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ASUS Extreme AX1900 XTX 512MB CrossFire Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Monday, 19 June 2006 |
3DAvenue shares a review on the ASUS Extreme AX1900 XTX 512MB CrossFire video card. When you look at the Radeon X1900 XTX on paper, it really is an absolute beast. With clock speeds of 650MHz for the core and 1.55GHz on the memory, it is already clearly up there at the top of the pecking order when it comes to current videocard chips, but that's nothing compared to when you look at the fact one Radeon X1900 XTX core has 48 pixel pipelines, 32 more than the Radeon X1800 XT before it, not to mention 512MB of memory. When coupled together in CrossFire, you have a graphics system which has 1.3GHz of total 3D core power.
 ASUS Extreme AX1900 XTX 512MB CrossFire Review
Of course, as we all know, dual video cards doesn't really mean double the performance from a practical standpoint, so combining these specs is meant purely for shock value. Nevertheless, it is clear that combining two Radeon X1900 XTX's together should produce some serious 3D power, and wouldn't you know it, we have two ASUS Extreme AX1900 XTX's right here. For these two beasts to come together in tandem, you need a CrossFire motherboard, preferably one with two 16x PCI Express slots. Quite a few have come onto the market since the ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200 chip has come about.
If there is a problem right now with ATI CrossFire, it is that not a whole lot has yet been done to truly optimize gaming so that it uses all of this raw power. Don't get me wrong, the performance shown here clearly says to me that the most value can be found when you crank your visual quality to the absolute max, but with $1500 for the video cards alone, one has to wonder if waiting until gaming truly starts to utilize dual GPU's before spending that much on video cards is a better idea.This is no surprise, as very few cutting edge technologies get optimized in mainstream gaming right away.
However, it is safe to say that CrossFire and SLI have a place in the future of PC gaming, even if it's just because the second video card will be used for physics processing instead of a dedicated PPU. While those days may be a little while off yet, I still think any new motherboard purchase today pretty much has to feature CrossFire or SLI, even if you don't plan to get a second video card right away. It makes for a worthy and incredibly easy upgrade path in the future and it seems that even if dual video cards don't get special treatment from game developers graphics wise.
It seems that, if ATI, NVIDIA, Havok and game developers can help it, every game PC will have dual video card capabilities sooner rather than later, and that's a pretty strong backing. Overall, I feel very satisfied with my experience with the ASUS products on hand here today, outside of the power drama's which are more my fault than anything else. While the ATI Xpress 3200 chipset has an up hill fight against the NVIDIA nForce SLI chips, I can't really put anything against it, not to mention the ASUS Extreme AX1900 XTX video cards.
While AMD's next processor socket, the AM2 has already started to trickle onto the retail shelves, if you must have the absolute best on offer from them and ATI today, a Radeon X1900 XTX CrossFire system as shown here seems like the way to go. Despite all the changes coming to the AMD platform and the arrival of DirectX 10 hardware down the track, such a system will still be an incredibly powerful rig for a long, long time to come, particularly if you coupled it with a better processor.
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