Annihilator Pro--The Natural Step Forward (A detailed Look)
Written: Feb 05 '00 (Updated Jul 18 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Nothing better than this--you will NOT be disappointed no matter what, the fastest GeForce DDR card on the market, great overclocking features (easy to use too)
Cons: Price (use www.pricewatch.com to find the best deal)
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| rahulm's Full Review: Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator |
This Christmas, I was fortunate enough to purchase an Annihilator Pro. At the time, the Creative Labs card was under backorder everywhere you looked--today the situation is slightly better, but finding one of these rare commodities can still be a challenge. The card has a few flaws, but if you're looking for the fastest graphics card with the best chipset, spring for the Annihilator Pro.
Speed
The great thing about the Annihilator Pro is that it is bound to speed up games and/or graphics regardless of your CPU. As long as you have an AGP 2x or 4x slot, you will see significant increases. Games such as Quake 3 run and look beautiful at some of the highest resolutions, making gaming a true pleasure. On my PII 450mhz, I got 68fps at 800x600x32bit with all settings on, with the memory and core overclocked (discussed below). Speed increases from past generation chipsets are truly unbelievable. Speaking from experience (having both Banshee and TNT Cards), performance increases are apparent in anything dealing with graphics. Whether you make 3d graphics with 3d Studio Max, or frag away in Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, you WILL see the huge increase. When TnL (texture and lighting, a feature that comes with GeForce cards) is implemented in games, the speed of your CPU will be even less important for performance.
Image Quality
Image quality is superb. The GeForce chipset image quality is much the same as TNT cards. However, since speed differences between 16 and 32bit are negligible, all games can now be run at 32bit with no performance decrease. New games such as Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament look unbelievable. There is really no way to describe it without seeing it.
What puts the "Pro" in Annihilator Pro?
The Annihilator Pro, opposed to the regular Annihilator, comes with DDR (double data RAM) memory. This means that the speed of the ram is twice as fast as that of the Annihilator. What does this mean performance-wise? Well, if you plan on running games at higher resolutions (800x600 and up), then you will see significant and noticeable performance increases compared to the Annihilator.
Overclocking
Some people who want to squeeze every drop of speed out of their Annihilator Pros like to overclock their core and memory speeds. Basically, overclocking is increasing the speed that the memory and core process. The downside of this is that the graphics card can often overheat. Creative Labs provides an overclocking utility on their site (www.creative.com). Overclocking for the Annihilator Pro (as I've seen) is relatively safe. Just make sure you set the clock speeds at small increments to see the maximum settings of your graphics card (since each card has differing maximum settings).
Overall is the Annihilator Pro for me?
Yes!!! Well, it depends. If you're looking for the absolute best quality and performance, then it is the best card. If you want a little more than just the Annihilator, then spring for the extra $50 and get this powerhouse of a graphics card.
Where can I get it cheap?
To find the best prices online, I would suggest www.pricewatch.com, which compares prices of dozens of sites on the net and shows you the best deals you can get. If you're not ready for online shopping, I'd try a local hardware store (I got a great deal from Best Buy). If you look hard, you should be able to get this card for around $200.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
rahulm
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Member: Anujit Mukherjee
Location: Pittsford, NY
Reviews written: 44
Trusted by: 59 members
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