ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix GeForce GTX 260 896MB Video Card Review

Features

Asus iTracker – Asus iTracker is the monitoring dashboard for the ENGTX260 Matrix. There are three main screens: Information, Profile, and Configuration. The Information screen tells you everything that is going on, GPU, Memory, and Shader clocks; GPU and Memory voltages; GPU temp, fan speed, and Power Consumption. It also monitors system PSU 12v and 3.3v, temps of video card power supply temperature and ambient temperature, and overall video card power consumption.

The Profile screen allows you to select from four preset profiles: Optimized, Gaming, Default, and Power Saving. It also allows you to set up three User Defined profiles. You can determine clocks, voltages, and fan speeds.

The Configuration screen is mostly to set up warning alarm settings, and you can also set polling time interval.


ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix GeForce GTX 260 896MB Video Card ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix GeForce GTX 260 896MB Video Card ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix GeForce GTX 260 896MB Video Card

Super Hybrid Engine – Super Hybrid Engine is a Matrix series unique (at least at this time) function that changes GPU, Shader, and Memory clock and voltage according to VGA load. In 2D mode, the card underclocks and undervolts to save energy. In 3D mode, the card overclocks and overvolts according to GPU and memory load. It really works too, at one point in time during idle, the GPU clocked down to 300mHz, and the memory down to 800mHz. Later when running Ozone3D’s FurMark, I had created a user preset for the GPU to overclock to 650mHz when under load and it did. That’s usually about all I would try to overclock the GPU manually, so I find it pretty impressive.



ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix GeForce GTX 260 896MB Video Card ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix GeForce GTX 260 896MB Video Card

Hybrid Cooler – another Matrix unique feature, the Hybrid Cooler works with the Super Hybrid Engine and iTracker to adjust for cooling needs. At idle, the fans can stop altogether, running in passive mode. As the GPU comes under load, first one fan, then the other ramps up. Detailed settings are done in the iTracker. Just to note, while in passive mode, the GPU temp never got over 47C. I do have quite a bit of air moving around in my case, so others may see higher temps.

I set up a User Defined Profile and overclocked the GPU to 670mHz to heat things up a bit. The fans were set to run at 40% at 55C, and 60% at 65C. Once the temp got over 62C, I could barely hear the ENGTX260 Matrix’s fans, just a low whirring noise, nothing loud or annoying.

And I highly commend the effectiveness of the Matrix’s fans, overclock load temperature reached 65C a couple of times, but 99% of the time stayed at 64C.

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