ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II OC Review

Up Close

The packaging for the DirectCU II OC continues the excellent trend of recent ASUS designs, with everything clearly laid out and easy on the eye. It’s always easy to over-egg the pudding, and so it’s wonderful to have something that is both simple and informative.

      

The card itself is plain black and quite stealthy looking. It would blend into any colour scheme of your choosing. Should you have either of the two recent ASUS offerings they provide both red and gold sticker options to help finalise the harmonious colour scheme. Personally we’d have also liked to see some blue ones, not only for those with blue systems, but because even until very recently a lot of ASUS motherboards are black and blue.

      

Unlike one card we reviewed recently the branding is facing the right way, and with a sturdy back plate you can be assured that even under the harsh temperatures of the latest Radeon cards, you wont suffer from any PCB warping.

Power is provided by the 8+6 pin arrangement, and you can also see the beefy heat-pipe that forms the backbone of the Direct Contact heatsink.

      

The leading edge contains spaces for the ROG Connect monitoring system, and tucked away you can just catch a glimpse of the high quality CAPs that form part of the 6+4 phase power.

      

Similarly to the standard R9 290X the ASUS model has no Crossfire fingers, with everything being handled by the motherboard. At the business end we have the common Radeon DisplayPort/HDMI/DVI outputs.