ASUS EN9800GT HybridPower Video Card Review :: ASUS EN9800GT HybridPower Card

Card

Fan

Two slot

Voltage regulator

ASUS has deviated from the standard 9800GT reference design in a number of significant ways. The first change you'll notice is the Glaciator heatsink. The Glaciator is an ASUS exclusive fan design that is 80mm in diameter and covers the graphics chip. The fan is a 9-fin fan that effectively cools the entire card including the GPU and the voltage regulators that sits on a copper heatsink.

Back of card

PCI Express

Capacitors

6-pin power

Due to the height of the cooling solution the card takes up two slots on a system. Next to the fan/heatsink is another copper heatsink that covers the voltage regulators. Next to that are capacitors and a 6-pin power connection to power the video card. The copper heatsink keeps the voltage regulators cooler than being bare and should allow the card to overclock well.

SLI Bridge

Front of cooling

Memory

IO

The Input and Output area of the card is similar in many respects to the IO area of almost every video card released in the last few years. Two DVI-I ports and a TV-Out port. This allows the ASUS card to run two monitors with two digital LCD monitors, two analog CRT monitors or a combination of the two with adapters. One thing to note on this card is the two SLI bridges on the top of the card next to the IO. This means that this card can work together with two other 9800GTs to do 3-Way SLI.