If you are looking for a high-end card, then this card is probably not for you. It is a mid-range card for not so demanding gamers, with a passive cooling system for completely silent operation, so it is the ideal card for home-theater PCs.

The gaming performances that we saw with the X1600XT card simply confirms that this really isn't suited to gaming. In most of the tests, it performed like an N6600GT card. However, in most cases the games are still playable, even at high resolutions and with AA and AF enabled. The only exceptions are NFS MW and F.E.A.R.

The performances produced with the test games were confirmed by the benchmarking software, 3D Mark03,01 & Codecreatures, which placed the EAX1600XT SILENT at about the same levels as the N6600GT. However, 3D Mark05 had a different opinion and placed the card close to the 6800GS series, which is something that wasn't confirmed by the games.

Overclocking is not advised with this card, because of the passive cooling system. However, we managed to overclock the card and the scores that we got after overclocking, were higher in 3D Marks, while also higher framerates were reported in MFS MW. Unfortunately, in F.E.A.R., the framerates dropped compared to the default clock speeds.

The retail package from ASUS is complete, but without any admirable extras. It includes the usual ASUS CD Leather Wallet, old games, CD Drivers and cables. There aren't any extra applications such as a DVD player though.

At the time of this review, the ASUS EAX1600XT SILENT was priced at US$165.36 from newegg.com, which we think is quite reasonable for a mid-range card.

Pros:
- Silent operation
- Passive cooling

Cons:
- Low performances at high resolutions with AA and AF enabled.
- No extra software

Performance:
Overclocking:
Bundle:
Value for money: