Overclocking and Noise
Overclocking wise, the board seemed to perform less ably than recent MSI boards that have passed through my hands. Given that the ASUS has a better cooling solution, on the surface at least, I'd assume the MSI's were simply nice review samples.Final core overclock was just under 500MHz at 495. Memory overclock was altogether more impressive, with yet another NV35 board that sailed over 1GHz memory clock, stopping stably at 1044MHz, able to run all my tests with no visible artifacting or performance degredation.
1044MHz on a 32-byte bus means a staggering 33.4GB/sec of potential memory bandwidth available to the CineFX unit and other functional GPU units able to access the framebuffer, or use it as a data store. Brute force really does work sometimes. Of course, your overclocking mileage will certainly vary, there are some NV35 boards out there that don't do as well.
With the cooling solution that ASUS employ however, it would be rude of you not to try for some free performance.
Noise
That brings us on nicely to the noise the card makes. Or rather the lack of it. The card makes very little noise, with only the pre-POST startup sequence enabling the fans to rise above the noise of other elements in my test system. I haven't heard a loud GeForceFX yet, ASUS weren't about to let me experience one this time.I'd love a digital noise monitor for a graph to show you, but you'll just have to trust my abused ears on this one.
Let's wrap things up.
