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ASUS V9999 256MB AGP Gamer Edition Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Thursday, 07 October 2004 |
Digit-Life has send word that they published their review on the ASUS V9999 256MB AGP Gamer Edition video card. Today we present an unusual article. Firstly, we'll examine an original ASUS creation, some hybrid of the GeForce 6800 series. Secondly, we are very curious to compare GeForce 6800 cards with various memory capacities, because this question is still a subject of much controversy among users and our readers. But at first let's lament once again over the fact that autumn has come, but the mass sales of various GeForce 6800 cards are not yet to be seen. Sales volumes are rising very slowly, mainly of GeForce 6800. To say nothing of the GeForce 6800 Ultra, this product is extremely rare.
 ASUS V9999 256MB AGP Gamer Edition Review
But we hope that in the long run NVIDIA together with IBM will deal with their problems, and the entire GeForce 6800 series will be openly on sale (if you have the money, of course!). So, we have reviewed a very interesting video card. As I have already written before, ASUS V9999 Gamer Edition is a hybrid between the three representatives of the GeForce 6800 series: the core from the GeForce 6800, the frequencies and the memory capacity from the GeForce 6800 GT, PCB from the GeForce 6800 Ultra.
The video card is very good and may interest overclockers (we managed to obtain the operating frequencies of 455/1140MHz on our sample video card, quite enough to reach the performance of the GeForce 6800 Ultra). Comparisons of the GeForce 6800 video cards with different memory capacities demonstrated that the 256MB are useful only at 1600x1200 with active AA. But the gameplay in such modes in modern games is as a rule below critical and is not of practical interest.
The video card is very stylish, it features illumination (owners of open or semitransparent PC cases should rejoice), perfect workmanship, and the operating stability proved in our tests, these are the pros. Plus versatile monitoring via the SmartDoctor utility (though the program has its drawbacks). That's on one scale. Plus a decent addon in the form of a victory over the Radeon X800 PRO in some games.
On the other scale is just... a price. For now, in mid September, it costs $480-500, which is certainly no go, because GeForce 6800 GT (which is surely faster) can be bought at a smaller price. Let's hope that this, ahem, behavior of trade organizations will change and the prices will go down to the affordable level (about $400). At least all these luxurious bundles and illumination must not raise the prices higher than those for models, which are senior in performance.
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ASUS 9800GTX+ (DK) PCIe 512MB - Rev 01
