By now I'm sure many of you have heard of
Leadtek simply because they were the first company to release a TNT2
based board. Being able to do something like that especially for a
small Taiwanese company like Leadtek is very difficult and this shows that
they definitely have the determination and expertise to get it
done. Because of their hard work, they have built themselves a
pretty good name within just a few weeks. 
Being the first to release a new card is
one thing, but making it a good one in such short time is another
thing. Was Leadtek able to do it? In short, Yes. I'm not keeping
it a surprise because there have been a ton of S320 II reviews and the
results are all the same. So there is no point keeping you in
suspense. However, I will try to examine all aspects of the board as best as
possible. Most TNT2 boards
from different manufacturers will be very similar in performance because
they are closely based on NVidia's reference design. The only thing that will
separate them is their extra features and how much performance an
individual can squeeze out of it by overclocking it. Fortunately
this board seems to do well in both areas as you'll see later in the
review.
With that said, lets take a brief look at
NVidia's TNT2 chip. In a sense, the TNT2 is really what
NVidia expected the original TNT to be. The original TNT was
supposed to be based on the 0.25 micron process and run at 125MHz
killing the Voodoo2 at that time. However, it is very well known
that Nvidia was unable to
keep their promise. The chip had to be manufactured on the 0.35
micron process which rendered it incapable of running at speeds over 90MHz
without special cooling.
So at this point in time, NVidia has
finally changing to the 0.25 micron process and those 125MHz+ chips
have become a reality. The TNT2 comes in two flavors, the regular
TNT2 and the TNT2 Ultra. They are really the same chip but because
manufacturing processes and silicon wafer qualities can vary, some chips
will be able to reach higher clock speeds than others. Nvidia
tests for these chips, filters them out and sells them to board
manufacturers at a higher price because they can run at a higher
frequency. The TNT2's default clock speed is 125MHz while the TNT2
Ultra's default is 150MHz.
Nvidia has also stated that a few minor
modifications have been made to the TNT2's rendering pipeline which makes
it 5-10% faster at the same clock speed as TNT. Also, Nvidia says
32-bit performance has been improved significantly. DVD playback
has also been slightly improved to provide less dropped frames.
The TNT has some problems with poor DVD performance, especially on
lower end systems. Other than that, the TNT2's features are pretty much
the same as the TNT which already has a pretty complete 3D feature
list. The only thing I think is missing is bump mapping like
Matrox's G400. Anyway, let's proceed and take a look at the
complete feature list.
