GeForce 7900 GTX Roundup

ASUS EN7900GTX:

Core Clock: 650MHz
Memory Clock: 1600MHz

Much like the MSI card, ASUS has opted to release it's first incarnation of the GeForce 7900 GTX at the NVIDIA reference clock speeds of 650/1600MHz. ASUS hinted that they might release a TOP edition of the card with increased clock speeds a little later down the line when production and yield gets better.

Not surprisingly, the ASUS card uses the same cooler as the other cards. Both the card and box are themed around the King Kong game, which is also included as part of the software bundle. The box is the largest in the selection we've got here, and there's room in the box for an even bigger bundle. ASUS' Radeon X1800XT TOP had a massive bundle that included a USB game pad, and we're expecting the company's GeForce 7900 GTX TOP to have a similar selection of extras in the box.

As aforementioned that NVIDIA has changed the HDTV out connector from the previous 9-pin connector to a 7-pin version. With the new 7-pin HDTV-out port, it's possible to plug an S-Video cable directly into the video card's back plate. Alternatively you can use a dongle for YPrPb (component) or composite outputs. The previous 9-pin HDTV out port required a dongle to use S-Video, YPrPb component and composite outputs.

Along with King Kong, ASUS has included Xpand Rally - a fun-to-play arcade rally game. Admittedly, Xpand Rally is getting a little old now, but there's no doubting that it's quite a fun game to play if you're into driving games. The level design is damn good and the driving experience is a very competitive one. ASUS has also included a soft copy of the manual, a driver & utility CD, a copy of FarStone VirtualDrive 9 - a CD/DVD emulator that allows you to run your games from your hard drive.

It's similar to GameDrive, but on top of emulating your favourite games, it's possible to creat custom virtual CDs and play additional CD or DVD formats. You can see the comparison in this PDF. It's not the latest-available version of VirtualDrive, but still offers a decent level of disk emulation. To round off the comprehensive software bundle, there are two multimedia CDs containing CyberLink Medi@Show SE 2.0 and PowerDirector 3DE.

ASUS have included a YPbPr component convertor, a 6-pin PCI-Express power adapter and two DVI-to-VGA adapters but they have missed out both S-Video and component cable options. Finally, there are two hard-copy manuals - the first is a SpeedSetUP booklet that helps with what you'd think it would, and finally there is a multi-language Drivers and Utilities Installation Guide to complete the impressive bundle.