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The Xpert 2000 Pro
is ATI?s answer to cards such as Diamond/S3?s
Stealth III S540 Xtreme and cards based on
nVidia?s TNT2 M64 chip. Although none of these cards can be considered top of the
heap when comparing gaming performance numbers,
they are all respectable.
ATI?s suggested price point for the
Xpert 2000 Pro is $139. Now, I know what you?re thinking, ?I can grab one of
those other cards for less??, but remember
once a product ships, and the price wars begin,
you?ll see prices below that point, and when
you see the feature set of this card you?ll
think it?s worth every penny.
Update
2/8/00
The
Suggested Retail Price for the ATI Xpert 2000
Pro is now $99
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| Specifications
/ Features of The ATI Xpert 2000
Pro |
| Tight
as a drum... |
|
When
I first saw this board, I was taken a back for a
second. I?d like to point out that this puppy is tiny.
Take a look...
(click
for a closer look)
-
Hardware
DVD Playback
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Full
DirectX, Direct3D and OpenGl acceleration
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AGP
2x/4x
-
8
Million Triangle Setup Engine
-
Twin
Cache Architecture
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Complete
Alpha Blending
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Texture
Lighting
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Single
Pass Multi Texturing
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DirectX
Stencil planes
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DirectX
Bump Mapping
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Bilinear/Trilinear
Filtering
-
Line
& Edge Anti-aliasing
-
LOD
Biasing
That
is one small video card.
ATI has chosen to eliminate any unused
portions of the board, and only use essential
real estate.
Overclockers should welcome this as the
smaller the components in your case are, the
better (usually).
Smaller components take up less air
space, and allow for less restricted air
circulation throughout the case.
Looking at that spec list, the Xpert 2000 Pro is
one of the most feature rich cards in it?s
price range.
The only notable feature absent is DXTC,
which at this point is by no means a
requirement. Also keep in mind that ATI?s hardware DVD acceleration is
arguably the best available on the PC right now,
outside of purchasing a separate decoder board.
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