ASUS has announced, as the PR states, the world's first hardware based real-time overclocking device for graphics cards, called the OC Gear. It will be shipped with ASUS new top of the line 8600GT that has a good overclocking potential, up to 30% according to ASUS.
We've written about the OC GEAR a few times, but for those that missed it, here is what it's all about. The OC Gear is a 5.25 inch device that has an LED diplay and it can show real time graphics card information like the GPU temperature and current FPS. Additionally it has a knob that can be used to adjust system volume, GPU clock and fan speed. The device itself uses an internal 4-pin USB connector. The GPU Fan speed can only be used in combination with ASUS graphics cards that has a fan control function.
The bundled card has a Geforce 8600GT GPU that works at reference 540MHz. The memory is a different story, at least when considering specification of the used 1ns memory chips, but ASUS still decided to leave it at reference 700MHz (1.4GHz DDR3). The GPU should be able to overclock just fine since ASUS used a non-reference cooler on it. Interestingly the OC Gear doesn't have an memory overclocking option, so you are stuck with 1.4GHz unless you overclock it yourself without the OC Gear.
None the less, the OC Gear is a nice add-on, just as long as it doesn't push the price up too high.