I took a chance, good thing I did
Written: Nov 03 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: low price, fast (!), good support
Cons: doesn't overclock well
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| eighty1's Full Review: Hercules 3D Prophet II MX |
why I bought this board:
*-. Wanted to replace a Diamond 8MB AGP card and Voodoo 2 accelerator to increase my gaming framerates significantly.
*-. Some college students, including myself, can not afford the 300 and 400 dollar GeForce boards.
*-. The main reason, Windows 2000 support. I wanted to move away from a dual boot system where I played games in 98SE and everything else in 2000.
who would benefit most:
*-. Voodoo 1/Voodoo 2 users who wanted an inexpensive upgrade.
*-. Gamers with limited funds.
why did I choose the 3D Prophet II MX:
*-. I couldn't justify spending 150 dollars moving from a Voodoo 2 to a Voodoo 3 and the Voodoo 5 was out of my reach.
*-. Hercules/Guillemot seems to update their drivers regularly.
*-. GeForce, GeForce, GeForce
what doesn't work:
After installing the version 5.32 drivers for this card, I have not had a single problem. The version 5.3 drivers were succeptable to screen flickers, especially when scrolling quickly in a browser window.
overclocking:
I'm own the retail version of this board, and I'm about to purchase the OEM version of this board for another computer I'm building. The difference? Memory clock speed... the retail board memory clock is at 183mhz, the OEM board is at 166mhz. What does this mean? The board is easily over/underclocked from the display settings. I underclocked my memory clock speed to 166mhz from 183mhz and lost only a frame and a half in Quake 3 demo000 (version 1.25y). Is overclocking the board worth it? I upped my board from 175/183 (175 represents the core speed) to 200/200 and only gained about 3 frames. I was hoping for maybe about 8 or 9. I run my board at recommended speed as a result. With what I read in discussion groups, the OEM board is a bit better at overclocking since the bottleneck is in the memory instead of the core.
conclusion:
If you are thinking about the Voodoo 3 or Voodoo 4, think about this board as well. The retail board runs about 149 everywhere and is hard to find. The OEM board can be found online as low as 117 (11/4/00).
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 149.99
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Epinions.com ID:
eighty1
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Reviews written: 1
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