Fast, tweakable and cheap.
Written: May 26 '02
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: It's pretty fast, quite overclockable, and cheap.
Cons: I've run into a few dud cards.
The Bottom Line: If you're a casual gamer stuck with an old video card or bad integrated video, this is an excellent solution.
|
|
|
| jsc1973's Full Review: Visiontek Visiontek XTasy 5632 AGP 4X / 2X 32MB Co... |
The GeForce2GTS graphics chipset has been out for about a year and a half as I write this, but it still provides good performance on most of today's games, not to mention it flies on older titles. Dozens of manufacturers of nVidia chipset video cards still sell "MX" versions which don't come close to the GTS' capabilities.
The Visiontek Xtasy 5632 is a card that was introduced in the late fall of 2001. It is based on the GTS chip, but on a "lite" version of it, if you will. Unlike the standard GTS which runs at a 200 MHz core clock and 166 MHz (DDR333) memory clock, this version, called the "GTS-V", is clocked at 175 MHz core and 143 MHz (DDR286) on the memory. Visiontek is the only video card manufacturer in the world that carries this product. More than likely, they are based on ordinary GTS cores that didn't quite meet nVidia quality control at 200 MHz. On the other hand, they don't have crippled data pathways and memory bandwidth restrictions like the MX cards do, so even at the lower clock rate, the Xtasy 5632 is demonstrably superior to the GeForce2MX400.
I first encountered this card while shopping for a cheap, but capable AGP video card to put in budget systems that I build and sell. I had been using 3dfx Voodoo3 cards, but those are long in the tooth and long since unsupported because 3dfx went under. I found the 5632 for sale at NewEgg for less than $60, and bought several of them, and even installed one in my own PC.
The cards install without a hitch on the nVidia reference drivers and perform as advertised. I won't give benchmark numbers because every system is different, but on my system (Athlon Thunderbird 1.52 GHz, SiS735 chipset), the card topped 4000 3DMarks on 3DMark 2001, peaking at 4135 with the card clocked at 190 core and 325 memory. It beat 3DMark2000 senseless. :-)
I've tested a number of them for overclockability, and some will reach the stock GTS specs of 200/333, and go even higher. I've heard reports of up to 220/350 with no extra cooling. The one I used in mine was only capable of the 190/325, though. It's still very close to a stock GTS at that speed, and that's the low end of the overclockability scale for these.
I have run into three out of about 20 of these cards that failed after a few weeks or months, adding fuel to my speculation that these are factory reject GTS chips. But I had no problem getting them RMA'd, and the replacements were fine.
Image quality is typical of the GeForce2 series, no better or worse than any others, but superior to the MX200 card I keep as a tester. I don't know why that is, but that one's not a Visiontek card.
Did I mention this card is cheap? It now sells on NewEgg for about $47 at last check. That's a steal for a card which can actually play any new game on a reasonably fast PC. It's in the ballpark even with GeForce4MX cards which cost more than twice as much.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 49
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
jsc1973
|
|
Member: John
Location: Raleigh NC
Reviews written: 36
Trusted by: 6 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.