A worthy evolution
Written: Dec 10 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Raw power and speed
Cons: VGa-only output, some bugs
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| Mojumbo's Full Review: S3 Diamond Viper Ultra 770 |
With all the buzz about Voodoo these days, it's difficult to hear about much else in terms of video cards. I find this to be a real shame, because nobody wins bowing down to just one product.
The TNT2-based Viper V770 is a powerful card, hands down. The 32MB Ultra variant has more processing power than current games should even need, except at very high resolutions. So let's talk features.
The 770 throws out images to your monitor which up to 1600x1200 resolution at full 32-bit color, which is more than you should need unless you have a flatscreen that covers your wall or much better vision than me. When you go into hardcore gaming mode, it offers 24-bit color, something which the Voodoo3s do not do, which is a noticeable factor.
I don't want this review to bog down into charts and graphs, so I'm going to keep it simple. You want Quake3 frame rate comparisons, try http://www.tomshardware.com or ZDNet. As far as I'm concerned, the whole Voodoo3/TNT2 debate is pretty much moot, as side by side there isn't a whole hell of a lot of difference. Voodoo3 is natively supported by more games, yes. TNT2 is in many respects just more powerful. A lot of things even out. If you're considering a new, almost-top-of-the-line video card, the V770 will do as well as any other for most situations.
But there are some cons. The V770 only has a single VGA-out port, which means you are constrained to a single monitor, unlike the Matrox G400, which offers a dual monitor setup, or the Voodoos, which also have TV outputs to show your games on the big screen, and in the case of the Voodoo 3500, a TV in for television in your computer and mid-quality video capture. The V770 also has had some bugs with OpenGL, which is an industry standard rendering solution at this point. With the latest driver patches, however, these problems have not been afflicting me any longer.
In terms of bang for the buck, the Viper delivers. If you want to tackle technical minutiae, you can do so all day long. But in the end, I think you'll find that it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 150
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Epinions.com ID:
Mojumbo
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Location: Los Angeles, CA
Reviews written: 33
Trusted by: 38 members
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