X-Micro Impact 4 Ultra


The XMicro Impact 4 Ultra - Page 3

The X-Micro Impact 4 Ultra
Haven't I seen you somewhere before?

By, Jeff Bouton
January 25, 2001

H.H. Test System
Not too shabby!

Full Tower ATX Case w/ 300W PS, Pentium III 933EB, Tyan S1854 (Via 133A) Motherboard and X-Micro Impact 4 GeForce 2 Ultra AGP Card w/64MB of DDR SDRAM, 256MB of PC133 True CAS2 SDRAM, Maxtor 15Gig 7200 RPM ATA100 Hard Drive, Pioneer 16max DVD-ROM, Windows ME, DirectX 8.0, nVidia reference drivers (Detonator 3 6.31)

Benchmarks With The X-Micro Impact 4 Ultra
OpenGL Scores...

 
First up is one of our favorites around here?MDK2.  Lets see how this card handles OpenGL?

MDK2 (OPENGL TEST)

As you can see, we hit the CPU limit right through 1024x768, not to mention the fact that we?ve exceeded 60FPS at 1600x1200x32!   Now let?s see how we do with the venerable Quake 3.  First up, the Fastest and Normal settings?

QUAKE 3 (OPENGL TEST)

With numbers like this, the card is just begging for us to give it the juice with the High Quality test, all options set to maximum, phasers set to kill.  To give you a comparison, we?ve thrown the results from a recent review of one of the Impact 4?s brothers, the Hercules 3D Prophet II?

I think it?s a close race folks.  Although this card is ?no frills?, it is also ?no nonsense?.  From what we?ve seen so far, this puppy is ready for a fight.  With excellent performance in all areas of the standard benchmarks, I think this card deserves a 10 for ripping through whatever we threw at it.

Overclocking With The X-Micro Impact 4 Ultra
More Power!

After the excellent performance that we saw in the standard benchmarks, I just couldn?t wait to see just how much we could squeeze out of this card.  When it came to the core speed, we got it to top out at a solid 315MHz!   With the performance that we?ve seen with similar cards, I thought we would have no problem pushing the RAM speed to 500MHz.  Well, we almost got there but had to settle for 495MHz.  So let?s see what a little more juice does to the 3Dmark tests?

If you compare the results, you?ll find a gain of over 300 points at 1600x1200x32!  This looks pretty sweet.  Now let?s see how MDK2 performed?

Very nice!  We shattered the 60FPS barrier with a whopping 71FPS at 1600x1200x32.  Now we?ll run Quake 3 and see how the results compare to the Hercules Prophet II running at a core 305MHz and Memory Clock speed of 500MHz.?

Although we didn?t quite break the 60FPS barrier at 1600x1200x32, it was pretty close.  As far as the comparison goes, taking into account the difference in the test systems, it?s safe to say it was neck-in-neck.

We found the card to be very over clock friendly.  The card's performance virtually match's that of the Hercules Prophet II.  With excellent performance and stability while running the Over clocked Benchmarks, I give the X-Micro Impact 4 a 9.

If you're shopping for an Ultra and don?t need all the little bells and whistles that other manufacturers offer,  then the X-Micro Impact 4 Ultra is a sensible choice.  By sticking with a standard reference design that has earned itself the status of a market leader, X-Micro has been able to offer a quality video card with exceptional value and performance.  We are confident that the steps taken to cut unnecessary costs will translate into significant savings for the buyer.   Although their software bundle is a little light, the X-Micro Impact 4 Ultra still offers several useful software packages.  

After taking an average of the scores in each section, we give the X-Micro Impact 4 Ultra a HotHardware heat meter rating of a...

The silence is deafening and I can't Handle It!
So get into the HotHardware Conference Room now!

 

  To HotHardware!

 

Tags:  Ultra, impact, MIC, ULT, AC, IM, Micro, ACT

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