Fast, But Worth It?
Written: Jan 01 '00 (Updated Mar 28 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent Speed & Visual Quality, Support for T&L
Cons: No TV Out, High Cost
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| MarginWalker's Full Review: Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator |
I bought this card after trying a Diamond Viper II (Savage 2000 Chipset) for about a month. The Viper II was unsatisfactory; I experienced significant driver and compatibility issues. After having an "ancient" (by modern hardware product cycle standards) Voodoo-2 SLI setup in my system for a year, I was ready for something state of the art, that would offer significant performance and visual quality gains. Another priority for my purchase was a chipset that offered some staying power, i.e. I wouldn't be shopping for something new in 3 months.
The Annihilator Pro fits the bill. It is very, very, fast, as it should be. And with products supporting hardware transformation and lighting(T&L) coming soon, it should retain its substantial capabilities for the next generation of 3D intensive software (that means games for most of us).
The card comes with 32MB of Dual Data Rate (DDR) memory, which is twice as fast as the single data rate (SDR) variety. This allows it to lay claim as the fastest consumer-level graphics configuration available. Other than that, this is a basic card; no extras such as TV out are included, although the software bundled is pretty good, including "Need for Speed - High Stakes", "Evolva Scout", "Dagoth Moor Zoological Gardens", an nVidia demo disc, WinDVD software, as well as the usual setup/utilities CD.
Installation was a snap, I plugged the card in, and Windows 98SE detected it as a standard VGA card. I eschewed the Creative installation CD for installing the Athlon-specific drivers from nVidia, for my Athlon 650 system. The Athlon drivers are recommended to avoid known issues with all or most current AMD Athlon motherboards.
In use, I found the card to be totally stable, and as fast as all the hype would predict. The only drawback is my choice of an AMD system requires me to run at AGP 1X - not the AGP 4X which the card (but not my motherboard) supports. 3D performance in Quake III Arena and Half-Life is excellent - although in Half-Life its not much faster than my old Voodoo-2 SLI, but the visual improvement is stunning.
Overall, this card is recommended for those with mid-level to high-end systems, looking for ultimate 3D performance. Those of you who already own a Matrox G400 or nVidia TNT-2 Ultra may want to wait for the next product cycle - the performance gains (15-20%) are probably not worth the cost ($300). I haven't had a chance to check out DVD performance, but the 2D performance is very solid - large documents scroll as fast as my mouse can move, with no stutters.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 300
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Epinions.com ID:
MarginWalker
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Reviews written: 1
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