VisionTek GeForce2 Ultra is Ultra Video!
Written: Dec 01 '01 (Updated Jul 03 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fast with great Graphics!
Cons: The Cost!
The Bottom Line: A great Gamers and Internet surfing card!
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| surferdude7's Full Review: VisionTek GeForce2 Ultra |
This is about the “Best” Video card I have seen for a while, it is fast and the colors are rich and beautiful.
This is a great card for those who are into gaming or a lot of Internet surfing.
The only drawback that I found was the steep price of $399, just wait a few months to a year and it will go down considerably. You can find it on the Internet for under $300. The only problem then is there will be even better video cards out, it is impossible to keep up with the technology today.
The video card has built on it heat sinks and a cooling fan.
The memory on the Geforce 2 Ultra runs at 230MHz, now the Geforce 2 Ultra writes to RAM at twice per cycle clock giving you 460MHz. This does produce a heat factor but the heat sinks and cooling fan seem to do a good job.
The card runs your games in a 32-bit mode giving you smoother and improved picture quality over the 16-bit mode.
GeForce2 Ultra Specifications
Process Technology .18 micron
Core/Memory Speed 250MHz/460MHz
Memory 64MB DDR
Pixels/Clock 4
Pixels/Second 1000 Million
Texels/Clock 8
Texels/Second 2000 Million
Polygons/Second 31 Million
256-bit quad-pipe graphics architecture
AGP 4X/2X with Fast Writes
32-bit color and Z/Stencil buffer
Cube Environment Mapping
Single pass multi-texturing
Advanced per-pixel, perspective-correct texturing
Order Independent Full Scene Multisampling Antialiasing (FSAA)
OpenGL 1.2 support for Linux
Multi-buffering (double, triple, quad buffering) for smooth animation and video playback VGA, DVI-I, TV-Out connectors
(FSAA)
Full Scene Multisampling Antialiasing (FSAA) is used to smoothen out the rough edges in a game. Try a game with it off and then try it with it turned on, you will keep it on after that.
Overclocking
You can overclock the Geforce 2 Ultra but be careful if you do. Overclocking can get you about a 10% increase in speed in the higher resolutions.
Go to the Hardware Options tab through Coolbits and slide the Core Clock Frequency to your desired speed and then the Memory Clock Frequency. You can over do it so use a little common sense and stay within 10% to 15% of the maximum rating of the card, which is 250MHz for the Core and 460MHz for the Clock.
I found it to be stable at 300MHz for the Core and 500MHz for the Clock. Everyone’s results will differ due to what their computer is made up of. I have known of a friend running the Core and Clock at slightly higher speeds and he claims it doesn’t hurt it. So you be the judge on how high you should go.
After playing around with it, I decided to set it back to the factory default because it was doing an excellent job for me that way.
Installation
Installation is a snap!
1. It is a good idea to remove your old drivers before shutting down the computer to install the new card. Go to the Control Panel and open up System properties, then click on Device manager. Click on display adapters, high light your video card and then click on remove from the bottom of the Systems property window. Now turn off the computer.
2.Remove the cover from your computer and remove your old video card. Then firmly place in the Geforce 2 Ultra card. You can put the cover back on now but I always like to put it on after I know the card is up and running.
3.Windows will automatically find a new video card, so place the driver CD in and guide it to your CD to load the needed drivers. That’s it!
Overall
This is an awesome card, not only are your games running better, your whole computer seems to run smoother too. I can see a noticeable difference when surfing the Internet, now if I could only get DSL or Cable then I would be set.
Even though the card seems to get quite warm I haven’t seen any problems with it, though running two fans in the front of the computer and two in the rear probably helps.
As far as the Overclocking, I’d stay away from it unless you know what you are doing, I will leave this one at the factory setting and feel better about myself. The little performance improvement in Overclocking isn’t noticeable to me.
With the card comes a CD with the drivers and WinDVD 2000.
This is an awesome card and they do have some newer and better models out, oh yes, they do cost more also.
Note 7/03/02 because the card is now harder to find the price has went up to the $400 range.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 289
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surferdude7
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Location: Elizabethtown, Ky.
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