Asus Extreme N6600GT x 2 - Revisiting SLI

Name: Asus Extreme N6600GT x 2 - Revisiting SLI - Page 2
Brand: Asus

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, April 19, 2005, 03:00 PM EDT

Asus didn't stray too far from NVIDIA's PCI Express GeForce 6600 GT reference design, but there are some notable differences that set the Extreme N6600GT apart from other plain-vanilla GeForce 6600 GTs in its class...

Asus Extreme N6600GT - PCI Express

A Reference Card Gets a Makeover

The Asus Extreme N6600GT is equipped with an 8-pipe GeForce 6600 GT GPU clocked at 500MHz and 128MB of GDDR3 Samsung RAM (K4J55323QF-GC20), clocked at 1GHz (500MHz DDR). These specifications match NVIDIA's reference design exactly, but unlike many other GeForce 6600 GTs, the Asus Extreme N6600GT is outfitted with a custom copper GPU cooler, and heatsinks over all of the RAM chips; which reside only on one side of the board. NVIDIA's reference design calls for a similarly-shaped aluminum cooler, but doesn't have any additional heatsinks on the RAM. Asus also uses a dark blue PCB with the N6600GT, which further distinguishes this card from its competition.

Other than what we've already mentioned though, the Asus Extreme N6600GT doesn't differ much from other GeForce 6600 GT cards. The N6600 has the same overall board / component layout, the SLI connector is in the same location, and the card doesn't require any supplemental power. The 75w offered up by a standard PCI Express x16 slot is adequate. The external plate is home to a single DB15 analog monitor output, a single DVI output, and an S-Video / TV-out connector. Any two of these outputs can be used concurrently to drive independent displays.

Tags: Asus, sli, Xtreme, extreme, revisit, GT, XT, ting, eme

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com