Card appearance and thoughts
Our sample was clocked in at 580.5MHz core and 1404MHz memory, making it a touch faster than a reference card's 575/1380 speeds.
Other than the heatpipe protruding from the top of the card and the new white casing on the heatsink, there's not much to differentiate the ASUS EAX1950PRO from any other X1950 Pro reference card.
As with the reference cooler design, this heatsink actively cools the memory chips, and it manages to do so slightly better than the reference model. The ASUS SKU managed idle/load temperatures of 39°C/59°C, respectively, bettering the 43°C/68°C for a reference-based card.
The ASUS EAX1950PRO also manages to effectively cool without creating a horrific screeching whine. As with the reference cooler it's pretty quiet when it's running at full speed. When the card is idling, the fan only spins at 20 per cent, which, really, is practically inaudible.
From the side-on shot the card looks stylish. It's as if it dropped right out of a space odyssey, so it's a pity you'll never see the card in this orientation apart from when you're installing it. As you can see, the cooler covers all the memory chips and the power regulators on the topside of the card.
From this angle you can see where the heatpipe comes into contact with the cooling fins at the back of the card. This provides a secondary path for cooling and maximises the efficiency of the cooler.
You can also see the dual DVI ports, both of which are dual-link-capable and HDCP compliant. The socket between the two is a DIN port, which provides TV-Out via a supplied dongle. As with many other X1950 Pro cards there's no VIVO ASIC here, so the card, obviously, doesn't support video-in.
Although this card isn't the CrossFire Edition it does, of course, come with the golden fingers that are required to connect two cards together in CrossFire mode. All that's missing from the box are the CrossFire connectors.
It's difficult to get hold of the CrossFire Edition of this card at the moment, and no doubt when this SKU approaches EOL (End Of Line) this problem will only get worse. However, ASUS has stated that it will ship the end user the cables if they do find themselves in this situation. So, as with most things: don't ask, don't get!
