So what ASUS did not do was to include a game with this bundle. They however did include a rather cool game controller. Nice value for sure. Of course there's also the X1900 XT master card ;) I have nothing much to say other then it's a 100% reference based card which is 'up-to the transistor' similar. I would have loved to see some small changes. The cooler for example is rather noisy and I'd love to have seen that replaced.

Investigating power consumption


The progressively increasing power consumption of computer hardware is really worrying me. I mean, we do have to think of mother earth a little.  Next to that we will check a statement that ATI made about power consumption to us. They stated that the X1900 XT would max out at 100-120 Watts. That's similar to NVIDIA's high-end cards.

We simply look at the peak Wattage during a 3DMark05 session to verify those claims. Of course we do what we always do with new graphics cards, we monitor the overall wattage peak with the help of a wattage meter. Slight side note, you are looking at the overall consumption of the PC. The meter is placed between the power connector and the PSU. I understand it's not the most reliable method, but it's a darn good indication !