May 24 - 31, 1999
Archive

The Five board Overclocker's Board Shoot Out is now online! Five reviews are included, with 3 of the boards on test featuring voltage tweaks for hard core overclockers. To get a fair comparison, I revisited my two previous overclocking boards, the AOpen AX6BC and the Abit BX6-2. Into the mix is the MSI 6163, Iwill BD100Plus and Asus P2B-F. In addition to the reviews, I have included comparative benchmarks and some graphs and commentary on the results.

Finally I have tested stability with some very high bus speeds - tests were conducted with PC133 SDRAM, and some very fast PC100 memory. With the Camino chipset now delayed until September, support for official 133Mhz bus speeds will be delayed for a while, so if planing a BX Board purchase right now, these results are crucial to the longevity of your new board.

What if you're not all that interested in overclocking?  What if you're looking for a decent TNT2 Ultra board that gives you the features you want?  In that case, the Viper V770 Ultra is definitely a viable option.  It is probably what will turn out to be the best overall, normally clocked TNT2 Ultra card.  The ease of use and installation of the V770 Ultra is top notch, it's obvious that Diamond put a lot of effort into making their InControl Tools 99 drivers the best they could be, and it would take quite a bit to make them any better.  Kudos to Diamond on making a good card, but they take a back seat to Hercules as the overclocker's choice.

Performance/stability problems aside (provided Guillemot takes care of the unusual anomalies AnandTech experienced), is the Guillemot Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 worth your money?  At $199.99 (after a $30 mail-in rebate), the Xentor 32 is at a unique price point, it is just barely cheaper than the Dynamite TNT2 Ultra yet it is more expensive than the non-Ultra cards.  Considering that the card is guaranteed at 175/183, don't expect to be able to up the memory frequency too far above 183MHz (there's a reason Guillemot dropped the spec from 195 down to 183MHz), and you'll get diminishing returns as the core speed approaches and passes the 183MHz mark, provided it'll even hit that far.  Another interesting thing AnandTech noticed, the spec sheet for the Xentor 32 only lists it as an AGP 2X compliant part, if this is an indication that the Xentor 32 is not AGP 4X compliant (like most other TNT2 boards), then the verdict is definitely a pass on this one, if not, then Guillemot had better amend their spec sheet before they scare away too many customers.  If Guillemot fixes the problems AnandTech experience by the time they begin shipping the Xentor 32, then it may turn out to be a very viable option, until then, leave Guillemot off your wish list.  AnandTech will update this review with new information as soon as we get it.

• Powerstrip/GX (Win9X/NT - Beta - 159 KB)
• Powerstrip (Win9X/NT - version 2.50.01 - 647 KB)

 

This is the first "official" release with support for the NVidia Vanta/TNT2, Voodoo3, Savage4 and Rage128, under Windows 95/98 and NT. Although - aside from the new chips supported - there are no fresh features, this release includes quite a few small improvements and bug fixes. Note that 2.5 is likely to be the last major revision of what is now, in fact, a very old and dated program. The next major release will be the first ever to be completely unencumbered by prior OEM demands and restrictions (the source of many legitimate complaints by end-users), and has a completely different architecture and feature set.

• PowerStrip (Win9X/NT - version 2.50 - 648 KB)
  
  
  

• MicroStar MS-6182 Slot-1 Motherboard (i810 based)
• Gainward 6IZB Socket 370 Motherboard (i440ZX based)
  
  
  

The TennMax Stealth V3 Fighter allows you to easily overclock a Voodoo3 3000 card to run faster than even the upcoming Voodoo3 3500. I am certain this cooler will allow a Voodoo3 2000 (143 MHz) to reach impressive speeds as well, probably even faster than a standard Voodoo3 3000 (166 MHz) while still running cool and without problems. This cooler is like an upgrade for the Voodoo3: you can run a Voodoo3 2000 faster than a Voodoo3 3000, a Voodoo3 3000 faster than a 3500, and so on. Voodoo3 cards are hot enough to warrant the purchase of a cooling product, and this product easily gets the job done.

The 3D Blaster's other benefit is the higher speed RAM. In theory this will allow for greater odds of success in overclocking the video card. As with any attempts on overclocking, individual results will vary on a board to board basis. On this particular board I was able to run it at 175/200 (using Powerstrip) without any crashes or visual anomalies for more than an hour of hardcore gaming. I recall another site recommending that you buy 4 Diamond V770 Ultras on a credit card, bring them home, see which was the most overclockable and return the other 3. If you are considering going through anywhere near that much effort, probably with its faster memory the 3D Blaster will be a better bet. I think it would be easier to just go ahead and pay the extra money and get one Hercules card if the speed difference is that important.

• Motherboard Monitor (Win9X - version 4.07 - 1.3 MB)
  
  
  

This is a beta release of our graphics core and memory clock setting utility for Creative Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT and 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra cards. After installation the utility is resident on the Windows® taskbar. The utility features adjustable limits, a 15-second reversible test countdown after changes are applied, as well as a Safe Mode Safety Recovery and other features. Please review the readme text file included in the installation. As with all beta test releases, we cannot provide tech support. However, we are very interested in receiving your feedback. We invite you to share your observations on the Creative Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT and 3D Blaster RIVA TNT2 Ultra newsgroups

• CL Beta TNT/TNT2 Overclocking Utility
  
  
  

• 3D Blaster Savage4 Driver (Win9X - 2.6 MB - Revision 1)
• 3D Blaster Savage4 Driver (WinNT4 - 2.0 MB - Revision 1)
• 3D Blaster Savage4 BIOS (400 KB)
  
  
  

The price of its top-end 466MHz Celeron will drop 13 percent to $147, while its 433MHz Celeron processor will fall 21 percent to $113. Intel's 400MHz and 366MHz Celeron processors will drop to $93 and $69, respectively.

Extreme Hardware: How would you rate the performance of the Neon 250 compared to the original PowerVR? Are there any performance specs you can give us?

David Harold: Roughly five times that of PCX2 (the chip on the Apocalypse 3Dx and Matrox M3d.) PCX2 was 500K poly/s and 30Mpx fill rate. PowerVR 250 is over 4M poly/s and 200 - 500 Mpx fill rate.

Since there is no benchmark for DVD drives I will just have to talk about the speed and quality from personal experience. I also have a Creative Labs Encore 2x DVD-Drive, so I used that drive as a comparison against the Pioneer 6x DVD Drive. The Pioneer drive loaded up the DVD disc about 2.5 times faster than the Creative Labs Encore did. The Pioneer is slot-loaded, compared to the Creative Labs tray-loaded feature. The image quality was about the same on both drives, when using the Creative Labs DxR2 decoder board. The sound was far superior from the Pioneer drive, due to the technology advances between the two generations.

One definite thing this shows is how much difference drivers can make. Even clocked at a significantly lower speed, the Diamond V770 Ultra beat the Hercules Dynamite in 32 bit Quake 2 at 800x600, and most resolutions in Forsaken. What kind of performance could the Guillemot or Hercules card acheive with newer drivers? It is difficult to say. As Nvidia has still not released anything but what I consider to be beta TNT/2 drivers, it is hard to compare. Given that, the V770 Ultra posts respectable figures, and is a very playable video card.

Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. May 26th, 1999- ABIT Introduces the Hot RodT 66 card, the ABIT way to do Ultra ATA/66. If you need to run the latest ATA/66 hard drives at their intended speed or you want to get under the hood of your computer and turn it into a Hot Rod, the you need ABIT's Hot RodT 66 card. With ABIT technology you can get full support for Ultra ATA/66 drives with their 66MB/sec. burst data transfer rates.

Taipei, Taiwan, May 27th, 1999- ABIT announces the release of the their latest BX chipset ATX based SOCKET 370 motherboard, supporting the Ultra DMA/66 IDE Protocol and Soft MenuT II technology, the BY6. With all the great features of ABIT's flagship BX mainboards and UDMA/66, ABIT has once again proved that "Yes it's possible!".

The EIDE-based internal Orb drive retails for just $199.95, compared with the Iomega 2GB Jaz drive, which sells for $349.95. Castlewood's bargain-basement approach holds for media, as well. Additional 2.2GB disks for the Orb run $29.95 compared with $124.95 for 2GB Jaz disks. And in our tests, the EIDE Orb consistently outperformed Iomega's external Ultra SCSI-based Jaz 2GB drive.

The Orb's biggest disadvantage is that the drive currently only comes in internal EIDE and external parallel port versions. However, according to Castlewood, external SCSI, USB, and FireWire products should hit the shelves this summer. The prices for those units are expected to hover between $199 and $249.

ESS will re-establish itself in the sound card industry with the Canyon 3D. The hardware features of the board, with Burr-Brown D/A converters and 5.1 output are more advanced than the competition. A SPDIF connector also allows you to bypass the internal D/A converters for professional applications. The sound quality of the Canyon 3D rivals that of the current front runners in the sound card market.

• WinAMP (Win9X/NT - version 2.2 - 632 KB)
• WinAMP WMA 4.0 Support
• Sonique w/WMA (Win9X/NT - version 1.0 - 2.4 MB)
• Sonique (Win9X/NT - version 1.0 - 1.3 MB)

Although the 'branding' isn't quite as snazzy as the 'Viper' or the 'Dynamite' range, what matters is- what's under the hood. The AGP V3800 TVR and BASIC both use NVIDIA's TNT2 chipset, which is clocked at the default 125MHz speed. They both sport a 32MB SGRAM layout (clocked at 150MHz). The DELUXE version differs considerably, in that the UltraTNT2 chipset is used, clocked at 150MHz. In addition to the TV-Out and LCD port it also comes with a set of 3D Glasses. For the purpose of this review, we took the 'DELUXE' version for a spin.

I've added a Refresh Rates dialog box that allows you to set the refresh rate for all resolutions and color depths in one place at one time. It does not support changing your monitors refresh rate on the fly but does offer a simple and fast method of setting the refresh rates used during Windows startup. This will speed up resetting all your refresh rates again after reinstalling or upgrading drivers.

• Voodoo 3 Overclocker (Win9X - version 2.2 - 110 KB)
  
  
  

This is a beta releases of an optimized mini-GL driver for both the 3D Blaster Banshee and the 3D Blaster Voodoo2. This driver supports Quake II, QuakeGL and Hexen II, as well as adding support for Quake III (specifically Quake III Test 1.05). We have developed a single mini-GL file that supports all of these programs.

We particularly recommend this driver for those who are interested in running Quake III Test 1.05. This driver allows you all the benefits of Creative's Blaster Control Panel, while providing significant improvements to Quake III when compared to other available drivers. Texture management in Quake III is improved, and the appearance of some textures (e.g., sky) is improved. We have not benchmarked the new Creative mini-GL driver version versus other GL drivers, but we expect that the texture loading optimizations should show frame rate benefits. Compare our driver with other available solutions for the Banshee and Voodoo2 and you will find that we have eliminated vertex lighting errors, texture warping, and texture misalignments, and the brightness control setting is functional. See some comparative screenshot thumbnails.

There are a few important points we want to make sure that you understand before you download and install the Creative mini-GL driver:

• Our testing and optimization work has been concentrated on Quake III, QuakeGL, Quake II and Hexen II. You may run into problems if you try to use our mini-GL driver with other games.
• You must have Creative's 3D Blaster Banshee or 3D Blaster Voodoo2 drivers installed.
• This driver is a production of the Americas division of Creative Labs. Since Quake III Test 1.05 is a pre-release of Quake III Arena, these drivers are considered beta and we can't offer phone or e-mail tech support for them. However you are invited to post your benchmark results or compare notes with other players on the 3D Blaster Voodoo2 and 3D Blaster Banshee newsgroups on Creative's news server. Once Quake III Arena is finalized, we will develop a fully supported driver to further enhance your gaming experience.
  
  
• CL Banshee & V2 miniGL Driver
  
  
  

ABIT announces the release of the World's First Dual Socket 370 motherboard, the BP6. The ABIT BP6 doubly defies conventional limitations by offering both Dual Socket 370 and UDMA/66 on a BX chipset board, once again proving that with ABIT, "Yes, It's possible". The BP6 is based on the award winning design of ABIT's BX line of motherboards. All the great features of our flagship models have been kept, and a lot of amazing new features have been added.

• HardOCP Voodoo3 2000 Review
• 3D Spotlight Voodoo3 3000 Review
  
  
  

Need For Speed 3 was installed on both computers and a networked game was run to test the stability and speed of the connection. A TCP/IP connection was used on both machines in the game. All settings were set to the highest detail on both machines and all the tracks from Hometown to Empire City were used. There was no lag found on either machines and the races ran smoothly from the start till the end.

My ADSL connection was stable on both computers and allowed another person in the room to enjoy the use of a fast speed line without any problem.

Hewlett-Packard Company, the marketshare leader of CD-ReWritable (CD-RW) drives, today announced the first DVD+ReWritable drive (DVD+RW), the HP DVD Writer 3100i. As the need for greater disc space is spurred on by the growing use of multimedia documents, DVD+RW offers business- and home-PC power users the ability to create, share, store and access content-rich documents easily using a single disc, without sacrificing compatibility.

The new HP DVD Writer 3100i drive reads and writes to DVD+RW discs, which have 3.0GB of storage capacity, which is equivalent to 100 minutes of high-quality digital video. In addition to DVD+RW media, the HP DVD Writer 3100i can read DVD-ROM, DVD movie, CD-RW, CD-Recordable (CD-R), CD-ROM and CD audio. DVD+RW discs provide users with the familiar CD experience and do not require a cartridge. DVD+RW discs can be read by DVD-ROM drives at virtually no additional cost. HP is working with DVD-ROM and chip manufacturers to create or adapt products to take advantage of DVD+RW capabilities.

Unlike other rewritable DVD formats, such as DVD-RAM, the new HP DVD+RW drive uses disc media, similar to a CDs. DVD-RAMs require a media cartridge and therefore have limited compatibility. They cannot be read in a DVD-ROM drive unless the drive is altered to accept a cartridge or the cartridge is removed, which compromises the integrity of the disc.

• ASUS V3400 Driver (Win9X - version 2.17 - 2 MB)
• ASUS V3400 Tweak Utility (Win9X - version 2.0 -874 KB)
  
  
  

So what are we to do? And how can we achieve the best contact with the core? Well TennMax's new "thermal phase change interface pad" T-Pad  is an in-house creation which,  when around normal ambient temps is an elastomer. But when the temp is raised above 40C, the pad undergoes a physical change and softens to improve the contact it makes.   It will actually bond itself to the cpu core which then sucks the heat right on out of it, and brings it down to 40C or lower. Now when I first heard this,  I was like "yeah right".  So when I received this unit, that was the first thing I tested.  Off I went for 4 hrs of Q3ATEST map TEST2 (sheesh, this hardware testing is a hard job J I tell ya.)

The major difference between the BE6 and the other BX mainboards is the addition of Ultra DMA/66 support. The BX chipset was not designed to support UDMA/66. Although the BX chipset was designed to be compatible with this specification, it is only capable of running the bus at a maximum of 33 Mbytes/sec, thus offering no advantage over UDMA/33. With the help of specially designed ABIT hardware, the BE6 can support this specification up to its maximum frequency of 66 Mbytes/sec On Now!With the BE6, ABIT is implementing our OnNow (STR/STD) Initiative which allows you to suspend your computer with out closing you’re desktop applications, allowing you to find everything the way you left it while using a minimum of power. No need to close and reopen all those applications any more. The BE6 also supports up to 256 SDRAM modules, permitting up to 768MB of memory.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 25 /PRNewswire/ -- 3Dlabs®, Inc. (Nasdaq: TDDD - news) today announced it is manufacturing and selling the Permedia®3 Create! graphics accelerator card developed for web designers and creative professionals. This highly anticipated card, based on the new-generation Permedia3 processor, is now available for pre-purchase online with product shipment commencing in June. With an MSRP of $289, US-based customers may initially purchase Permedia3 Create! exclusively online at www.3dlabs.com/store for an introductory price of $229. Permedia3 Create! will also be available through local distribution in other geographies, including Europe and Asia.

There's been a lot of speculation regarding the actual performance level of the Alienware PGC technology (again, two Voodoo3-2000 PCI cards running in SLI). We've been passed the following benchmark result from the company themselves, as witnessed by many during Alienware's display at E3:

Alienware Dual Voodoo3-2000 PGC (2 x 16MB PCI, 143MHz)
Intel P3-500
Quake2 Timedemo1-
1600x1200x16bpp: 63.5 fps

• CL Riva TNT2 Ultra BIOS (version 2.05.2.11 - 215 KB)

CL Unified Driver Information and link:

We are pleased to announce an opportunity for our Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT customers to try out a beta version of our Unified Driver. the Unified Driver allows Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT owners to run many of the games which support 3D acceleration only via the Glide® API.

If you have any questions, please see the FAQ. For game compatibility information, please see the game information page. We've also created a newsgroup which beta testers may use to compare notes, submit bug reports, or ask questions.

New Unified version 1.08 beta available! (May 24, 1999) This version addresses Win95 compatibility, and fixes the people selector box in Myth.

• CL Riva TNT Unified Driver (Win9X - version 1.08)
  
  
  

• Abit BH6 Beta BIOS (version KK)
  
  
  

At first I was a little sceptical on how good the image quality could be, since the overlay was only running at 640x480 @ 60Hz, but the card is incredible. The detail in the picture is immediately apparent and was MUCH better than my Encore running at 1024x768. As with the Hollywood card, there was support for 16:9 TV-optimised wide-screen DVDs.

This is version 1.1.3. Fast Card is a 3Dfx/Riva TNT overclocking utility that provides a graphical interface in Windows 95/98 to overclock your board. It's small, efficient, and free!

New in v1.1.3 is V3 support and various other stuff I can't remember!!

• FastCard (Win9X/NT - version 1.1.3 - 212 KB)
  
  
  

• Aureal
• Sharedware
• Saitek
• Hunsaker Manufacturing (Interactive Battle Chair)
• ACT Labs
• NVIDIA
• BMG Laboratories (Intensor Chair)
• Turtle Beach
• Logitech
• Matrox
• Thrustmaster

• Microsoft
  
  
  

That is what i consider the best value of these glasses, namely that they should work with about 99% of the games that come out. Currently they do not support OpenGL titles, but I believe that future support of OpenGL titles may be possible. If Quake 2 (or 3) is the only game you play, there may not be a whole lot of value for you in these glasses. Half-Life has a Direct3D mode, even if it is primarily a OpenGL game, so you can use the Revelators in it. For most of us, these glasses could see quite a bit of use.