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ASUS Extreme N5900 & AX600 XT 128MB PCI-E Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Sunday, 26 September 2004 |
This weekend Hexus has published their review on the ASUS Extreme N5900 128MB PCIe and ASUS Extreme AX600 XT 128MB PCIe graphics cards. PCI Express is the buzzword in the graphics card industry right now. It kind of makes implicit sense, too. Before PCI Express (PCIe), the preferred protocol for transferring data to and from a graphics card was AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port). Its 32-bit-wide data bus is pegged at 66MHz. A bit of simple maths and you'll discover that standard AGP has a transfer rate of 264MB/s. Current protocol speed is up to 8X standard, or around 2.1GB/s bandwidth. That's fine and well for older games but newer titles utilise massive texture data that will, in a while, begin to swamp the bus' bandwidth ability. Not only that, the PCIe protocol ensures that bandwidth is reserved when needed, HDTV, for example.
 ASUS Extreme N5900 & AX600 XT 128MB PCI-E Review
PCI-Express, as a viable gaming platform, is taking shape now. The choice of GPU is widening, thanks to ATI and NVIDIA's recent efforts. Check any reasonable e-tailer's graphics catalogue and you'll find that PCIe-based cards are now beginning to rival their AGP counterparts in terms of availability and choice. ASUS has been a lead instigator in ensuring widespread PCIe adoption. In terms of the review cards today, it's clear that the Extreme N5900, a card directly derived from a premium GPU, is the performance leader. A 256-bit memory bus and dual texture units helps it outmuscle the 128-bit-equipped Extreme AX600 XT in most cases.
ASUS is to be commended for the cards' stock performance, though, as both utilise RAM that natively runs considerably faster than rivals'. Other commendations include the excellent associated bundles that both feature SmartDoctor, a 3-year limited warranty, and VIVO capability (HDTV for the Extreme AX600 XT!). Big-name cards and decent bundles usually come at a price. That price is a financial one. The GeForce PCX5900 based Extreme N5900 retails at around £165 and the Extreme AX600 XT at around £130. That's between 10-20% above partners such as Sapphire and PowerColor, for example. Whether the extra expense for ASUS-branded cards is justifiable is up to each individual to assess.
The main problem that we see facing both cards is the technology they're based upon. Benchmark graphs also showed the relative performance of a GeForce 6800 GT 256MB card, which was often double or treble either midrange cards'. Cheaper derivatives of the NV40 design, vanilla GeForce 6800 and 6600 GT, as well as ATI's upcoming Radeon X700 XT, will begin to encroach on GeForce PCX5900 and Radeon X600 XT pricing territory. These newer cards are fundamentally better in almost every regard, so waiting a couple of months may be the prudent thing to do in the £150 graphics card category.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 18 January 2006 )
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ASUS 9800GX2 PCIe 1024MB - Rev 01
