Let me not bother you anymore with all these hardware and software definitions and get down to some test results.

My TEST BED:
Core i7 940
Rampage II Extreme- REVIEW TO FOLLOW SOON!
OCZ Reaper 2x1GB 1066
Silverstone RAVEN RV01 CASE
Silverstone OP700
Asus 2x EAH 4870 Matrix 512mb
Seagate 160GB Sata II
OS: Windows XP











1x4870stock (1280x1024)


2x4870 crossfire setup stock (1280x1024)


2x4870 crossfire setup stock clone mode (1280x1024)


2x4870 crossfire setup stock extended desktop(1280x1024)


2x4870 crossfire setup stock extended desktop(1680x1050)

Conclusion:
We only had Windows XP 32bit available to us during the test period but will update this as soon as I get more tests done. We are also expecting OCZ's drives to arrive soon so we will have the Triple Channel Rams and SSD drives as well. Can't wait to test them on that.

These cards performed wonderfully under our test bed. We did not overclock them yet, but when we do I will make to post them here. I would recommend that if you have a third PCIE slot and you are not using it, put the second card there to avoid heat issues on some casings as when you put them side by side like we did, you will really feel the intense heat on the first card as it struggles to breath. When we tested playing crisis on it at full enthusiast level on 1680x1050 Resolution, we experience some minor artifacts. But take note though, we experienced this only once during our test and a repeat test did not give us artifacts anymore. So there will be no harm in keeping it this way but you would be better off putting a gap between the cards.

We will do our best to give you more results as we test this further.

We would also specially like to thank ASUS PHILIPPINES for providing us with such lovely cards.

The ASUS EAH4870 MATRIX 512MB falls a little short by its brother the 1 gig version, but overall, any true gamer would realize that this is definitely one of the smartest video cards in the world today!!

Thank you for reading and watch out soon for our ASUS 4870x2 and RAMPAGE II Review!