Asus EAX1800XT Top

[Matt555]

The gaming masses pointed and laughed at the preliminary photos of 3dfx's Voodoo5 6000 in 2000, partly because it had four fans, but mainly because it came with a huge external power brick. Few people would have thought that 3dfx was actually ahead of its time back then, but Asus certainly seems to have followed the now defunct graphics company's lead when it comes to power supplies. So far, Asus has supplied an external PSU with its ludicrous dual-GPU cards, and ow it now supplies one with a much more mainstream product, the EAX1800XT Top.

The card is basically a pre-overclocked Radeon X1800XT, and the opeional external PSU means that you won't have to shell out for a whole new PSU if you suspect that your existing power supply isn't up to the task. This is a great idea when you think about it, and it certainly helps to justify the asking price of £464 inc VAT.

So what else do you get for your money? Well you get a Radeon X1800XT that's been overclocked from 625MHz to 700MHz, and 512MB od GDDR3 memory that's been overclocked from 750MHz (1.5GHz effective) to 800MHz (1.6GHz efective). The result is a card that Asus reckons can rival Nvidia's clocked-up GeForce 7800GTx 512.

Asus could well be right. The card's performance in F.E.A.R. was absolutely fantastic with an average frame rate that was 8fps faster than that of the GeForce 7800GYx 512 at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x AA and 8x AF. In the other benchmarks, though, the performance difference was negligible. In some of the lower resolution tests, the Asus card was slightly faster than the Nvidia card, although the 7800GTX 512 swas quicker in Quake 4 and Battlefield 2 when it was running at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x AA and 8x AF.

That said the performance difference between the two cards at high resolutions was only a few frames per second, and neither card can produce a playable frame rate in Quake 4 at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x AA and 8x AF anyway.

The Asus EAX1800XT Top isn't cheap compared with the £429 GeForce GTX 512, but the external PSU will certainly be a worthwhile addition for some people, as will the Asus gamepad and superb game bundle which includes Peter Jackson's King Kong. Plus like the GeForce 7800 GTX 512, the Asus card's dual-slot cooler, which was designed by Arctic Cooling, is also really quiet. In short, despite its cumbersome design, this card looks set to offer great 3D speed and a decent bundle

Here are the benchmarks for the card:

Battlefield 2:
1024 x 768 0x AA high AF
Minimum FPS - 64
Average FPS - 87
1280 x 1024 2x AA high AF
Minimum FPS - 63
Average FPS - 87
1280 x 1024 4x AA high AF
Minimum FPS - 62
Average FPS - 86
1600 x 1200 4x AA high AF
Minimum FPS - 54
Average FPS - 73

F.E.A.R.
1024 x 768 0x AA 0x AF
Minimum FPS - 46
Average FPS - 97
1280 x 960 2x AA 2x AF
Minimum FPS - 37
Average FPS - 73
1280 x 960 4xAA 8x AF
Minimum FPS - 31
Average FPS - 60
1600 x 1200 4x AA 8x AF
Minimum FPS - 25
Average FPS - 43

Quake 4
1024 x 768 0x AA 8x AF
Minimum FPS - 46
Average FPS - 97
1280 x 1024 2x AA 8x AF
Minimum FPS - 35
Average FPS - 58
1280 x 1024 4x AA 8x AF
Minimum FPS - 32
Average FPS - 58
1600 x 1200 4x AA 8x AF
Minimum FPS - 16
Average FPS - 45

Test Kit: 2.6GHz AMD Athlon FX-55 overclocked to 2.8GHz, Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard, 2GB Corsair XMS3500LLPRO, Windows XP SP2, Catalyst 5.11

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Just thought I'd enlighten you on this product from ASUS, the article from CUSTOMPC magazine. I personally like the idea of the PSU they give you with it, means that people don't have to worry about whether they're current PSU could provide the juice needed...

If a mod/admin deems this post to be un-neccessary then by all means delete it.

 

[pelvis_3]

It's a beast of a card but hot damn it's ugly!

 

[Addis]

Maybe some people find graphics cards which have a bit of an excessive cooler sexy ;)
Ignore that comment...

 

[Matt555]

Hehe, I agree with pelvis_3, it's ugly, but not all big coolers are ugly, Arctic Cooling Silencers aren't bad and the ICEQII cooling on HIS graphics cards is awesome, made by Arctic Cooling (basically the same as a Silencer I think but with blue fan blades and blue LED's).

I quite like my cooler, not flashy but rather nice. (Vantec Iceberq 5 Permium VGA Cooling Kit...)