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The
Leadtek Winfast GeForce2 GTS
The
next generation GeForce makes its HotHardware
debut
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5/5/00
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By Dave
"Davo" Altavilla
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| Options,
that's what typifies the Graphics Card Market at
this point in time. I don't think I have
ever seen a time when there were so many 3D
Accelerators to choose from. There are so
many different OEM manufacturers with lots of
compelling technology to lure you into that next
upgrade purchase. NVidia has
certainly been contributing their fair share of
product to the equation with their tireless six
month new product introduction cycle.
There is a ton of competing technology in
the 3D Graphics space now and you, the blurry
eyed consumer, are left to sort it all
out. What a great problem to have!
The following is
a look at yet another option at your disposal,
with respect to your next 3D Graphics Card
upgrade. Taiwan and Fremont, CA based Leadtek
Research, offers their Winfast GeForce2 GTS
for your consideration. Here is our take
on the latest and greatest that NVidia and
Leadtek have to offer.
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| Specifications
/ Features Of The Leadtek Winfast
GeForce2 GTS |
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Straight
up GeForce2 With Extra Cooling
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click image for full
view
- .18
Micron Core
- 200MHz.
Core Clock Speed
- 256-bit
Graphics Engine
- 32MB DDR
memory rated at 6ns.
- 1.6
GTexel per second throughput
- 350MHz.
Integrated RAMDAC for high resolution
support of up to 2048X1536 resolutions
- Per
Pixel Shader
- 8
texture-mapped, filtered, lit texels per
clock cycle with "Hypertexel"
Technology
- High
Definition Video Processor
- 2nd-generation
T&L Engines
- High
Performance Hardware Anti-aliasing
- Integrated
TMDS - Transmission-Minimized
Differential Signaling Transmitter
- Double
Data Rate (DDR) Memory
- AGP
4X with Fast Writes & Execute Mode
- DVD
Motion Compensation
- NTSC/PAL
TV output encoding
- DVI
interface encoding
- 32-bit
color, Z/Stencil buffer
- Cube
Environment Mapping
- Dot
Product 3 Bump Mapping
- Vertex
Skinning
- High
Quality Texture Filtering, including
Anisotropic
- Advanced
per-pixel, perspective-correct texturing and
shading
- DirectX
Texture Compression Support
- S3TC
Texture Compression Support
- DVD playback
package
- Optional TV
output and DVI Interface
- Winfast DVD
Software
- Colorific
Monitor Color Calibration Software
- Windows 2000,
Windows NT 4.0
- Windows 98 and
Windows 95 display drivers
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| We've
seen this list of specs before so let's not
dwell on it too much. Suffice it to say
that the Leadtek Winfast GeForce2 GTS (wow
that's a mouth full) utilizes NVidia's latest
graphics power house, the GeForce2 GTS
chip. With a 200MHz. core and a 1.6 Giga
Texel Fill Rate, frame rates should be
"monster" fast. NVidia also
added support for Full Scene Anti-Aliasing and
Environmental Bump Mapping. They also
enhanced the DVD playback features of the
chipset. All told, the GeForce2 GTS is a
very well rounded chipset with the best
performance specs on paper, available in the
market currently.
The Winfast card
itself is a fairly well built unit with an
excellent cooling solution. As you can see
in the picture above, the card has a very large
heat sink and fan combo. This dissipates
heat very well and will add to the ability of
overclocking the card. We'll have more on
this later. Also, the memory used is the
Infineon / Siemens DDR SDRAM that we have seen
on other DDR GeForce cards in the past.
Here is a shot of one of the chips.
My
apologies for that shot being a little blurry
but so was the reviewer at the time it was
taken. ;-) In any event, the Winfast
GeForce2 GTS is a fairly straight forward
reference design approach with a very nice
active cooling setup as an additional
bonus. Our card came with VGA output only
but there are versions that support DFI (Digital
Flat Panel) and TV Out.
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| It's
plug and play time folks!
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Setup,
Installation, Drivers and Screen Shots
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