ASUS, a technology-oriented company blessed with one of the world's top R&D teams, is well known for high-quality and innovative technology. As a leading provider of 3C (computers, communications and consumer electronics) total solutions, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium.

    In 2005, ASUS shipped 52 million motherboards, which means one out of every 3 desktop PCs sold last year was powered by an ASUS motherboard. If we line them up side by side, the length will be longer than the distance from New York to San Francisco.

    ASUS products' top quality stems from product development. It's like learning Chinese Kung-Fu; one must begin with cultivating the "Chi" and inner strength. Besides innovating cutting-edge features, ASUS engineers also pay special attention to EMI (electromagnetic interference), thermal, acoustics and details that usually go unnoticed to achieve complete customer satisfaction. ASUS notebooks are the first TCO'99-certified notebooks worldwide. The requirements for this honor include radiation emission control, energy (battery consumption), ecology (environment friendly) and ergonomics.

Specifications:

Packaging:

Retail front	Back	Front Lid
Contents	Driver CD's	Cables

  The box for the EN8600GT OC Gear is rather large for such small components. The front of the box displays a picture of the OC Gear front panel controller, and also has a flip-up cover that reveals the information on the GamerOSD software that is included. The back side has the typical features and specifications normally found there.  The contents are protected well in a cocoon of soft foam with pockets cut out for the items, and all electronic items are in static-free bags.

A Closer Look:

Top

Back

Dual DVI & TV out

    The ASUS EN8600GT OC Gear is marketed as the world’s first hardware-based, real-time overclocking device for graphics cards. The EN8600GT card itself is designed for the mid-level consumer. The included overclocking gear is just an added bonus. The card is laid out on a bluish-green circuit board with a decent sized heatsink fan over the GPU. The GeForce 8600GT GPU runs at a 540MHz GPU clock, has full DX10 support, and can either use 128MB or 256MB of GDDR3 memory; in this review, the 256MB version was supplied. On the backside are the two DVI ports and the TV-Out port. 

    The memory modules on the EN8600GT OCG are Qimonda HYB18H51232BF chips. Each memory module is 64MB, and with a total of four modules on the card, the total comes to 256MB. On this particular model of graphics card the memory modules are not heatsinked; rather, the GPU fan is over the memory to help with cooling.

OCG Panel

Back side

USB Connection

    The hardware overclocking interface module fits into a free 5.25" drive bay. The front face has a dual function knob/button and a mirror finish that accepts fingerprints well. Before securing the OC module in place, attach the USB cable to the back side of the module first, then go and screw everything down. Once secured, plug the other end of the cable into a free USB motherboard header.