ASUS EAH5850 TOP Video Card Review

The ASUS EAH5850 TOP (Cont’d)

In Figure 4, you can see the video card with its cooler removed. Note how it requires one six-pin and one eight-pin auxiliary power connectors. In Figures 5 and 6, you can see the cooler by itself. Two thick, 8 mm, nickel-plated, copper heatpipes make direct contact with the GPU, connecting it to the heatsink.

Figure 4: Video card with the cooler removed

Figure 5: The GPU cooler

Figure 6: The GPU cooler

The reviewed card uses eight 1 Gbit GDDR5 chips, making its 1 GB video memory (1 Gbit x 8 = 1 GB). Each chip is connected to the GPU using a 32-bit data lane, making the video card’s 256-bit memory interface (32 bits x 8 = 256).

The chips used are K4G10325FE-HC04 parts from Samsung, which support up to 1.25 GHz (4.5 GHz QDR) and since on this video card memory is accessed at 1.25 GHz (4.5 GHz QDR), there is no margin for you to increase the memory clock rate while keeping the chips inside the maximum they support. Of course you can always try to overclock the memory chips above their specs.

Figure 7: Memory chips

In Figure 8, you can see the accessories that come with the reviewed card: one power adapter, one DVI-to-VGA adapter, one HDMI-to-DVI adapter, and one CrossFireX bridge. The product doesn’t come with any games.

Figure 8: Accessories

Before seeing the performance results, let’s recap the main features of this video card.