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When overclocking we needed to use another tool outside ASUS smartdoctor as its limited to very safe levels. Using ATI tool we managed a 550 core and a 560 ram overclock, quite substantial indeed and slightly faster than XT PE stock speeds. ATI tool seemed to show quite an interesting quirk with this card in the fact it reported via the built in max clock checker higher speeds than I found in games such as Doom3 and Farcry. It reported a 570 core and 575 ram max speed when in fact i found through testing 550 core and 560 ram was the highest error free clock rates.
These overclocked figures gave around a 5-8 fps increase in Doom3 from around 33fps at 1600x1200 4aa 16 af to around 39fps. Farcry rose from 41fps at 1600x1200 4aa 16af to 48fps average. Testing this card was a pleasure, after my initial horror with ASUS smartdoctor giving the dreaded BSOD thankfully the subsequent bios upgrade the ASUS engineers sent to fix this, everything was smooth sailing. No matter the resolution or 3D game engine this card will give you more than playable frame rates, yes even with Doom3. The added bonus of Dual DVI will appeal to the rich gamers with two high end TFT's, the image quality from this card is without a doubt the highest ive seen. When I tested with two Dell 2001fp screens the overall quality was beautiful, whether its gaming, surfing the net or high end CAD or Photoshop work. ASUS really deserve major credit for including the DVO - TMDS convertor chip with their card and along with their own ASUS branded software package, fan/temperature control and configuration software this really is the X800XT card to own if you have moved to the PCI express platform. So after all this praise is there a downside? As you would expect this card is expensive, at time of publication the AX800XT is the most expensive X800XT board available and on the well known and competitive UK site overclockers.co.uk this card retails for £420, over £40 more than the equally high end HIS X800XT with Artic cooler rev 4 cooler. Its also worth noting that if you wanted to add a Artic cooler Rev 4 to the Asus you would need to be handy with wiring as the ASUS board also has a unique pin header setup when compared to the reference. I tested the Artic cooler Rev 4 on a reference X800XT and while I was impressed, the temperatures I recorded were only 2-4c less than the Asus cooler. The Asus generally peaked around 50c for me under extended full load conditions with the ram temperatures in the mid 40s. The Artic cooler is also no quieter than the ASUS cooler if you set it up to run at lower fan speeds when idling, and due to the positioning of the northbridge on some 925x boards you might find the artic cooler gives you some issues. I cannot recommend this card highly enough, if you have the capital to purchase then the ASUS AX800XT gives the best image quality in both 2D and 3D ive seen thanks to high quality dual DVI output, couple this with phenomenal frame rates in any game you throw at it, a totally controllable fan cooling system, core and ram temperature monitoring, a heavy duty copper cooler built on a beautiful orange PCB then you surely are getting what you pay for. Pure class from ASUS and the best video card ive used this year.
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