14 DAY TRIAL // In a move that will probably be imitated by more companies, ASUS has stepped forth and announced a number of cards that will be selling in a bundle with Rocksteady Studios' newest game.
Batman: Arkham city, the highly anticipated sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum, got raving reviews.
In other words, pretty much everyone who tested it loved everything about it, except maybe the way people need to learn too many special combos to handle different enemies, but that is still a matter of taste.
Regardless, the game is shaping up to be a huge success so, naturally, ASUS decided to tie in that success with that of its video cards.
Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say it wants to transfer some of that success over to a certain collection of video boards.
The cards in question are eight in number, belong to the NVIDIA 500 series and feature the DirectCU cooler (for the most part).
Bundling the game with NVIDIA cards does make sense, since Batman: Arkham City, like its predecessor, relies heavily on NVIDIA PhysX, not just DirectX 11.
Speaking of DirectCU, is it a dual-slot cooler with copper heatpipes (direct contact with GPU), two 100mm, quiet fans (600% more air that stock cooler) and a sound output of 31 dB at most.
The list of cards that are part of the bundle program goes as follows (includes two non-DirectCU cards):
-ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS/1536MD5 -ENGTX570 DCII/2DIS/1280MD5 -ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5 -ENGTX560 Ti DCII/2DI/1GD5 -ENGTX560 DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5 -ENGTX560 DCII OC/2DI/1GD5 -ENGTX560 Ti DC/2DI/1GD5 -ENGTX560 DC/2DI/1GD5
People who decide to get either board might also wish to download the latest driver, GeForce 285.38 BETA (go here for the Verde notebook driver version).
As for those who plan on experimenting with 3D, they might want to look at the 3D Vision 2 monitors and glasses that the Santa Clara, California-based company launched a short while ago.