Asus has always been a company synonymous with superb reliability, great performing motherboards and of course some of the best quality nVIDIA based graphics card. Here at OcPrices.com we are currently of the opinion that nVIDIA have dropped the ball somewhat with regards to their FX line of cards, and Asus seem to agree. Not content to sit in the slow lane whilst “powered by ATi” cards rip their FX5950 solution to shreds, Asus is the latest in a line of manufacturers joining the good ship Radeon. We recently took a look at the ATi reference 9800 XT card (review here) and found it to be the fastest card we have ever tested, so it's time to see if the products you can actually buy in the stores are as strong!
The Asus Radeon 9800XT comes in what must be the largest box ever for a graphics card, When the box arrived containing this (plus a 9600XT – review coming soon) I thought it was something more along the lines of a printer. Not so!
Inside the cavernous box you get:
- The copper cooler clad 9800XT
- A VIVO box
- Milti-Video in / TV out Adaptor
- DVI / VGA adaptor
- Battle Engine Aquila
- Gun Metal
- 6in1 Games Collection
- Ulead Cool3d / Photo Express 4.0 SE
- Asus DVD XP
- Power Director Pro
- Media Show
- Asus Drivers and Utilities
- Half Life 2 Voucher
- Software Reference pamphlet
- Hardware Installation Manual
- An Asus Orange clamshell CD holder
Quite a package as you can see – and no doubt a challenge for some of the smaller Powered by ATi partners to compete with. The Asus Radeon 9800 XT is currently retailing for £319 ex VAT at www.chillblast.com compared to £314 for the Sapphire alternative. I think an extra £5 is certainly not unreasonable for all that extra software, and the Asus also comes with an extra 2 years worth of warranty.
