ASUS ENGTX 570 Direct CU II - The Monster is Quite Quiet

ASUS had launched a series of graphics cards with the DirectCU based technology; a few weeks back we reviewed the ASUS GTX 580 and it is one of the fastest cards around. Today, we see yet another one from NVIDIA’s stable - the ASUS GTX 570 DircetCU II.

Really, really BIG!

Many manufacturers of GPU’s work on the base design of an AMD or NVIDIA graphics card and incorporate their own tweaks and features in them. ASUS follows suit and has worked on the base design of NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 570 and added features such as DirectCU with dual fan design, a voltage tweak, factory overclocked among other nifty additions.

This card is designed for people who are hard core gamers and are looking for a solution in the price range between Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 25,000. Let us see how the GTX 570 DirectCU II fared in comparison to its powerful bigger brother.

HDMI,DisplayPort and 2 DVI ports

Design and Features
The reference design of the GTX 570 is quite different as compared to the ASUS GTX 570 DirectCU II version. The most noticeable differences one sees when they look at the card are its size and dual fans. This is a big card and it takes up three slots on an average ATX motherboard. The design of this card is similar to other DirectCU II cards made by ASUS which can be seen in the form of the GTX 580, this design is not limited to NVIDIA cards; ASUS has used this similar design on AMD cards, as well. The major advantage of this design is that it offers immense cooling. With DirectCU II, this card may be a big card but cooling on this card works like a charm. ASUS has fitted five copper heat pipes in direct contact with the GPU to speed up heat dissipation. Further to this, DirectCU II takes cooling to the next level with the 80mm fans.

The ASUS  GTX 570 Direct CU II comes overclocked at 742MHz, while the base version was clocked at 732MHz. The very slight bump in the GPU is pretty much negligible. The video memory on this card is GDDR5 1280 MB which is the same on the stock version from NVIDIA. 

This card features the same ports found on the GTX 580 DirectCU II. These connectivity ports include a HDMI port, a DisplayPort and 2 DVI ports. This card like most of NVIDIA’s recent cards can support 3D content. Unlike AMD GPU’s which have Eyefinity and can support up to 6 video displays, this card can support a maximum of two displays at the same time. For more displays to be added an addition card is required.  Bundled up with the GTX 570 is a SLI cable. However, ASUS says that one must check the space of their motherboard slot before using SLI. Like the GTX 580, this card can support 3-way SLI.

The ASUS GTX 570 DirectCU II requires 219W of power to run. It has 6-pin and 8-pin power connectors while the base version has two 6 pin power connectors. The GTX 580 has two 8 pin power connectors.