Great Card - So So Manufacturer
Written: Jun 26 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fast & beautiful
Cons: Runs hot. Little or no support.
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| egale's Full Review: Asus AGP-6800 |
When I rebuilt my system a few months ago, I knew I wanted a GeForce DDR card. There was nothing on the market that even came close. I also knew it had to be a GeForce card with DDR memory. DDR (Double Data Rate I believe) works twice as fast as normal memory so the GeForce cards with DDR memory tested quite a bit faster in all the reviews I read.
I picked Asus because they have a reputation of making high quality products and the reviews seemed to favor the card. The V6800 comes in two flavors, Pure & Deluxe. The Pure is the basic video card without the bells and whistles and the Deluxe came with 3D glasses and a TV out adapter. I decided to go for the Pure. I once had a video card that came with similar 3D glasses. First, there are only a very limited number of titles that it would work with and second, it came with a warning that children under 5 should not use the glasses as it may cause serious permanent eye damage. I don't know if these glasses are any different but I don't want to even chance it. As far as TV out, I have a 19" monitor and I know I am not going to be using a TV as a monitor.
Installing was a snap. Video quality is excellent and it so fast! With the 3.68 drivers that shipped with the card, compatibility was very good. Only a few things wouldn't run properly. Need for Speed - Porche was one and that would bring me to the desktop as soon as the race started. My Hauppauge TV tuner had some problems as well. It was viewable most of the time but made me fiddle with it whenever I changed the screen size. Nvidia has since released 5.22 drivers that run Need for Speed, my tv tuner and are a bit faster in general overall.
As good as this card is, I still have a few issues. One is that this card runs hot, usually between 56 - 62 C. The card comes with a utility that monitors the card and its temperature. It is telling me everything is ok but I worry anyway. Hopefully this is normal for this card.
The second issue is support. As good as their products may be, it is spoiled by their lack of support. The current NVidia reference driver is 5.22. Asus has only released a 3.75 driver. You can download a 5.16 Asus beta but the 5.16 drivers still do not work with my tv card plus they have problems waking up from sleep mode if you have your system configured as such. Who knows when they will release up to date drivers. Even worse is their complete lack of tech support.
I own both an Asus motherboard and video card. Many times I have emailed their tech support department both in the U.S. and in Taiwan and have never received an answer. A few weeks ago in frustration, I emailed their sales department. I told them about their horrible support and how it was going to lose them customers. I also asked them to pass this along to the tech support department and see if they could get them to answer. I finally received a one line reply a few days later from the sales department which said "What was your question again?"
I wrote out the question again, sent it to the sales department and waited some more. A few days later I get a reply from the tech support department. They did not answer my question in their reply and they said outright that they do not answer email. On their web page, they also have a tech support forum. Guess what, they don't answer any questions there as well. You can call them. It's a toll call to California and you may wait up to 40 minutes or so but its no better than email. The few times I have called, my questions/problems were not resolved. The people I spoke to were no more technical than I was and some barely even spoke English.
Overall its a great card. Performance wise you will be very happy. Support wise ... just hope it works and you never need it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 250
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Epinions.com ID:
egale
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Reviews written: 53
Trusted by: 9 members
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