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So,
you are thinking, "great another GeForce
SDR Graphics Card review". On the
surface, your aversion to mundane and "been
there, done that" type of products and
their respective reviews, could be well
founded. HOWEVER, not this time bunky.
Yes, this is another GeForce SDR Graphics Card
review but things are always a little different
when it comes to Gigabyte
product. This is a look at what could be
the best value on the net if you are in the
market for a GeForce 3D Graphics
Accelerator. Now that we've got your
attention. Let's see if Gigabyte can make
good on this claim.
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| Specifications
/ Features of The Gigabyte
GA-GF2560 |
| True
Blue - No surprises but quality
layout and components |
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You've
got to love the turquoise blue
FR4 material that Gigabyte uses for their
PCB. It is unmistakably a Gigabyte
Graphics Card, just looking at the color alone.
(click
for a closer look)
NVIDIA
Geforce256, 256-bit 2D/3D Graphics Processor
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Ultra-fast
32MB SDRAM with 256-bit graphics
architecture
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Integrated
transform and lighting
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AGP
2X / 4X with Fast Writes
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32-bit
color ARGB with destination alpha
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32-bit
Z/Stencil and 8-bit stencil
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Cube
environment mapping
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Anisotropic
texture filtering
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350MHz
Palette-DAC
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DVD-
and HDTV-ready motion compensation for
MPEG-2 decoding
What
we have here is a basic reference design.
Alright, settle down... That's
where the similarities end. The heat sink
installed is a fairly solid unit with a decent
fan to back it up. I do believe Gigabyte
does something special or uses top notch
interface material with the combo, because the
board can handle some pretty serious core clock
speeds. (more on this later). Also,
this board is equipped with Elite MT 5.5ns
RAM. This is the good stuff. (we'll
tell you why later on this as well). We
have seen memory from Samsung and Hyundai on SDR
cards but the Elite MT Memory is a notch above
the rest with 5.5 and 5.0 ns product.
Finally, this card has TV Out on board.
Again, not a differentiator but nice to have
none the less.
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