[H]ardNews 8th Edition

ASUS V9900 Review:

Our buddies across the pond have posted up a no-nonsense review of the ASUS V9900 Ultra GFFX. The fellas pulled no punches in this review laying out what they found troubling about the card.

Sadly for Asus the V9900 Ultra massively underperforms. The NV30 has been a complete mess for NVIDIA and one wonders why it's being rolled out with performance that is clearly substandard when anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are enabled. When we looked at the MSI Geforce FX 5800 Ultra, we saw a card that is quite capable when FSAA and AF are disabled, and with the V9900 Ultra it is the same story, as shown by the Unreal Tournament 2003 results.

VisionTek & Alienware:

VisionTek has announced a partnership with Alienware, maker of high end enthusiast computers. Should be a match made in heaven, fast graphics with fast PCs. I don’t know about you, but I have got to get me one of them cool ass new cases Alienware is sporting.

VisionTek, a division of Hartford Computer Group and a leading supplier of advanced PC graphics cards and memory solutions, today announced that its advanced 3D graphics accelerator, the XTASY 9800 PRO will be integrated in to Alienware Corporation's high performance line of gaming systems. This unique combination provides the fastest 3D gaming card in the fastest 3D gaming system. "Hard core gamers care about 3 things; speed, speed and more speed," remarked Michael Innes, director of sales and marketing for VisionTek. "Alienware® systems are the fastest rigs money can buy, and our XTASY 9800 PRO is the fastest 3D gaming card. The combination is almost dangerous and I sure wouldn't want to be in a death match against it." The XTASY 9800 PRO delivers the fastest and most visually advanced performance of any graphics processor.

Mods & Ends:

Zippy EL-610 Lighted Keyboard @ Tech-Report - Sunbeam Lighted Components @ Moddin’ Net - Hitachi 17" CML175B @ Accelenation - CoolerMaster Cool Drive @ A True Review - Copper Core HSF Mod @ Silent Hardware