ASUS finished its week with an update to its EN8800GT video cards. The new version of the company's GeForce 8800 GT card is the first to carry 1GB of video memory and increases the amount of space for textures and other data that can sometimes choke performance on the stock 512MB card. This is especially useful at the very highest resolutions and game detail settings, the company says. The card further veers away from NVIDIA's reference model using a custom heatsink and fan combo that ASUS claims will drop the running temperature of the card by 7C (44F) and result in either a more reliable card or more headroom for overclocking.

To match the hardware, ASUS bundles an overclocking utility which is purportedly first to allow boosting the shader clock speed independently of the main core as well as the memory. This can typically boost performance by 10 percent in benchmarks, the company claims. The 1GB card ships at NVIDIA's default 600MHz core and 1.8GHz effective memory speeds and comes with dual dual-link DVI outputs that support 30-inch displays. ASUS typically does not announce exact availability but should make the 1GB card available above the $250 price of 512MB cards in the US.