With all the GTS2 cards out, why would we want to review a plain Jane GeForce? I have no idea, but Guillemot decided it was time to have us review one of their video cards...
With all the GTS2 cards out, why would we want to review a plain Jane GeForce? I have no idea, but Guillemot decided it was time to have us review one of their video cards, and this was the one sent. The card in question, comes to us in the form of the Hercules 3D Prophet DDR DVI. Having played with Elsa's cards for some time now, I didn't quite know what to expect from the now taken over Hercules folks.
The vid card came with usual fair, nice box graphics on the packaging, a decent book manual, software DVD decoder, and a couple of game demo's. The nice thing is the card comes with S-Video TV out, but they had the foresight to include the S-Video to RCA adapter. Not a big deal kind of item, but a personal touch I like to see when that option is available on the card. DVI, or Digital Visual Interface, is for hooking up that dope flat panel, LCD, or TFT you might have lying around. I don't. Needless to say that function will not be tested, that is unless someone wants to kick down with a flat panel for us to play with and otherwise abuse. Anyone? Didn't think so..
Anyhow, since the GeForce reviews by now have been done to death almost, and with the inception of the GTS2 it makes for less excitement than one would hope to see. However, keep reading guys, there is something about this card you are going to like a lot if you are shopping for an upgrade to that aging TNT or TNT2. While these cards are a bit expensive, they are dropping all the time and soon will be in buying range of quite a few budgeted hobbyists. With that in mind, let's see why I think this is such a sweet bargain for your average GeForce.
DVD in a computer has never made much sense to me. I don't use my PC to watch movies, even though with an Altec Dolby speaker system and 19" monitor it could easily entertain as such. See I have a nice 27" TV and a VCR in the family room, so it would be ridiculous to me to use my machine for movies. I have been told though that the GeForce's built in hardware supports DVD quite well, so if you are one of those guys that uses your box as a theater, this should do the trick pretty well. I won't test it though, because I gave away my DVD player a while back. I think I watched one movie on the darn thing...