Introduction

The ASUS coaster

On our visit to Computex in Taipei, we met up with the Asus guys. This company has come a long way, and there can be no doubt as to why they have been so successful. In the short span of a decade, this hardware manufacturer has gone from a tiny outfit to a company with over two billion dollars in sales. As such, Asus' efforts to manufacture quality products have been rather successful; with each coming year their product line grows larger. Most of their fame comes from their renowned ability to make one hell of a stable motherboard. I remember the IT guys at the Berkeley Library would get nothing but ASUS P2Bs for their Intel rigs; they absolutely adored those boards. I'm sure they would love the video cards if the library could afford them.

This brings us to our second in the series of ongoing semi-unaffordable GeForce3 reviews! Out of the fully rounded Asus video card lineup, we chose the Asus GeForce3 V8200 Pure -- the no-frills video card meant for the person who has nothing but gaming on their mind.

V8200 Front

Should you require more information on the GeForce3 chipset itself, feel free to peruse our article devoted to that. Here we will stick to the topic of the Asus V8200. Otherwise, onto the meat.

The Games

As far as software bundles go, we were a bit unsure of Asus' offering. The bundle contains three games and a program or two. We were somewhat pleased with the games; Sacrifice and Messiah aren't exactly bad games, just old. I can vouch for the goodness of Messiah, as I reviewed it myself. Sacrifice I wrote previews for, and liked it enough to keep playing for quite a while afterwards. The last game is Star Trek: New Worlds. Can't really say I know very much about this game at all. I checked out the reviews section on Gamers.com, the verdict seemed pretty bleak.

V8200 Back

The only aspect of the bundle that is really disappointing is you don't get any manuals with the games. There is a PDF version on the game CDs, but it's so much nicer to be able to just flip through the manual, especially if there is something you want to look up while you are playing. Of course, this is pretty much standard fare with all game bundles included with video cards, it's a shame manufacturers haven't considered including a manual in the package.

The Software

Alongside the games is the usual array of programs. Additional software included in the bundle is 3Deep, Ulead 4.0, and Asus DVD player software. 3Deep is an oldie, but a goody. It lets you do all sorts of cool funky stuff to tweak your display to maximum viewing goodness. If you don't already have it, you might find it quite useful. Ulead 4.0 seems to be on bulk sale over in Taiwan, even MSI bundled this program into their Starforce 820 GeForce3. However, both bundles come with Ulead version 4.0; the newest version is 5.0. Old versions of programs don't rate too highly in our book, but it would be safe to say that most of you out there aren't into hardcore video editing, if you are, it's pretty much assured that you have something better than this by now. Then there is the omnipresent DVD player. It plays movies, what more do you want?