Asus reveals Matrix graphics cards and Nehalem board

Posted at: 5:20pm 19th August 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

P6T Deluxe features remote overclocking device allows you to overclock your motherboard during benchmarks, while the Matrix graphics cards' Super Hybrid Engine allows you to adjust your graphics card’s GPU and memory voltage

The launch of Intel’s new Core i7 Nehalem processor might still be taunting us from the distance, but Asus has already unveiled its new Socket 1366 P6T Deluxe motherboard for the new CPUs, as well as a bunch of new graphics cards.

Among the P6T Deluxe's interesting new features is a handheld overclocking controller that allows you to overclock your CPU on the fly, even during benchmarks. The device will be available with high-end boards, but Asus also plans to make it available as an optional extra for other compatible motherboards too. While on the subject of overclocking, the board will also include Asus’ Turbo V software overclocking tool, which allows you to adjust the CPU multiplier without rebooting Windows.

As well as this, the P6T Deluxe also features Asus’ Express Gate SSD technology, which allows you to boot to an independent flash-based Linux OS instead of Windows. You will be able to upload Flash games to the onboard flash drive using a thumbdrive too. The P6T Deluxe also takes advantage of the Nehalem core’s triple-channel memory system, with a huge bank of six DIMM slots, and Asus has confirmed that the board will support both SLI and CrossFire multi-GPU technologies.

Asus has chosen an interesting route with the motherboard’s RAID controller too, integrating an SAS (serial attached SCSI) storage chip; a technology that’s usually only used in servers and workstations. In Asus’ own tests, a RAID 0 array of S-ATA drives managed an average read speed of 117MB/sec, but this increased to 179.2MB/sec when using an SAS RAID 0 array – SAS controllers are compatible with both S-ATA and SAS drives. However, unlike a separate SAS card, the board doesn’t have its own processor, so your CPU will bear some of the load. Even so, this is a feature that will be very interesting to test.

Meanwhile, Asus has also unveiled a new series of Matrix graphics cards that feature a hybrid cooler that switches off the fan in 2D mode, while dropping the voltage and core clock speed of the GPU. The graphics cards also feature Asus’ new Super Hybrid Engine; a pair of chips on the graphics card that allow you to directly monitor the GPU, and even adjust the voltage applied to the GPU and memory for overclocking. Three cards have been announced so far, which are based on the GeForce 9600 GT, the GeForce 9800 GT and the Radeon HD 4850 GPUs.

Feast your eyes on the photos that CPC correspondent Antony Leather has sent us from Germany, and if you want more details, check out our follow up story.