"Wonder of engineering" - ASUS EN6800GT Dual

In every production industry, in every market niche, and in all spheres of activities - everywhere the human intelligence is used, therefore there is space for creativity and engineering thought. Thought generates an idea, then the idea with the aid of respective knowledge, skills, artful hands and technical facilities finds its realization. Examples of that are everywhere around us - all our lives are made up of them, they surround us every day, we simply get used to that and take it all for granted. We mostly draw our attention on what is a departure (especially if it is enormous) from the customary standard.

Of course, a "standard" is a conventional notation because it denotes what we are used to. For instance, if we take some very narrow field - IT, computers and hardware to which we are related to in a way (so are you, if you open and read this material), then by "standard" we mean, for example, those specifications announced by the manufacturer of a product. For example, 24 pixel pipelines in G70, or 350/1000MHz for GeForce 6800GT - examples are endless.

Also, by the "standard" for a product we imply its physical look - that is, a certain size of the PCB, appearance, and the size of the cooling system, number of connectors for additional power supply, etc.

We always draw our attention to any departure from standard specifications, which manufacturers use to speculate, because successful sales depend also on the differences (towards the better, of course) of a product versus similarly positioned competitor solutions. But all these are variations within certain limits because the goal is still the same - to present better and sell more. Since practically any innovations and improvements assume incurring certain costs, in the end the "upgraded" product proves more expensive than the less advanced analogs. At that, elementary arithmetic from the consumer's part comes into play - whether these improvements (e.g. more "wired" and quieter cooling system, or a chip running at increased frequency) are worth that extra money if you can find a product of the same type nearby, albeit not that eminent (=standard) but much cheaper.

Another thing is products whose major purpose of release is not to win a certain market niche and not enormous sales. Their goal is to maintain the image of the company that has produced them. That is needed to entice experienced journalists to their expo stand in order to make such headlines like "That's what sort of a miracle we saw at the expo stand of XXX!!!" appear on the pages of all the editions.

These products are not aimed at the mass market - they are to maintain the manufacturer's image at a certain level thus provoking more interest to the company itself. It goes without saying, all these solutions must not be mere on-paper prototypes but existing and working(!) products. Even more - they can and must be sold on the market albeit in limited quantities because no one is likely to think about their price - in this case the buyer pays for owning such a nonstandard device, for the personal possibility to raise own image in the eyes of the acquaintances - "But I have bought THAT!". There are lots of examples of different kind - super hi-tech mobiles, and exclusive race cars. Actually, it would not be quite correct to draw an analogy with race cars - the image-making product has got to look well first of all and only then give some real advantages in performance. The former has a right to exist without the latter, but the latter without the former is already a different story.

Therefore, of most welcome are those solutions which make others gasp in amazement and delight not only for the outstanding capabilities but the appearance as well. ASUS taking one of the leading positions on the market has done a superb job of coping with all that through presenting its ASUS EN6800 Dual video card:

The company demonstrated this solution (that time, not a working specimen yet) to visitors at the annual CeBIT to the visitors. By the next triumph of technologies - the June's Computex - that miracle of engineering had been thoroughly improved by ASUS and turned into a real working sample.

It's quite possible that of the prerequisites for the release of such a solution was the Christmas incident when Gigabyte, an eternal competitor of ASUS, agitated the public by the release of Gigabyte 3D1, a dual-chip solution built on 2õ6600GT. ASUS decided not only to catch up but overtake the rival - EN6800 Dual is essentially a pair of 6800GT video cards positioned on a single PCB and linked to one another using the SLI technology, that ism not only an even more complicated to produce but a more powerful solution. This has resulted in a substantial rise in the PCB dimensions, which turned the card into something monstrous. Just see for yourselves - how different the size of EN6800GT Dual is from that of GeForce 6800Ultra and GeForce 7800GTX which are not the most "subtle" boards on the market.

Another interesting fact is that at CeBIT they demonstrated a board based on two 6800Ultra chips, but the real samples started with 2õ6800GT. Quite probably, that was caused by the power consumption requirements, although it's just EN6800Ultra Dual that is displayed on Asus' web site, which does not prevent the release further on and because of such a modification to the solution. Somehow or other - we've got a board unprecedented at many parameters, which we are going to review right now.

ASUS EN6800GT Dual Board Layout

Of course, the board specimen that we received for tests came in the OEM bundle. To be precise, the package having no special identification contained the board itself, a brief setup guide (we'll talk about these in more detail in what follows), as well as two DVI-D-Sub 15-pin adapters, two adapters for additional power supply, and a S-Video/RCA cable.

As we have already stated, the overall dimensions of the card are simply huge. Therefore, issues may come up in the attempt to fit the device into the housing albeit spacious enough. We did not come across this issue because we use an open test-bench, but we must warn you in advance.

The PCB design is made in a way to make it possible to fit two separate 6800GT cards on a single board - two GPU and eight video memory chips. Because of the complexity of wiring of this kind, one block was somehow shifted upwards, which is one of the causes that the board offers a nonstandard size.

Note another most important point - to date, EN6800GT Dual is able running on ASUS' motherboard built on the nForce4 SLI chipset (ASUS A8N-SLI model). Perhaps in future the board will run trouble-free on motherboards by other manufacturers and built on this chipset, but so far we haven't yet got any precise information regarding that. So we go on examining the card.

The cooling system is a solid structure made of two big aluminum radiators with a fan over the center.

Each radiator is aimed at cooling its "own" GPU and video memory chips, with the fan being a link to the plastic blades.

Of interesting points is the backlight near the fan, with the gleaming ASUS logo adding a special effect during the card operation. This effect is made due to additional LEDs positioned on a separate small board on the left-hand radiator.

As regards the fastening of the whole structure - made at very good quality - there are four screws around each GPU plus additional "safety" screws positioned over all the edges of the cooling system. On the reverse side of the board, there are two separate aluminum fastening plates - for the screws around the GPU. The power line conditioners are cooled with a separate aluminum radiator. The cooling system is dual-slotted, with "silvery paint" used as the thermo interface for the two GPU and thermo paste for all the video memory chips.

Let's look at the GPU 6800GT (NV45). Both the graphic processors run at 350 MHz which is standard for GeForce 6800GT. Every chip offers 16 pixel pipelines and 6 vertex units. The HSI bridge through which support for the PCI-E on NV45 is offered is made within GPU's common housing.

The card is equipped with two kits of video memory 256 Mb each, with a 256-bit data transmission bus assembled of eight Samsung memory chips of 1.6 ns access time. This is equivalent to 625 MHz (1250 MHz DDR) of operating frequency. Originally, the memory runs at 1200 MHz DDR as it should be as per the 6800GT specifications. Note that the board uses memory faster than that normally installed on GeForce 6800GT (of 2 ns access time). That is, the board is sort of a synthesis between 6800GT and 6800Ultra. The above fact allows assuming a very good overclocking capability (at least, for the video memory), which we'll try in practice.

Since the power consumption of such "hybrid" falls outside the limits for 6800GT, the board has two connectors for additional power supply.

It is also equipped with two digital outputs and a S-Video output.

Now on to the benchmarking.

Test configuration

To test ATI video cards, we used the latest WHQL-certified Catalyst 5.6 drivers, with ForceWare 77.72 (WHQL) and 77.62 (beta) drivers for NVIDIA cards.

As regards the overclocking, the card started up trouble-free at frequencies even higher than those for GeForce 6800Ultra PCI-E - 430/1140MHz.

Performance analysis and conclusions

Today, we have examined another "wonder of engineering" - EN6800GT Dual video card by ASUS. Like any nonstandard solution, it has both advantages and shortcomings, which we'll be telling in detail.

The major advantage of this solution is in its exclusive character, in that that the market yet has no analogs so far. Therefore, a video card like that will be of especial value to worshipper, collectors and enthusiasts who have enough means for buying exclusive solutions. Of course, a thing like that will be the spice in any collection and a matter of pride and delight.

However, for the regular user this card is unlikely to be a real working "option" for upgrading the video system of the computer not only because of the price and the rarity in the retail but also because of some accompanying inconveniences which you will get additionally to the card itself.

First, it is the nonstandard size. It is hard to imagine a housing inside which this card will fit in without an issue. By the way, there is one more idea for ASUS - to release a Special Edition housing of nonstandard size aimed at EN6800 Dual.

This will certainly appeal to enthusiasts and fanciers of exclusive items.

However, let's turn to the shortcomings. One of them is the need for purchasing a motherboard built on the nForce4 SLI chipset (made by ASUS!). If you have one - that's good, if not - you are in for extra costs.

But those who can afford to bus a board like that will certainly be able to afford a motherboard for the video card.

A couple of words on the price. While two regular GeForce 6800GT video cards (to be used in the SLI, of course) can be currently made available at $780-800, then the price for EN6800GT Dual will be somehow higher because of the nonstandard character of the solution as well as some advantage over 2õ6800GT at performance. For now, we can't tell anything more regarding that, since this board by ASUS has not yet been presented in the retail.

As regards the fanciers of maximum performance, their best choice will most likely be a SLI-configuration made up of 2õ7800GTX that offers the topmost performance to date. By the way, it is no at all impossible that some time later ASUS will present a product like that as well (we are now talking about positioning of two respective GPU on a single PCB). There is a good start, and the experience is vast.

The matter of possibility to merge two EN6800GT Dual cards into the SLI is still open. That will prove a really unprecedented system, but you can never tell - in future, when we get a system like that for tests we'll certainly verify that.

Summary

Being true fanciers of interesting devices, we got an immense pleasure from testing ASUS EN6800GT Dual. In the end, we decided to award this product with a 3DNews medal which is granted only to most nonstandard, exclusive and original solutions on the market. The Innovation Design reward is granted for innovations, creativity and engineering thought.