MaximumPC 2004 11

Reviews

S

itting before you are two

seemingly similar GeForce

6800 videocards. They both

sport 256MB of GDDR3 memory,

they both cost $400, and they both

promise exceptional performance in

3D games. But one of these cards is

not what it appears. Which will it be,

the Asus V9999 Gamer Edition or the

XFX GeForce 6800 GT?

—WILL SMITH

Asus V9999 Gamer Edition

Normally you can count on Asus

to deliver quality, high-perfor-

mance products, but the V9999

Gamer Edition really let us

down. Instead of a

top-class video-

card with a nice

bundle at a com-

petitive price, we got

a half-assed videocard

with a crappy bundle

that’s clearly overpriced.

Even worse, the card’s pack-

aging is misleading—Asus

claims that the GeForce 6800-

line GPUs have 16 pipelines when

in fact the plain-vanilla GeForce

6800 board in the Asus box

includes just 12. Boo! Hiss!

When we fired up the V9999 for

testing, our fears were confirmed.

The board performed like a $300 vid-

eocard despite its $400 price tag. Our

sinking feeling deepened when we

began testing programmable shader

games—like Far Cry and Doom 3. The

V9999 Gamer was soundly trounced

in every benchmark by the XFX

GeForce 6800 GT.

OK, but suppose you’re shopping

for a

vanilla GeForce

6800? What does the

Asus board offer that other

6800 boards don’t? Near as we can

tell, all you get is a webcam and a

fancy box with a handle. Handled

boxes do not a gaming videocard

make. We demand performance.

XFX GeForce 6800 GT

XFX is a relative newcomer to the

graphics scene in the US, but the

Chinese company has certainly

done its homework. The XFX

GeForce 6800 GT has just about

everything we look for in a mid-

range videocard.

XFX paired a stock GeForce 6800

GT GPU with 256MB of 256-bit

GDDR3 memory. Like the 6800 GT

board from BFG that we reviewed

in August, it runs with a 370MHz

core and 500MHz memory clock.

Most importantly, like the other

6800 GT boards we’ve tested, 16

pipelines provide the maximum

level of pixel lovin’.

When we plugged the XFX board

into our test machine, its perfor-

mance blew us away. It’s damn near

as fast as the more expensive GeForce

6800 Ultra, and uses only a single

slot (GeForce 6800 Ultra boards

require two slots to accommodate a

larger cooling solution).

The card we tested includes the

standard DVI, VGA, and S-Video

outputs, and a dual-DVI option is

available for about the same price.

An extra-special touch we appreciate

is that the XFX package also includes

the full version of Doom 3, making

it the first bundle we’ve seen in ages

that’s worth mentioning. We look

forward to more kick-ass videocards

from XFX in the future.

74 MA XIMUMPC NOVEMBER 2004

Videocard Vichyssoise

All GeForce 6800s are not created equal. Choose wisely

or get stuck with a card that sucks more than cold soup

The XFX GeForce

6800 GT is faster than

a speeding bullet and

comes bundled with

Doom 3!

It didn’t catch our system on fire.

HOT POCKETS

COLD SOUP

Misleading packaging. Buyer beware: Do your

research so you don’t get stuck with a 12-pipe board.

$400, http://www.asus.com

MA XIMUMPC VERDICT 5

Asus V9999 Gamer Ed.

Don’t let

its packaging

fool you,

the Asus

V9999 Gamer

Edition is not

the GeForce

6800 GT or

Ultra that it

purports to

be; instead it’s

an overpriced,

standard

GeForce 6800.

BENCHMARKS Asus V9999 Gamer Edition XFX GeForce 6800 GT

3DMark 2003 Overall (Default) 9,756 10,998

3DMark Game 2 (Default) 75.4 fps 87.4 fps

3DMark Game 4 (Default) 51.4 fps 58.7 fps

3DMark 2003 Overall (High Quality) 3,260 3,748

3DMark 2003 Game 2 (High Quality) 21.8 fps 24.9 fps

UT2003 Flyby 215 fps 251.7 fps

Far Cry 1.1 59.1 fps 61.5 fps

Halo 45.1 fps 54.4 fps

Doom 3 demo1 66.3 fps 74.1 fps

Best scores are bolded. All benchmarks are run at 1600x1200 except for Far Cry and Doom 3, which are run at 1280x1024,

and the default 3DMark test, which is run at its default settings. High Quality 3DMark 2003 is run at 1600x1200 with 4x AA

and 4x anisotropic filtering. There will be no more hippopotamus trivia.

Nearly as fast as a 6800 Ultra, but $100 cheaper.

Includes Doom 3 in the box!

THE TWILIGHT ZONE (1960S)

THE TWILIGHT ZONE (1980S)

We’d prefer the flexibility of a dual-DVI card to

a DVI/VGA hybrid.

$400, http://www.xfxgraphics.com

MA XIMUMPC VERDICT 9

XFX GeForce 6800 GT