Asus 9800 GTX+ Dark Knight

INTRODUCTION

With the release of the newest Batman movie, there has been a lot of talk about the Dark Knight lately, so much so that Asus decided to name a custom card using the same name. This card has four heat pipes. Heat pipes have been proven on many occasions to help the flow of heat immensely. Rarely do you ever see heat pipes used on any video card, even special edition cards. Heat pipes are usually reserved for the best after market GPU coolers. It should be interesting to see how these heat pipes affect overclocking.

What would the Dark Knight name be without a cool design to go with it? That is why Asus has painted the GPU cooler a cool black/silverish color along with a blue PCB. I feel that Asus really succeeds with the look of the Dark Knight, but can it perform just as good as the true Dark Knight? With the custom GPU cooler, Asus hopes that you will be able to overclock your heart out with this card, and thus achieve higher frame rates.

As many of us know, generally, if you lower temperatures, your max overclock will be increased. With higher overclocks more performance is possible. Today, we will see if this cooler is up to the task of doing a lot of overclocking, and ultimately performing better than ATI's competing card, the HD 4850.

About Asus

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 company in the new digital era, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium.

In 2007, one in three desktop PCs sold was powered by an ASUS motherboard; and the company's 2007 revenues reached US$6.9 billion.

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. To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, great products need to be complimented by speed-to-market, cost and service. That's why all 8,000 over employees of ASUS strive for the "ASUS Way of Total Quality Management" to offer the best quality without compromising cost and time-to-market while providing maximum value to all customers through world-class services.

With unyielding commitment to innovation and quality, ASUS won 2,568 awards in 2007, meaning on average, the company received over 7 awards every day last year. BusinessWeek has ranked ASUS amongst its InfoTech 100 for the 10th straight year; and the company is ranked as No.1 in quality products and services by the Wall Street Journal. ASUS has also achieved the number one title on the annual league table of Taiwan Top 10 Global Brands with a brand value of 11.96 billion US dollars.