Asus has laid claim to launching the world's most intelligent graphics card with the release of their ROG (Republic of Gamers) EN9600GT MATRIX/HTDI/512M. Asus goes on to say, “Much like a sci-fi movie where the protagonists can do just about anything, the ROG MATRIX Series will allow gamers to unleash the true power of graphics cards.” Can you smell the hype? I love the smell of hype in the morning.

The MATRIX card has the ASUS Super Hybrid Engine for automatic detection and adjustments of voltage, clock setting, and fan speeds to achieve “the ultimate in performance or maximum energy saving”. Additionally, the Hybrid Cooler technology offers extreme or silent cooling according to gamer needs. It includes their iTracker software to provide 5 scenario GUI modes for easy user selection of their preferred usage.

Asus goes on to claim that a 26% performance boost in 3D mode can be achieved; while 26% less power consumption and 0dB cooling can also be guaranteed under the 2D mode. It calculates all this on the fly making the adjustments in real time. Basically it sounds like automatic over/under clocking dependant on load.

The MATRIX’s Hybrid Cooler adjusts fan speed for load, ramping up fan RPMs when it needs cooling and lowering it when the card is not under stress to conserve power. I can dig the power savings aspect given today’s energy prices.

The card looks cool, it reads cool, it’s got some cool sounding names for its components, but I’m interested it how it performs. The hybrid cooler is neat, but my almost two year old laptop has been doing the same thing, it's not that exciting. Asus targeted this for the middle of the road market by using Nvidia’s 9600GT Chipset versus the GTX 260/280 series, or even the 9800 series. We’ll have to wait for shipping cards for an in-depth look to see if it lives up to being as intelligent as Asus claims it to be.

Specifications

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matrix, nvidia, asus, hardware, Video cards, 9600gt, Release, ROG, Hybrid

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