Asus 7100pro cooling questions

[all420]

I am planing on buying an Asus (http://www.asus.com) 7100pro vid card for my new water-cooled dual-proc system. I was originally planning on tearing off the fan and putting on a waterblock, but then I started to wonder if I really need it. Will the stock cooling be enough? Will water-cooling not be worth the hassle? I am planing on overclocking the GPU w/ their included utility. Thanks in advance.

[GeckoBanzai]

I use the tweak tool and oc the card. The utility reads temp and fan speed and I have never had a stability problem with this card. I know a lot of people think Gforce 3 rocks but dollar wise this card is sweet. I play operation flashpoint, max payne and red faction and am very satisfied with the results. :-)

[funnyperson1]

um , i wouldnt go for an MX400 when a radeon LE is 50$, a KyroII is 66$, and a Geforce2 GTS is 65$.....all of these cards easily crush the mx......

[GeckoBanzai]

Umm the benchmarks of the stock card compare favorably to much more hyped cards. MadOnion's 3D mark2001 scores of various cards and fill rates on Lo res and Hi res (car chase sim):

Asus 7100 pro 2,312 46.0 17.5
Radeon VE 1,399 18.7 6.4
All-in-Wonder 2,384 34.4 10.2
Gladiac MX 954 15.7 5.6
Gladiac Ultra 1,048 17.2 5.9
Prophet II Ultra 1,042 17.0 5.9


Benchmarks from the January 2002 issue of PC upgrade Magazine. I just bought the darn thing the other day and was reading the article like 20 minutes before I saw your post.

The utility that comes with the card will flash a message if it starts to overheat. The stock fan seems to do the job. For a budget card it is a very good choice I think. Now if I had a larger upgrade budget I would have gone with the All in Wonder because of its output capabilities but i game a lot so I'm happy with my choice. I've been thinking of building a rig for the living room and then I might go with the All in Wonder though by then something better will have come along.

[all420]

the problem is that I don't use Windows that much. Most of my time will be spent in Linux, Solaris, or another Unix OS. The utility only works in windows doesn't it?

[GeckoBanzai]

Its definately windows. I haven't looked into other OSs for my rig because I'm fairly happy with the broad options I have for gaming software.