ASUS ENGTS450 DirectCU OC Detailed Features

In this section we shall take an in depth look at the ASUS GTS 450 DirectCU OC and see what is going on beneath the shroud of mystery.

The DirectCU cooler is an interesting design, it seems we have got to a stage where video card partners have realised the need to utilise better coolers on their cards, this isn't good for the aftermarket VGA cooler market but it will save you a few bucks in the long run. The DirectCU cooler uses two 8mm heatpipes in direct contact with the GPU to take the heat into the aluminium fin array where it is dispersed by cool air from the fan, the shroud then channels the air towards the other vital components on board.

Looking at the back of the PCB we can once again see that the layout is nice and clean, all of the action is in the middle (GPU area) the soldering quality is excellent for such tiny components, man loses the war to the machine when it comes to detailed work like this. Those with a keen eye and a curious nature may be wondering what is under that heatsink on the left, those who know there stuff will obviously know...

Under that little heatsink is hiding a uP6206AK 4-Phase voltage controller. Just the mere fact that this is actively cool shows that ASUS means business with this design. Voltage adjustment is advertised on the box so overclocking should be fun.

ASUS have opted for Samsung K4G10325FE-HC05 GDDR5 memory chips, there are eight units in total (four front, four back) for a total 1GB of memory running at 950MHz (3.8GHz effective). The Samsung chips are rated at 4GHz so there is a little play in them yet, all will be revealed in the overclocking portion of this review.

The last chip to point out is the uP6101BU8 memory voltage controller which ASUS have utilized in this design. From the looks of things the board cleaning process could have been better, not that it matters too much, I just like perfection that's all.

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