The 3D Prophet is a very good video card that offers more value
for the money than the Elsa Gladiac. However it's not as overclockable. This may
not be that important to you. After all, a GeForce2 GTS running at stock speed
is already one of the fastest, if not the fastest gaming video cards you can
buy.
Image quality in games was stunning. As good as any video card
I've ever seen. However, I found that the 5.22 drivers makes the sky in Quake 3
look really ugly. You can fix this by using the stock drivers. The 5.22 drivers
I used support FSAA. While this is a nice feature to have I found the
performance hit to be too great to use. Given a choice between running 1600x1200
without FSAA or 800x600 with FSAA, I'd take 1600x1200 any day.
I never got a chance to try the TV out feature but DVD playback
was very good. The movies I ran using Power DVD never skipped a beat. Picture
quality was also top notch.
At $349, the 3D Prophet II GTS is the same price as the Elsa
Gladiac. For the same money you get a nicer looking card with TV out and extra
cooling equipment which doesn't seem to work. Which one is better depends on
what you want. If you want speed and TV out than it's the 3D Prophet II. If
you're a tweaker who wants to overclock everything, then the Elsa would be a
better choice.
The 3D Prophet II GTS left me with mixed feelings. I was really
hoping for some big numbers from it. That didn't pan out but I really can't
complain. The card is still very fast. It runs all my games without any problem
at stock speed. Everything I tossed at it worked and worked great. Quake 3 and
Unreal played as smooth as silk. As for the limited overclocking of the 3D
Prophet II, no manufacturers can promise you that their product will overclock
no matter how good it looks. The 3D Prophet II runs fine at stock speed and it
runs fast and looks great. If you don't plan on overclocking your GeForce2 GTS
card, then this is the one to get.
The Goods
-
Very fast video card
-
Looks super cool
The Bads
Rating:
8/10
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