Cousin to the GTS packs a punch
Written: Sep 30 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great performance for the price (costs half as much as the GTS), and has some nifty features thrown in too.
Cons: Lacks power at the more demanding settings, but then, this is a budget card, so you can't complain.
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| jinsengchs_sg's Full Review: Elsa GLADIAC MX |
First, a bit of background info on the MX. It is essentially a scaled down verision of its big brother the GTS, with slower clock speed and what's more it runs on SDR, with no DDR versions available. Obviously nVidia is trying to dominate the budget market with this card while the more powerful Geforce 2 conquers the higher-end market that's choked full of hardcore gamers. However, I must say this card is a great choice for those casual gamers who don't have money to throw...
Right now there are many versions of the MX, including cards from Guillemot, MSI, Asus, and Leadtek among others. Most are nearly identical in features and performance.
Here are the features. The Geforce 2 MX and the Ultra are currently the only chips from nVidia that will give you TwinView and Digital Vibrance Control.
TwinView is certainly sounds like a useful, as it enables you to operate with several combos; you can use dual-CRTs, or you can throw in a Flat Panel, or you can use a TV. Plus you have the choice of spreading your desktop across two monitors or making the two monitors display two different things at one time. Needless to sya, it will probably increase your productivity, but the TwinView feature does not actually do so well in real life and pales in comparison against Matrox's DualHead feature. Obviously the Matrox G400 is in another class in terms of 3D performance, but you can see that DualHead really does much better than TwinView, for now that is.
Digital Vibrance Control, or DVC for short, lets you finely adjust your monitor's settings to get more vivid images. I will say this is welcome feature, and it is much better than what you can get by just playing around with your monitor's built-in controls.
In benchmark tests, the Gladiac MX holds its own against the GTS, but lacks oomph when playing an intense game of Quake III at the highest settings, with 32 bit. It seems that the MX has the same problem with the GTS, in that the memory is a major bottleneck. It would be interesting to see the MX paired with DDR RAM, but since nVidia is marketing the chip for the budget market, we are unlikely to see that happening any time soon.
Conclusion:
However, the MX is a great board if you aren't going to be playing games at the higher resolutions, since it offers performance comparable to the GTS at the lower settings. It is quite able to beat the original Geforce SDR, and goes neck-to-neck with the Geforce DDR. Not a bad card at all. But take note that while the Hercules Prophet 2 MX uses 5.5ns memory, the Gladiac MX uses memory that's rated at 6.0ns.
The budget user has had another great day with the release of this card. I give it a thumbs up.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 150 approximately
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Epinions.com ID:
jinsengchs_sg
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Location: Singapore
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 1 member
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