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When we looked at nVidia's prototype GeForce2 Ultra graphics card in the October issue of WhatPC?, its performance put it head and shoulders above all others tested in our Labs. Finished products based on the Ultra are now hitting the shelves and Creative Labs is first on with the aptly named ... GeForce2 Ultra.
As with the original reference board, Creative's card boasts a 250Mhz processor and 64Mb of DDR memory, running at a whopping 458Mhz. The former is designed around the core of the extremely popular GeForce 2 GTS, and the amount of memory makes the card idea for handling the highly detailed texturing and models used in the latest 3D games and applications.
The card complies with Intel's latest AGP 4x standard and fully supports Microsoft's DirectX and the OpenGL graphics system, providing broad software compatibility. The Ultra also boasts key graphics features such as hardware-based transformation and lighting effects, and acceleration for DVD video playback. Unfortunately, it still doesn't feature environment bump-mapping in hardware.
When we ran our 3DMark test suite, the card lived up to its claims, scoring a whopping 4425 in 32bit colour at a resolution of 1280 x 1024. In comparison, the fastest GTS card we've seen comes in at 3450. Quake III players will find Creative's latest card particularly exciting - it pushed out an average of 101.4 fps at 1024 x 768 in 16bit mode.
The only black mark against this card is its price. At £439 it is practically half the cost of a new PC, so it's really only for the most hardcore graphics addicts.
ContactCreative Labs
01245 265265
See also:
Outstanding speed from the onboard processor and memory could make the GeForce2 Ultra the fastest graphics card around. 14 Aug 2000All Graphics Cards
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