High speed, low cost
Written: Dec 20 '00 (Updated Jan 27 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Low cost, high performance
Cons: Not as fast as $300 boards (duh)
The Bottom Line: This is a great card for the money. Even hard core games can appreciate 90% of the performance for 40% of the $$.
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| Bradman's Full Review: Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 MX |
I got this card because I was having some problems with my home-built system crashing. I was running a GeForce 256 DDR card before and this card (which cost half as much) seems to be holding its own. The Creative Labs driver set is great and I like their little control panel. Some of the earlier GeForce cards tended to be power (electricity) hogs and didn’t behave properly. This MX card seems to be pretty well behaved. As I am getting older I appreciate stability over maximum framerate. There was a time when all that mattered was to be able to crank up the resolution and brag about how great everything looked. I never mentioned the hours (and hours) of system troubleshooting I had done. I am now willing to take a slight performance hit for stability. All the techie sites say this card is about equivalent to my GeForce 256 DDR. I haven’t run any “official” benchmarks, I can run MechWarrior 4 at 1024x768 without much problem so I am happy. This card is made on the new fab process so the chip runs cooler (no heat sink or fan) and the overall size is much smaller than my other card. I would recommend this card for anyone looking to “wake up” their system (especially if they are running an older card like the TNT).
Update: Been running this card for a few months now and I am very happy. I was having a Blue Screen Of Death at shutdown and I traced it down to the video or sound cards not "letting go". I upgraded to the beta Nvidia Detonator drivers (7.17) and everything is working great now.
Bradman
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 130
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Epinions.com ID:
Bradman
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Brad W
Location: OH
Reviews written: 125
Trusted by: 7 members
About Me:
Cars, computers, digital photography and video.
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