ASUS EAX1600XT SILENT
Author:
Date: 19.04.2006 |
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We ran the tests on the following test bench:
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Motherboard
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ECS KN1SLI Extreme nForce4 SLI;
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Processor
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AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.00 GHz, 512 K, Socket 939);
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Memory
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2х DDR400 512 MB PQI PC3200;
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Hard disk:
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Samsung HD080HJ 80 GB 7200 rpm 8 MB SATA-300;
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PSU
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SuperPower 480X 480 W;
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Operating system
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Microsoft Windows XP SP2;
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Drivers
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ATI Catalyst 6.3 WHQL
NVIDIA ForceWare 84.21 WHQL.
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Benchmarking results
The first OpenGL test shows a substantial superiority over the GeForce 6600GT and some lag from GeForce 6800GS which is of approximately the same price but differs in greater power consumption and noisier cooling system.
Futuremark 3DMark'03 leaves all on their places although with some results. The overclocking of GPU by 23% improves the performance of ASUS EAX1600XT by merely 10%.
The more shader instructions processed, the better the x1600 series GPUs perform. And at Futuremark 3DMark'05, Radeon X1600XT takes a lead over GeForce 6800GS, which is caused by not the architectural features but the clock speeds.
The latest 3DMark shows demonstrates a change of leadership. Interestingly, in the SM2.0 tests the results for Radeon X1600XT and GeForce 6800GS are about the same, and at the advanced technologies SM3.0 and HDR the leadership crown goes to GeForce 6800GS maybe due the high-end origin of the architecture or due to the 256 bit wide memory bus.
At this "brute-force" test, because Quake 3 has no shader operations, Radeon X1600XT loses to even GeForce 6600GT.
Far Cry updated to the latest version is so demanding that the CPU resources are insufficient to handle 50 FPS. So the major differences should be seen in only high resolutions where X1600XT shows not the best results.
Half-Life 2 offers a more up-to-date graphics engine, but the result does not change - X1600XT shows merely the third result. Transition to the more promising HDR mode in Lost Coast does not change the situation either.
Serious Sam 2 fixes the situation a bit, especially after overclocking but we expected more.
Doom 3 and Quake 4 have long been regarded as a patrimony of NVIDIA graphic processors, so there is no wonder about the results.
Radeon X1600XT was able to cope with the most demanding graphics engine of F.E.A.R., the results proved really impressive indeed, and overclocking moved it to the first place.
Final words
As regards the results for ATi Radeon X1600XT, we have made conclusions regarding is capabilities repeatedly, but let me briefly remind - it offers a good price/performance ratio. But in the case with ASUS EAX1600XT SILENT no all is so straightforward. The superb noiseless cooling system on heat pipes installed on it provides comfortable operation and this comfort costs a lot. With this money, you can buy a bit more powerful solution in the form of GeForce 6800GS, and soon GeForce 7600GT will turn cheaper as well. But will these powerful alternatives be able providing a zero noise level? Here it is up to the buyer to decide what is more suitable - the speed or quietness. If quietness appears to be more important, then ASUS EAX1600XT SILENT will be an excellent choice.
We appreciate "Servis" company (city of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine) for the video cards presented for tests.
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