Introduction

It's been quite some time since we last reviewed a graphics card here at Technoyard. Since the time the first Geforce 3 graphics card arrived into the market, this industry has experienced phenomenal growth in terms of sales revenue and technological advancements. I remember how eagerly we were anticipating the arrival of the Geforce 3 into the market last year, and boy what a lot has changed since then. Now not more than year after the introduction of the GF3 nVidia has plans for the Geforce 4 as well. We can expect to see these boards pretty soon on the shelves.

What we'll be looking at today is one of the titanium series graphics cards from Hercules; the 3D Prophet II. Founded in 1982 Hercules is now under the Guillemot Corporation. Even though they have faced many up's and down's over the past, Hercules has remained in the lime light right throughout. It was only very recently Hercules released their line-up of the Geforce Titanium GPU, and we would like to thank Hercules for giving us the opportunity to look at their 3D Prophet II card based on the Geforce 2 Titanium GPU.

Lets take a look at the specifications of the card before we go any further

Specifications

Graphics processor
Memory	64MB on-board DDR RAM memory
Bus	AGP 2X/4X
Memory interface	128-bit DDR
Memory type	250MHz DDR RAM qualified
Core clock speed	250MHz
Internal chipset bandwidth	8GB/s
Brute rendering architecture	4 pixels pipelines 2 texels for each pipeline 2,000Mtexels/s
3D acceleration features enhancements	Hardware T&L
Special effects	Cube environmental mapping Bump mapping Hardware Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) Vertex blending Texture compression Lighting, Shading…
RAMDAC/Pixel cycle	350MHz
Output options	High-resolution TV encoder (up to 800x600) VGA Output
Supported API(s)	DirectX® & OpenGL®
Bundled Software	Hercules Quake3 level (H3ShoDne map) PowerDVD™ 3.0 3Deep® NVIDIA Demos

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

• Intel Pentium® II / AMD K6® and higher or compatible versions
• Available AGP 2.0 compliant slot
• 64MB RAM
• 10MB hard disk space (or larger for installing games)
• CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
• Microsoft Windows®XP, Me, 98, 95 OSR2, 2000 or NT4 or later

Looking at the card, you can't help noticing the oversized cooler as well as blue RAM sinks all around. Comparing it to one of the first GeForce 3 cards that came into the market, the VisionTech GF3, you notice the difference in size of the cooling system incorporated onto the card. Due to the RAM sinks we couldn't see what kind of memory this card was using, however we could expect something in the range of 4-5ns chips to be under their.

The card also is fixed with a S-video TV-output so that you can hook the monitor's output to your standard TV and have a more realistic and pleasant gaming experience.

The installation manual does a good job in explaining everything regarding the installation, even though I doubt anyone would look at it. Hercules has changed the logo of the nVidia drivers, however everything else is exactly the same.

Hercules also includes some handy utilities along with the driver CD for you to enjoy the features of the card. The drivers included are Detonator 4 v21.81, and I found them to be very stable in overclocked conditions. The CD also contains Direct X 8.0a and nVidia demos, such as Inferno, Chameleon and my favorite Zoltar. Hercules also includes their own tweaking program, which allows you to enable/disable Direct 3D, Open GL and it even gives a small explanation of when you take your mouse over each function. The utility provides basic overclocking options, however you will need an utility such as nvmax for maximum overclocking options.

One cool utility I think many of you out there would love is the inclusion of a new Quake III map called H3ShoDne. This is certainly a lovely addition by Hercules and it has been specially designed to highlight the capabilities of the 3D Prophet II Titanium.

Hercules also includes a copy of power DVD along with the software bundle, which is yet another cool add-on.

Alright let's see where this card stands in terms of performance.

Gaming Applications used

• Quake III Arena
• Serious Sam

Other Benchmark Utilities

• 3D Mark 2001.

First let's look at the 3D mark Scores of the card before we compare it with the other cards.

By default the card is clocked in at 250/400 Core and memory. The GeForce3 tested here is clocked at 250/500 core and memory. For overclocking I got hold of the latest version of nvmax and went about testing the best and stable combination. After a few minutes of playing around I was able to take the card up to 275 core and 468 memory. I reached 478 memory as well, however at this setting games weren't as smooth as the former setting. Guess 478 is the sheer limit for memory on the card. Overall though, the card's overclocking ability is very good. I ran 3D Mark 2001 at 1024 x 768 in 32 bit mode and received a score of 5285, which is very impressive indeed.

Conclusion

The results speak for themselves don't they. Think about it, the 3D Prphet II Titanium is the value card in Hercules's Titanium series and it's almost as fast as the GF3. This could also be that the GF3 tested here is one of the 1st to come into the market, and releases after this would be much faster, however bottom line is that the 3D Prophet II performs almost in line with GF3 performance levels.

All tests were carried out in Windows XP professional, and as I have heard WIN XP has a small performance hit in FPS rates while playing games. It's not a huge contrast; however you are sure to get a few more FPS in other O/S's. So far the lowest price I found for the card is around $125, and I simply can't put in words what a great value card this is. Look at the performance you get, and see how much you have to pay to get it. It doesn't rip your heart out at all.

Attaching a better stock heat sink on the chip might yield better overclocking performance, however this can never be guaranteed. Some cards will even go beyond the rating we were able to achieve while some will not even come close to it. Nevertheless I would still go for this card as it gives so much value for your buck. If you're looking for something a bit more high range, then Hercules also offers the 3D Prophet II Titanium 200 and 500. These may be higher in price however yet again they are great value for money.