Pixel-Churners: A round-up of Radeon 9700 PRO cards

Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 PRO

Like Gigabyte, Hercules had long been an NVIDIA partner before joining the ATi camp after the GeForce3 generation. Hercules is also ATi's exclusive partner for Europe.

Hercules tints the board its usual blue.

A small heatsink on the back of the card dissipates even more heat from the R300 chip.

The 3D Prophet 9700 PRO is also based on the ATi reference design. The standard Hercules blue, which sets the PCB off from the other cards, has a slightly greenish cast on this board. A powerful copper cooler is integrated on the card, keeping the R300 properly chilled. The heat produced by the chip is also dissipated by a small heatsink glued onto the back of the card. Small heatsinks have also been glued onto all eight memory modules. The packet includes a DVI-VGA adapter, as well as a combination S-VHS/ composite cable that is a little short at 1.40 m. The board also ships with an S-VHS/ composite adapter.