Excellent card for everyone and now easy on the budget
Written: Dec 31 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Low price ($160 as of Dec 2000), Fast card, ELSA 3D Revelator Glasses support, VIVO module available, excellent performance for the price, drivers constantly being updated
Cons: drivers constantly being updated (sometimes new drivers don't work with some software)
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| yusakugo's Full Review: Elsa GLADIAC, (32 MB) AGP Video Card |
nVIDIA currently is the king of the hill in graphic processors although still somewhat threatened by companies like ATI. Just recently, 3dfx went bottom up and sold their some of their intellectual rights and ideas to nVIDIA before 3dfx closed up shop in the graphics industry. nVIDIA has creamed their competitors by introducing the fastest graphics processors and innovative ideas at a breakneck speed. As I write this review, the GeForce 2 GTS chipset is nearly a year old and it has been outdone by the GeForce 2 Ultra chipset and will look much weaker with nVIDIA's new graphics chipset NV-20 slated for Spring 2001.
Regardless, if you're reading this review, you are at least thinking about updating an old graphics board or building a new computer. You've probably heard of nVIDIA despite their lack of TV advertising (as compared to 3dfx large TV and radio campaigns). You're wondering why nVIDIA chipset and why Elsa's board instead of Creative's GeForce boards or other companies. Are the Diamond's Savage, ATI's Radeon, or even Matrox's cards better performers and even better values?
At the time I'm writing this review, there are several cards out on the market including GeForce 2 MX based cards, GeForce 2 Ultra based cards, ATI's Radeon based cards, and a few more scant offerings. The GeForce 2 GTS cards run for about $200-$300 street although Elsa's GeForce 2 GTS board is being sold for $160 price range with 32MB DDR memory (December 2000). I bought my card at buy.com for $152.97 and then used a coupon for $30 off $150 and a free shipping deal. I received a rather good deal for my Elsa 32MB DDR GeForce 2 GTS board. Other sites that sell the GeForce 2 GTS card for $150-170 price range include onvia.com, computers4sure.com, and compgeeks.com.
For the $150 price tag, you get...
basically just the card and drivers. You can't expect much for the low price point. The card is very basic... it has no video in or out ports. The card is an AGP card compatible with 2x and 4x AGP. The processor runs at a speed of 200MHz. The memory runs at 166MHz. It can support up to 1900x1440 resolution at 32-bit color (I haven't tried resolutions this high however). The card is also capable of Full Screen Anti Aliasing with supposedly delivers smoother and nicer graphics (but it isn't consistant) and gives you a performance hit frame rate wise.
I don't overclock my graphic cards since I'm not familiar with the process. However, I've heard the card can be overclocked quite a bit. Please look at stevelarrison's review of the Elsa Gladiac as he written about the overclocking topic with the Elsa Gladiac as well as a great review.
Honestly, I'm don't do a alot of numbers testing with graphics boards like I do with printers and scanners. What I do see in my Pentium III 650 with 512 MB RAM by Dell is that games animate more smoothly than with my original GeForce 256 (aka GeForce 1 board with 32 MB RAM) board and smoother than the same machine with my GeForce 2 MX with 32 MB SDR RAM. Quality of the graphics is similar to the GeForce 2 MX (which is expected since there are many similarities between the GTS and MX chipsets. Overall, I feel that it is a powerful gaming card. If you like specs, please check sites like www.tomshardware.com, www.firingsquad.com, and www.eVGA.com (this is a store selling cheap nVIDIA boards but has many links to nVIDIA articles). These sites have done rather extensive testing and give the numbers they found during their tests in a variety of situations.
My Verdict
I've written reviews for the GeForce 2 MX boards which I'll post links to at the end. I had said that teh GeForce 2 MX boards had offered the best bang for the buck. However, with the rapidly falling price of the GTS board, the GTS quickly has taken the best bang for the buck honors in my opinion. As of the end of December 2000, Elsa currently sells the lowest price GeForce 2 GTS board on the market. With coupons and other rebates, the card can be found as low as $120-$130 range. This is a bit highter that the price as the GeForce 2 MX boards with Twinview! The GTS board offers superior framerates and resolutions as compared to the MX based board at near similar cost. However, if you need multiple monitor support, the Twinview MX cards may be more up your alley... but I would recommend Matrox's graphic boards for single cards that support two or more monitors since Matrox has done a better job of implementing this (Matrox's DualHead technology). I've also heard that ATI's Radeon chipset is rather good as well, but I haven't played with it and haven't read many of the ATI articles so I can't give any advice on this.
If you like to have the most powerful card on the market, it is the GeForce 2 Ultra based cards... but they run in the $400-$600 range.
Overall, the Elsa GTS based board is a great bang for your buck for a little more than a GeForce 2 MX solution. If you need fast, clean, and crisp graphics, you really can't go wrong for paying $150-$160 for the Elsa Gladiac GTS board. If you can't go above $100, look at a GeForce MX board or ATI's Radeon based boards. If you desire video in and out on your board, you can get the VIVO module for Elsa's GTS card for about $55 at www.computers4sure.com.
My GeForce 2 MX reviews
<a href= http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-7D36-4A8EBFD-39D2D552-prod1 >Guillemot 3D Prophet II MX</a>
<a href= http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-7B-161CB3DA-39D40165-prod2 >Elsa Gladiac MX</a>
I am also creating a Savings page with links to get discounts and information of where to find the hottest technology deals. I should have it up soon so please be patient.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
yusakugo
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 - Top 10 |
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Member: Rich Go
Location: Somewhere in the NorthEast
Reviews written: 399
Trusted by: 497 members
About Me:
Losing Sleep and Lacking Time... sigh...
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