The Competition
We've reviewed several of the available GF2 solutions. You can find the links to the reviews below.
- NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS Battle Royal
- Asus AGP-V7700 Pure Review
- Blue Wonder? The Guillemot/Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS
- The Fastest GeForce2 GTS Card - Gainward's CARDEXpert GeForce2 GTS/400
- Battle of the Titans 2: Creative Labs's Annihilator 2 vs. Absolute Multimedia's Outrageous GeForce2 GTS
- Video Excursion with the Asus V7700 Deluxe
Most of the reviewed GF2 hardware was of the 32 MB flavor and configured for the standard reference speed settings of 200 MHz core and 333 MHz memory. The only cards that were significantly faster due to default hardware settings were the Guillemot and CARDExpert solutions. The Guillemot idea was seemingly a flop because it ended up having users re-flash their video BIOS that put their hardware back to the default recommended settings for reliability reasons. Gainward's CARDExpert on the other hand never came out with their 5ns flavored GF2 product and ended up shipping the standard 6ns setup. As far as hardware goes, there is no GF2-equivalent product available to compare to the SUMA offering to.
I put together an updated specification and pricing table for you to quickly reference. Prices may vary in your area but these are accurate at the date of the article's release. Price was based on the average of the two to three lowest prices found.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Core/Memory Speed | Memory Size | Video | Misc. | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AbsoluteMM GF2 | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 32 MB | None | Hard to find | $275 |
| AOpen PA256 Deluxe | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 32 MB | Optional | Open BIOS | $289 |
| AOpen PA256 Pro | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 32 MB | Video Out | Row 2 - Cell 4 | $259 |
| Asus V7700 Pure 64 MB | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 64 MB | None | Row 3 - Cell 4 | $335 |
| Asus V7700 Deluxe | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 32 MB | Video In/Out | Row 4 - Cell 4 | $289 |
| Asus V7700 Pure 32 MB | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 32 MB | None | Easy to find | $249 |
| CL Annihilator Pro 2 | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 32 MB | None | Easy to find | $219 |
| ELSA Gladiac 64 MB | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 64 MB | Optional | VIVO option | $399 |
| ELSA Gladiac 32 MB | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 32 MB | Optional | VIVO option | $249 |
| Gainward CARDExpert GF2 64 MB | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 64 MB | Video Out | Row 9 - Cell 4 | $330 |
| Guillemot Prophet II 64 MB | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 64 MB | Video Out | Row 10 - Cell 4 | $330 |
| Guillemot Prophet II 32 MB | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 32 MB | Video Out | Row 11 - Cell 4 | $259 |
| Leadtek WF GF2 64 MB | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 64 MB | Video Out | Row 12 - Cell 4 | $335 |
| Leadtek WF GF2 32 MB | 200 MHz/333 MHz | 32 MB | Video Out | Row 13 - Cell 4 | $249 |
| SUMA GF2 GTS 64 MB SE | 200 MHz/400 MHz | 64 MB | Video Out | Questionable availability | $300 |
Prices are fairly similar but there are obvious differences when you compare the 32 MB and 64 MB adapters.
Although not all the products are clocked as fast as the SUMA, they are selling for a bit cheaper.
