Great Card If You Can Afford It
Written: Jan 07 '01 (Updated Jan 18 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: fastest card on the market
Cons: $$$$$$$
The Bottom Line: Fastest gaming card for $500...enough said.
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| graffixboy's Full Review: Elsa Gladiac Ultra |
What else can I say about this card that hasn't already been said. It will deliver what you expect from a currently cream of the crop nvidia gpu. I don't have to cringe when I get to a section of a game that has a lot of polygons anymore! Personally, I think $500 is a good investment. I know I will save at least that much from not going to a hair surgeon from ripping my hair out because I just got fragged because my system started chopping up. It's also kind of pleasing to type "fps_max 100" in counterstrike. I feel almost secure in knowing the software cannot handle the blazing speed of this card. I'm sure you've seen the benchmarks out there, so I am just going to blab about my personal experiences with card thus far like my other reviews.
The card installed fine, 2D image quality compared with my old G400. DiVX, DVD, and MPEG movies never looked better. I don't think ill be watching them on my TV anymore, or even HDTV when it comes out in volume. It just doesn't compare to a nice flat CRT.
The card game with the Revelator 3d glasses which didn't work well on my system. Elsa's product FAQ says that it is most likely because of my shotty sound card (diamond mx400). I can't see how a sound card has anything to do with what the video card is doing, but it seems to make sense because a relative has this card with a sb live and it works fine. You can't use them for too long though. I get a headache after about 20 mins of interlaced frames. You can adjust the settings to match the distance between your eyes and the size/ratio of your monitor which is nice.
It comes bundled with ELSAMovie2000 software dvd player, which is optimized for the card. It seems to perform slower, with worse image quality than my PowerDVD which came with my DVD drive. You have to have elsa's driver pack installed otherwise it won't play (can't use nvidia's detonator 3 drivers). But I don't mind not having the optimized drivers because my games run fast enough as it is.
The card is supposed to come with an option to add a vivo unit but I don't see where they could install it. The bracket that holds the card does not have a hole in it for the addition, and drilling a hole in the card doesn't sound like a very good idea. *shrug* The fan and heat sinks on the card are nice. They have a low profile so they don't touch the card in the PCI slot next to it. The fan is not one of those fans that screws onto the heat sink so it might be a bit of a pain to clean them out.
Overall, I couldn't be happier with my choice. I don't really know how to properly guage this gf2ultra versus other cards, but this one works great for me. If you wanted to do some video editing, you might want to check out some of the other gf2ultra cards with the vivo unit already built in. The cost is the only thing that bothers me a little, but I'll get over it =)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 501
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Epinions.com ID:
graffixboy
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Member: some guy
Location: Long Island, NY
Reviews written: 42
Trusted by: 4 members
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