ASUS Extreme NGTX275

There are already countless GeForce GTX 275 graphics cards out there and the vast majority of them follow the Nvidia reference design very closely. The ASUS Extreme NGTX275 features a slightly modified PCB design, while the cooling setup is from the reference card.

The card features 896MB of GDDR3 (Hynix H5RS5223CFR-N2C) memory clocked at 2268MHz, and it would appear that the majority of GeForce GTX 275 based cards also use the same Hynix memory. After some quick research, I found that these modules are rated for 2400MHz DDR operation, so we do not expect that there will be much overclocking headroom.

The memory chips are all located on the front side of the graphics card, on the same side where the GPU is. The GPU is clocked at the default frequency of 633MHz.

When at idle, the ASUS Extreme NGTX275 operating volume level is extremely low, and while the fan speed does increase under load, for the most part it remained at a tolerable level. Although the operating volume is not something I would concern myself with, the power requirement for this graphics card is somewhat of a concern, particularly when in SLI mode.

That said, when testing the power consumption levels of the GeForce GTX 275 we were presently surprised, as it used considerably less power than we were expecting, particularly at idle. Still, when placed under full load a single GeForce GTX 275 can get quite power hungry, and we would expect two of them to use slightly more power than a GeForce GTX 295.

The GeForce GTX 275 requires two additional 6-pin power connectors to function (which deliver ~75 watts of power each), while the PCI Express 16x slot offers another 75 watts; we can therefore assume the GeForce GTX 275 is capable of sucking up to 225 watts of power when under load.

Cooling the GeForce GTX 275 core and the seven memory chips on the front side of the card is a rather large heatsink and fan combo. The setup is huge, though given that it is primarily constructed from aluminum, there is a lot less weight in this heatsink when compared to the GeForce GTX 295 for example.

The GeForce GTX 275 features two SLI bridge connectors rather than just one. This means that like the GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 285 for example, the new GeForce GTX 275 can be used in 3-way SLI mode if your pockets are deep enough. It is important to note that the GeForce GTX 275 only supports DirectX 10, while the latest Radeon graphics cards already include support for DX10.1, this is a ‘feature’ missing on all GeForce graphics cards.

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