![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , November 30, 2000
- Author:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Visiontek GeForce2 Ultra
Visiontek is new on the RETAIL scene when it comes to Vid Cards. They have stayed out of the limelight but have been making top end cards for a while now for folks with BIG names that you trust. Well, Visiontek is fed up with not getting some of the spotlight, and it is my understanding that they are about to push very hard and try to work into the retail Vid Card market here in the U.S. If their marketing people work as well as their products, you will be seeing more of Visiontek in the coming years.
This will not be our normal Vid Card review, not that anything around here ever is "normal". I want to cover this card's features and show you what it can do. It is that simple. If you are not familiar with the GeForce2 Ultra chipset, HERE is our review of the reference card from NVIDIA. All of the GeForce2 Ultras that we have seen have been based on the NVIDIA reference design, so most of these cards are "exactly" the same. The Visiontek has a feature or two more than most of the others, but we will get into that a bit later.
There is something buzzing about that really makes you think about the reference card issue though. Seems to me that a reference card should be a reference card should be a reference card.....right? Well if you check over in this Creative Newsgroup, you will see some folks having problems with their Creative boards. Ah! All reference cards are not created equal. Creative is trying to work the problem out now and it does not seem to be "widespread" at all but still worth mentioning. NVIDIA states that they have not seen ANY of the problems that Creative is experiencing nor have we heard that anyone else is having these problems. My point here is that even though you may be buying what you know to be a reference board, it is still worth checking out what scoopage you can find.
Our Visiontek card was supplied to us by UCD, a small retailer out of California that we have worked with before. They come across some good stocking items now and then, and UCD will always give us a heads up when they have good stuffs. Also, their pricing on this GeForce2 Ultra with the features seems to be pretty solid also. If you have not looked at GeForce2 Ultras, get prepared for the sticker shock though, they are NOT cheap. This card was delivered in an OEM package as Visiontek has not quite yet gotten ready for the jump into the retail market. Expect to see that around Q1 of '01. With a card like this, you will not be thinking about the damn box anyway once you get it installed.
OK, there is ONLY one reason to purchase a Visiontek GeForce2 Ultra. That reason is to play games at an incredibly fast framerate. You don't want to buy this card for anything else. Yes, you do get 64Megs of DDR Ram. Yes, you do get DVI-I (DFP & ANALOG) & TV out. Yes, it comes equipped for the future, or possibly the time you have the cash to get you a Flat Panel Display. Yes, it comes with a nifty fan. Finally, it comes with a few extra ponies under the hood too.
For all intents and purposes, the GeForce2 Ultra is simply a souped up version of the GeForce2 GTS or now GeForce2 Pro. This card differs just a slight bit from our original reference board. Check out the pics below.
Of course you will notice in the first pic that we have modified our reference board a bit. It is the one pictured on the bottom. Other than heatsinks and markings, the boards are "identical".
If you have to see it in action as proof of the fact that we really did use it, here you go. AGP slot and all! :) Installation on this card was as simple as it should be. Unload the old drivers so that you are back to basic VGA, stick in the new card, load the drivers, and you are off. If it is harder than that, something is screwed up.
Now one thing that has changed is the heatsink from the original NVIDIA reference board. Lloyd Case of NVIDIA explained to us in a phone conversation that the original unit was simply not doing the needed job and they switched it out. In the above pictures you will see the older HSF unattached and you can clearly see a size difference in the heatsink, but even more clearly visible is a beefier fan. Nothing like beef fans!
One thing worth mentioning here is the core and memory speeds of the Ultra and the other GF2s. The GeForce2 GTS was clocked at 200MHz Core / 333MHz Memory. The GeForce2 Pro is clocked at 200MHz Core / 400MHz Memory. The GeForce2 Ultra is clocked at an astounding 250MHz Core / 458MHz Memory! Now all these cards are "really" the same card with the same chipset, just that the speed scales up with the card's price. :)
One would think that Overclocking the Ultra MIGHT be out of the question, since you might assume it to be Overclocked anyway. That is hardly the truth at all. We could clock our Visiontek Ultra to 318MHz Core and 515MHz memory and still have it run solid. Now keep in mind that at these speeds we were seeing all sorts of distortions and artifacts on the screen. Even though you COULD run it that fast, you would hardly want to.
We found that with the core Overclocked to 290MHz and the Memory at 490MHz the card was ROCK SOLID in all applications except one. Actually 300/500 was solid with our card, but I don't want you getting your hopes up in case you are lucky enough to end up being the owner of one. Now keep in mind this is without ANY cooling other that what comes STOCK on the card. Yes, those DDR heatsinks are stock and they are there for a reason!
So now that you have seen it, let's tear into a little benchmarking with our Visiontek card!