Zardon

Asus, one of NVIDIA's largest board partners have started shipping their Geforce FX 5800 Ultra product, known as the V9900 Ultra to distributors. We take a look at how the card performs in a wide variety of tests and comment on image quality too.

Asus are well known for their motherboards and VGA cards and it's no surprise that they were showcasing some interesting products on their large stand at CeBIT last month. The V9900 Ultra is what Asus are pinning their hopes on and like we've seen with MSI's 5800 Ultra, a lot of effort has gone into packaging and the exterior features of this card. Why? Because Asus themselves don't make the card. Their involvement with the board itself starts and finishes with putting the sticker on the ducting and putting it back in the anti-static bag.

Why is this so? Apparently because the 12-layer PCB is too difficult for board partners to manufacture at a consistently high levels of quality. It's as complex as a motherboard, or so NVIDIA say, but if we remember correctly Asus and MSI have both dabbled in the motherboard market. From talking to a number of board partners there is very little doubt that most are unhappy with the situation of the FX 5800 Ultra and especially with the number of GPUs they were presented with.

With the politics out of the way, the V9900 Ultra remains a very interesting product. Packaging for the V9900 Ultra is good, and on the front you have the quintessential futuristic image coupled with a few logos at the bottom right hand corner to show what standards this board supports. Also included on the front is information regarding the bundle of software the comes with the board. On the reverse side you have greater information about the board itself and the technologies present. Asus manage to give ample information without drowning the disconcerting buyer with techno-babble.

UK Gamer