Prophet 2 MX, fast and Cheap 2! (Guillemot 3D Prophet 2 MX)

Member Name: manic_man

Product:	Guillemot 3D Prophet 2 MX
Date:	10/06/01 (121 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Built in T&L engine, Extremely competitively priced, Faster than a Voodoo5000!

Disadvantages: RAM limitations (SDR) means that at res above 1024*768 it can suffer, No stock fan cooling solution as standard, No game or other software bundled

I bought this card a little while ago and havent looked back since! I was looking for a card which not only was highly recommended but was actually going to be afffordable as well. At the time a Geforce 2 GTS was about £250, I bought this card for less than £100. Thats good value. As far as its technical specifications go, its not THAT much different to the GTS chip in that it has the built in T&L (transform and lighting) the biggest difference under the "bonnet" is that it only has two texture pipelines, reminiscent of the old TNT2. This still isnt too shaby but will mean that when masses of pixels are being pushed around the screen its going to lag more than the GTS. Another big difference is that NVIDIA have decided that, so as to differ the GTS from the MX chip, not to allow it to use a 128bit bus when using DDR ram, this is a big limitation if the company you buy from decides to go the DDR route, as overall going down the route which hercules have with this card seems to be the best way. Hercules have used SDRam, however it has a 128bit bus, thus meaning that its memory bandwisth is much more acceptable. This is the biggest factor that should be considered when choosing this card oer rivals, such as Creative (who did use the 64bit DDR and suffered because of it!) Hercules, although they dont actively encourage it, do have a reputation for produing very overclockable cards, this one is no exception, by choosing fast 5.5NS (nonasecond) Hitachi (good brand!) RAM they have effectively made the card very "versatile" they also actually ship the card running with a RAM clock speed of 183MHZ, rather than the stock NVIDIA setting of 166MHZ, which most other brands use, its also worth noting that this only applies to the Retail version, the OEm comes equipped with higher NS rated (bad!) RAM which is clocked at 166MHZ. OK, onto the chip specs a bit more. basically it runs at 175MHZ as this is the stock speed for the chip. Hercules have only provided a
heatsink without a fan for this card, however using this solution i have mine currently clocked at 200MHZ, stabily! Although you can buy a more mutimedia friendly version for a few more bucks, i only have the basic model with the standard monitor output, which i fine for my needs. You should buy the model which corresponds to your requirements.
Although the card doesnt come bundled with any games or the such its price perfectly warrants this. it has all the usual drivers etc and the Hercules site is updated often, it even comes with some nifty stickers for your PC case! This card returns a healthy 4500 odd 3DMark 2000 score (without overclocking) and a equally healthy 2800 off with 3DMark 2001, again at stock speeds. As you may have guessed, i thouroghly recommend this card and urge you to choose it as your GF2 MX soloution.

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