14 DAY TRIAL // Asus announced the new high performance graphics card EAH2900XT AquaTank/G/HTVDI/512M that is using the high performance AquaTank cooling technology to keep the hot R600 video chip inside the Radeon HD 2900XT graphics card running at decent temperatures. Along with the AquaTank liquid cooling kit, this latest graphics card from Asus comes equipped with a stylish heatsink and an exclusive bundle of three of the most acclaimed games of the year: .T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadows of Chernobyl and RACE THE WTCC, together with a coupon for Valve's "The Black Box" game bundle.
The video card itself, without any other bells and whistles, is pretty impressive. We are talking here about a RADEON HD2900XT card that is based on the new R600 chip from AMD. To back up that powerful graphics chip running at no less than 740MHz, Asus integrated 512MB of DDR3 video memory, that has a wide data interface of 512 bits. Like all new graphics cards, this one uses a high memory clock frequency too, reaching up to 1.65GHz or 825MHz real frequency. As the AGP is an obsolete standard, all new video cards are using the better and faster PCI Express X16 bus standard and the Asus EAH2900XT is no exception. In order to be compatible with the latest video standards of the industry, Asus used a huge number of connectors, so the card ends up supporting VIVO, standard VGA output, HDTV, dual DVI and on top of everything it is HDCP compliant.
The second part of the new Asus graphics card is the liquid cooling AquaTank solution that unlike most cooling solutions available on market today comes with thicker water pipes to carry away more heat and a larger coolant unit to hold more liquid. As the radiator unit has a special design and it is made entirely of copper, it has a great efficiency providing lower temperatures for better performance. According to an Asus press release the AquaTank cooling solution is able to achieve lower GPU temperatures with as much as 10 degrees Celsius than the standard graphics card specifiactions. "Compared with other DIY upgrade kits, users can easily utilize the EAH2900XT Aquatank's simple two-step installation with the all-in-one module design. Furthermore, the Water Flow Alarm alerts the user when coolant stops flowing and the water level on the tank itself gives users a gauge as to when a refill is needed. Additionally, coolant refills can be easily accomplished by simply unscrewing the button on the water tank side; and the enhanced pipe connector design ensures that there is no danger of coolant leakage".