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ASUS Extreme N5900 Review |
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Written by Phyro
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Saturday, 23 October 2004 |
Viper Lair has published a review on the ASUS Extreme N5900 PCIe graphics card. When PCI Express was first announced, it was a very exciting time. So many possibilities, and none of them had been quashed, as yet. As much as I wanted to have that first crack at holding and benchmarking the latest, I knew that there were other, just as important things that needed to be done. One of them being, getting the technology to a point that can be used by more than just the willing to empty the wallet enthusiasts.
 ASUS Extreme N5900 Review
ASUS, one of the premiere names when it comes to motherboards, has also been tagged a premium name in the graphics arena over the past several years. Not wanting to settle on one camp in the Graphics marketplace, you will find them with both NVIDIA and ATI based solutions. A smart move in this leap frog industry where if you are top dog today, chances are, a week from
today, your not. Today I get to look over the mid-range contender from ASUS on the NVIDIA line, the ASUS Extreme N5900. Based on
the NVIDIA GeForce PCX 5900
GPU carrying 128MB or 256MB of DDR all sitting on a PCIe interface.
While
NVIDIA has made great strides in overcoming the overwhelming lead ATI had just a year ago, there are still some inherent issues.
The first and foremost on my mind, what is going on with overclocking actually reducing in performance? Is this a bridge to PCIe experience or something that ASUS has done to enhance the base performance of this card? Mind you, ASUS has already underclocked the Extreme N5900 GPU to 375MHz,
is this for a reason?
Overall I like the Extreme N5900, it is a good looking card, plays the newer games at very respectable rates and falls into a price point a lot of us can afford. One bright spot is that the ASUS Extreme N5900 is available now. However, it is a matter of time before we start seeing the GeForce 6600 series (as well as ATI's X700) come to market, and based on what we've seen, those cards are going to be a lot faster than the N5900.
While the card was compared against AGP setups, we felt it was worthwhile to demonstrate mainstream platform performance. If you are sitting on
18 month old plus technology, this card could be at the price point that makes it all worthwhile (considering you'll have to spend quite a bit to get there), as well as giving you the gain in game performance you have been
requiring...
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Last Updated ( Friday, 15 July 2005 )
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EVGA 9600GT (SC) PCIe 512MB - Rev 01
