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| Quality
and Installation Of The Gladiac 64 |
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Stuff... |
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The
physical quality of the Gladiac 64 is very good.
Close inspection of the board reveals some
high quality workmanship.
I feel this should be expected with
reputable manufacturers that have been adhering to
the nVidia reference design, because it hasn?t
changed much since the first TNT2?s were
released.
There
are some chinks in the armor though.
Chips manufactured with an .18-micron
process inherently run much cooler than chips
using a ?larger? process.
This fact was probably considered when Elsa
was deciding what type of heatsink / fan combo to
install in the Gladiac, as it seems conservative
compared to some of their competitors.
Not
only is it rather wimpy, it is mounted with
thermal epoxy?YUCK!
The nVidia reference design already has
holes in the PCB for mounting other types of chip
coolers. I wish more manufacturers would
utilize them and use thermal paste as the
interface material.
The few extra pennies spent manufacturing
cards this way would probably more than pay for
itself with less support calls and a longer
lasting product.
Heck, cards might even be able to ship
clocked at a higher default speed if the cooling
solutions were more robust.
Having said that, I did however have very
good luck overclocking this board.
There
is no video or in or out available on the board in
it?s default configuration but it is offered in
the form of an optional add-on.
However, ELSA does offer full support for
their 3D Revelator Glasses with the Gladiac, which
might sway a few potential buyers to look away
from their competitors.
One
other factor worth mentioning is the warranty Elsa
offers with the Gladiac.
This board is covered by a full 6-year
warranty. This
is a testament to the confidence Elsa has in their
products.
Speaking
of Quality?nice segue, huh? The visual quality
of the Gladiac is excellent, but similar to other
GeForce 2?s out there.
Here is a screenshot of F.A.K.K. 2 at
1024x768x32 using the 2x2 AA setting.
It
looks very good but if you endeavor for the best
visual quality available, you may want to check
out ATI?s Radeon or 3dfx?s Voodoo5. In
my opinion they both offer slightly better image
quality. However, this is very subjective, so the best advice we can
give you is to experience all these cards in
action and choose the one you like best.
Installation
of this card was a snap, if you follow the
directions. Popping the card in your AGP
slot and pointing Windows to the directory where
your files are located is all it takes.
Elsa ships the Gladiac with their version
of nVidia?s reference drivers called the WinMan
suite. The functionality is excellent, and installation was painless
but power users will opt for the newer, higher
performing Detonator 3?s.
Here are some screen captures of Elsa?s
control panels but all benchmarks appearing later
in this review were taken using the new nVidia
Detonator 3 Reference Drivers.
Overclocking
and Gaming Performance
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