Might get ticketed for speeding
Written: Jun 23 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: fast, 32-bit, fast memory, and 32MB of it, tv in/out, s-video, VR glasses
Cons: VR glasses sometimes (but rarely) causes instability with games
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| mustangman5's Full Review: Asus AGP-6600 |
What can I say? You've read the reviews, you've read the magazine articles, you've also seen the benchmarks showing the GeForce blows the pants off of anything 3dfx can dish out. The card is simply awesome.
I originally planned to build a pentium computer with the latest Voodoo card. That is until I wised up and learned more about computers. I did some comparisons, read every article on computer hardware, and reviewed the background of the technology behind each component. What I found is that, although speeds are comparable, the technology behind the AMD Athlon was more advanced and was also faster. What I also found was that nVidia has always been making superior chipsets to those offered by 3dfx.
During the Voodoo2 age, the TNT vs Voodoo2 benchmarks always showed that the nVidia TNT was faster, and it also boasted the 32 bit color feature. Same with Voodoo3, the benchmarks also showed that the nVidia TNT2 was faster than the Voodoo3 in most applications and also was 32 bit in oppose to 16 bit. Now, the GeForce comes out and is even faster than the TNT2.
I waited, because I heard the original drivers for the GeForce at the time was very unstable. Now however, all the kinks has been worked out, and I'm happy with my purchase. My setup is a 650MHz AMD Athlon processor in an Asus K7V motherboard and the Asus V6600 Deluxe GeForce256 video card. Everything was very easy to install and the computer booted up on the first try on the Asus K7V.
The Asus V6600 Deluxe comes with everything. It is indeed deluxe. It has both video in and out and also has a S-Video in along with the normal SVGA monitor output. One feature it has that is not as conventional, is the VR glasses it comes with. With those on and the Stereoscope software that comes with the video card, you can play games, or look at pictures in what appears to be 3D. It does cause some slow down in some demanding games, but it never gets unbearably low. It also would not run with the same stability, but I've rarely had it mess up on me.
However cool that feature is, the best thing about this video card is that I literally can run just about every game I can buy at the store. No more checking to see if it needed a 3D accelerator and trying it out to see if my video card is fast enough. The Asus V6600 is fast enough for just about anything, for now.
With the release of the GeForce 2 GTS chipset, I'm expecting game designers to go into more detailed, and hardware demanding games. Some examples can include Black & White and Max Payne. Also because of the release of this new card, the prices of GeForce256 cards have dropped, and this could be your chance to get the Asus V6600 Deluxe or even the Asus V6800 Deluxe for very low prices. This is probably the best way to go, stay one step behind the latest technology, because it can save you a lot of money, and the GeForce256 can still take care of any game out today and most games tomorrow, so you probably won't NEED the power and speed of the GeForce 2 GTS, but you may WANT it.
The Asus V6600 Deluxe is an incredibly stable video card and I have had very few glitches from it even while running the most demanding games. It offers superior TV out signal than those offered by other cards, and also offers hardware DVD playback.
All-in-all, the Asus V6600 Deluxe is an excellent deal to get right now, and will not be out of date any time soon. Asus may not be a very well known name by general consumers, but computer junkies recognize the name from their top grade motherboards. Even if you do not want to buy a GeForce256 card, and want something faster, don't fall for the Voodoo hype, the GeForce 2 GTS already has benchmark tests to prove it is still faster than even the large and troublesome Voodoo5 5500. Invest your money in GeForce, but I urge you to wait until the Asus V7700 Deluxe to come out before buying the Asus GeForce 2 GTS cards.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 243
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Epinions.com ID:
mustangman5
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Location: Florida
Reviews written: 77
Trusted by: 22 members
About Me:
Hello, I love to express my opinions. Especially on movies and computer software/hardware.
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