Hi, my name is Rob Magee and I am going to talk about my shiny GTX 285 given to be by Asus at there Global Summit event.　 In this post I am going to focus on the hardware, and later I will look at the performance and the software.

I have owned multiple GTX280s which have each failed after over exuberant over clocking on my part, however the ASUS Matrix card with its fancy cooler and improved PCB design looks to be a tougher nut to crack. This leads me on to my first observation: the card is cool. For example my old stock gtx280s (admittedly built on a older revision core) ran in the high 90s at load, while this card can run in the mid 60s. Plus it is much quieter. Its not all good news in the cooling department however. Asus made the cooler so bulky it will not fit with another GTX285 in there own Rampage 2 Extreme motherboard! If you want to use the full speed pci-e slots you are out of luck. This is a major disappointment. The second problem the card suffers from is the fact that water-cooling it is near impossible. The layout, which ASUS came up with, may be more efficient that reference, but it inhibits any full cover block form use. You may be thinking why is this guy harping on about water-cooling when the air cooler is so good, but I think in such a high end product should at least support as many options as possible.

The one amazing feature of this board however, that has made me a very, very happy is the BIOS recovery button. Flash your card wrong? (done that, not cool) Press this little guy and your card is alive and kicking again. This one little feature means you can be ridiculously OTT with your overclocking without having to worry about your investment.

In summery I thing the hardware on this card has some amazing features, and some annoying niggles. Maybe ASUS and nVidia could get together and put all there best features together? (I will keep dreaming).

Thanks for reading my post. Next time I will take a look at the cards software and performance. Have a good evening