Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A Videocard Review @ PCstats.com

Iria · May 19, 2006, 10:19 PM

Review: PCstats
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Did you know that the smallest PCI Express connection, the PCI Express x1 slot, offers peripheral dedicated bandwidth that is almost the same as what the entire PCI bus had to offer? The videocard friendly PCI Express x16 slot dishes out four times the bandwidth that the 8x AGP bus provided... that's four times. If your PC is still powered by any graphics card with the words AGP emblazoned on it, it really is high time you upgraded.

As an incentive to move towards the more advanced PCI Express technology, virtually all manufacturers are releasing the coolest graphics cores and technologies almost exclusively in PCI Express flavours. While the odd AGP videocard will surface once a year, it is really is a retired technology with no guarantee of upgradability. PCI Express is much more versatile, and there are all sorts of high bandwidth peripherals like Serial ATA RAID controllers, Gigabit NICs and SCSI cards hitting the market to take advantage of.

My personal favorite are PCI Express videocards, and particularly 100% silent videocards. Devices like the Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A videocard won't eat up the 8GB/s worth of bandwidth the PCI Express x16 bus has to offer, but this passively cooled graphics card strikes a good balance between price and 3D rendering power. With a retail price of $193 CDN ($175 US, £94 GBP), the EAX1600XT Silent is a very versatile videocard thanks to its silent cooling system and ATi Radeon X1600XT graphics processing unit.

May 19, 2006, 10:19 PM	#1
Iria DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 7,275 Rep Power: 89	Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A Videocard Review @ PCstats.com Review: PCstats ____________ Did you know that the smallest PCI Express connection, the PCI Express x1 slot, offers peripheral dedicated bandwidth that is almost the same as what the entire PCI bus had to offer? The videocard friendly PCI Express x16 slot dishes out four times the bandwidth that the 8x AGP bus provided... that's four times. If your PC is still powered by any graphics card with the words AGP emblazoned on it, it really is high time you upgraded. As an incentive to move towards the more advanced PCI Express technology, virtually all manufacturers are releasing the coolest graphics cores and technologies almost exclusively in PCI Express flavours. While the odd AGP videocard will surface once a year, it is really is a retired technology with no guarantee of upgradability. PCI Express is much more versatile, and there are all sorts of high bandwidth peripherals like Serial ATA RAID controllers, Gigabit NICs and SCSI cards hitting the market to take advantage of. My personal favorite are PCI Express videocards, and particularly 100% silent videocards. Devices like the Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A videocard won't eat up the 8GB/s worth of bandwidth the PCI Express x16 bus has to offer, but this passively cooled graphics card strikes a good balance between price and 3D rendering power. With a retail price of $193 CDN ($175 US, £94 GBP), the EAX1600XT Silent is a very versatile videocard thanks to its silent cooling system and ATi Radeon X1600XT graphics processing unit.