After NVIDIA finally launched the new generation of graphics cards AMD has loosened the ties for its partners. AMD’s reply to GeForce GTX 480 has simply been to overclocked Radeon HD 5870 and now ASUS has broadened its assortment with the expected Matrix 5870. The Cypress GPU has been overclocked to 894MHz, which is barely 50MHz more than stock, while the memory buffer has been doubled to 2GB.
The clock frequency of the 2GB GDDR5 memories is set to 4800MHz, the same as the reference, but can easily be overclocked to higher frequencies and more aggressive timings through ASUS iTracker2. iTracker2 also monitors the stability of the card in realtime and downclocks if it sees trouble ahead.
Matrix 5870 offers a new cooler with 22% higher air pressure than the reference cooler and will bring at least 13% lower temperatures.
For extreme overclockers there is also ProbeIt that enables users to measure voltages on-board at marked spots. A much when hitting the records.
The card has three video outputs; DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort.
