With this the frame rate really 'blasts off'
Written: Oct 31 '00 (Updated Nov 01 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very fast
Cons: A tad on the expensive side
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| daedric's Full Review: Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 Ultra |
Aimed at the most technologically demanding gameplayer, the Annihilator 2 Ultra is based around the Nvidia GeForce 2 GTS Ultra chipset, the world's fastest Graphics Processing Unit. Architecturally, the GeForce 2 GTS Ultra is identical to that of the GeForce GTS. It features the same T&L engine, four rendering pipelines and the ability to process two textures per pipeline per clock. The only difference that exists is that the Ultra variant uses a 0.18 micron process, allowing it to ramp up to a higher speed. Whereas the standard GTS runs at a default core speed of 200MHz, the Ultra ships at 200MHz. This offers a peak fillrate of over a gigapixel (or two gigatexels), an improvement of 25% over its predecessor.
More importantly, however, the Ultra also comes with high-speed memory. One of the largest bottlenecks in 3D card design is the memory subsystem - Nvidia has tried to alleviate this bandwidth bottleneck by using faster memory and cranking the memory clock from 333MHz DDR to 460 MHz DDR. This is a sizeable increase (around 39%), yielding an impressive 7.36Gb/s of peak memory bandwidth. Memory bandwidth is particularly relevant at higher resolutions, especially when using 32-bit textures.
Not surprisingly, the Creative 3D Blaster 2 Ultra is staggeringly fast. In fact, it is the first card used, that provides a consistent 60 frames a second in Quake 3 at 1600x1200 with all the graphically frippery turned on. However, while the Creative board is certainly the fastest thing available, only the most hardcore will be able to justify the high expense. Those framerates will certainly be worth it, though.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 499
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Epinions.com ID:
daedric
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Member: Stephen Sumich
Reviews written: 29
Trusted by: 7 members
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