The Features
Feature | Asus V6600 Deluxe | Creative Labs Annihilator | Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 |
On-board memory | 32MB 5ns SGRAM | 32MB 5.5ns SDRAM | 32MB 5ns SDRAM |
RAMDAC | 350MHz | 350MHz | 350MHz |
Max. Resolution | 2048x1536x32 | 2048x1536x32 | 2048x1536x32 |
AGP 4X | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Video Out | Yes, S-Video, Composite, VR Glasses | No | Yes, Composite, DVI |
Video Input | Yes, S-Video | No | No |
Active cooling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
MSRP | $299.00 (USD) | $249.00 (USD) | $249.00 (USD) |
Note: Blue text signifies a general feature advantage.
As far as features go, the Asus V6600 is slightly ahead of the Leadtek WinFast GeForce 256 having Video-in and VR output. However, the V6600 is $50 (USD) more expensive than the competition, which is not a small difference. For that price difference, the V6600 enters the newly released DDR GeForce board price range. Keep in mind we are reviewing the deluxe version of the V6600 and that a "pure" version is available at $249.00 (USD) that does not have the video capabilities or the VR hardware.
Software Bundle
The Asus card comes with a few pieces of software ranging from utilities/applications to full game titles. To briefly review what the Creative and Leadtek boards bundled, click
- Ulead Video Studio - an MPEGII encoder as well as a video editing software.
- AsusDVD - Software DVD player.
- Games - The full version of Drakan and Rollcage along with a CD game sampler (good ole shovel-ware).
The bundle is not that special but it does have the standard software DVD player and a couple of games for free. The video encoding/editing software does its job and it makes a lot of sense to be able and convert huge motion-JPEG files of recordings into the smaller MPEG2-format, as long as you've still got enough disk space or a DVD-RAM. All in all, I would rate the bundle as average like the other two software packages.