7.36GB/s in my own PC ?!
Written: Dec 07 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: great performance, good driver support
Cons: very expensive, heatsink/RAM contact is poor
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| kestas's Full Review: VisionTek GeForce2 Ultra |
Currently the GeForce2 Ultra is one of the most powerful cards on the market. It also probably carries the highest price tag, so lets find out if it is worth the money. They are expensive but you can get them for as little as 278$ on the internet.
So what makes this card so powerful? Well the card chip is just a GeForce2 Chip, but it runs at 250MHz. nVidia has basically just handpicked the core that will run at least 250MHz. They have also included 64MB of 460MHz DDR-DRAM! It is clear that the speed of the ram will allow the card to keep up it's performance in the higher resolutions because the memory bandwidth won't become a limiting factor as fast as cards with less and slower memory. In fact this card boasts an incredible 7.36GB/s of memory bandwidth.
All of the GeForce2 Ultra cards have heatsinks on the RAM, I have seen others verify that these heatsinks do indeed do a little bit, but I think they could be doing more. When I lined up the card at eye level with a light I could see that there was very little contact between the heatsink and each RAM chip and it's no good. The heatsink on the core is clipped on but also seems to be attached with thermal epoxy. I won't be trying my Blue Orb on in - I have a feeling it won't be necessary.
The Vision Tek card does not come with its own customized drivers, just the standard nVidia drivers. Also it's worth noting that the card came with a copy of WinDVD 2000 which is nice and surprising for an OEM card. I installed the Detonator3 drivers for the main reason that those are the drivers whatI tested me other nVidia cards with. Also because I have had a few other instability problems with a few of the newer beta drivers. The nice thing about the nVidia drivers is they work for all their newer cards so you don't have to reinstall the drivers if you are switching between recent nVidia cards, and there is no problem finding the right drivers.
There is nothing on the market that comes close to touching this card. The Voodoo5 6000 has of course been cancelled but even if it had been released I don't think even it could beat this card. If you are willing to spend the money to have this beast, then a GeForce2 Ultra is for you.
There is only really one important Pro and one important Con that sums it all up. The Pro is the amazing performance, the con is the very high price. Here are a few others.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 278 (15 shipping to Lithuania)
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Epinions.com ID:
kestas
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Location: Lithuania, Vilnius
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 7 members
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