Graphics Card Round up Based On The Geforce2 GTS Chipset

Overclocking

I have to say, I was not expecting much in this area with the Tornado. The generic cooling solution is not something that could do wonders to keep the heat down, plus the haunting memory bandwidth problems associated with the GF2 GTS is quite depressing.

I incremented the core and memory clock speeds in slow gradual increments and folks what a pessimist I’ve been!! The core went right up to 250MHz and the memory up to a staggering 410MHz! (The .18-micron architecture again proves it’s worth in keeping temperatures down) The temperature of each card was taken using a thermistor placed directly on the back of each video card right under the processor. The Temperature was measured to be at 124 F at the overclocked speeds and around 120 F at the default speeds.

I did get a few telltale screen defects at around 260 core, but at 250/410MHz it worked rock solid. Put in a Tennmax cooler and a couple of heat sinks and I’m sure you could kick real ass!

Conclusion

The card that was shipped to me came with a modified version of Nvidia`s reference driver. (5.22) Installation was no problem, as expected from any high-performance product.

Pros:

• Low price.
• Very impressive overclockablity with a stock cooling solution
• Neat software bundle

Cons:

• Lacks features seen on other cards

So we move on to the second contender; the Siluro GF256 GTS 64MB