Hercules

[bigo73]

What's up everybody? Got a quick question. I was in the local Babbages store the other day and they were telling me that they were getting a new video card in next month. It's the Hercules Prophet II MX 64AGP and it's only running $150 bucks. They said they were only getting a few in so I went ahead and put a deposit down to reserve it. I figured I'd do some research on it later. Well, I've been looking and haven't found anything about it. Anybody have any advice? Before I walked into that store, I had made up my mind that I was gonna go with the ATI Radeon 64DDR, what do you guys think?


It's gonna go in this system:

AMD Duron 800 OC'd to 1000mhz Step-Thermo Dynamics
MSI K7T Turbo-R mobo
256 Step PC133 SDRAM
20.4gb Maxtor 7200rpm HDD



[Edited by bigo73 on 02-19-2001 at 11:49 AM]

[Prader Willi]

Here's a review of the card:

http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardw...l/newss/2189/1

Pricewatch's lowest price for the 32mg version of this card is $149 plus $14.95 for shipping-- so $150 for a 64 mg version might be a good buy.

Other than that I don't know much about MX cards.

Hope this helps.

[Edited by Prader Willi on 02-19-2001 at 07:58 PM]

[bigo73]

Hey thanks for the help.

[padawan]

I just talked to the Hercules PR folks a few days ago about new products, and there was no mention of a 64MB MX card. With the memory bottleneck already so bad in that card, adding 32MBs of RAM is insane. That review at Hardware Central was the 32MB card, not a 64MB. I'm not saying it isn't going to happen, but I'd get the 32MB card anyway. Look at the differences between the 32 and 64MB GF2 GTS cards...very little. That extra memory justs costs you more money.

[bigo73]

Ok, so do you think the Hercules card for $150 is a better deal than paying an extra $40 bucks and getting the ATI Radeon64DDR? Hate to keep asking so many questions, but I've read a ton of reviews on different cards and it just goes on and on....

[Tiretool]

The Radeon is more comparable to the GeForce 2 GTS, so comparing it to the MX is like comaring apples to oranges. The Radeon is the obvious better card in this case.

[Prader Willi]

Speaking of MX cards and reading many reviews, here is a review of 18 of them

http://www.review-zone.com/hardware/...up/page1.shtml


A thought- given your system and ram, I would want to know if the MX card is going to bottleneck the system (doesn't make much sense (to me anyway) to OC an 800 Duron and have 256 mg of ram if it doesn't result in extra speed because of video card limitations). If so, then wait until you have the 40 extra dollars. Kinda like buying a Porsche 911 and then putting a fuel pump on it that only lets it run 60 MPH.

[Floppyman]

With a system this fast I'd definetely recommend the ATI Radeon 64mb card. I've been using one for about 2 months and all I can say is WOW....graphics quality is excellent, performance is stellar and it's all round a good deal with it's video out feature also included. In my opinion, you can't go wrong with the Radeon.

[bigo73]

Ok, I think you guys have sold me. I'm gonna go with the Radeon. I appreciate all of the input. It was very helpful. I'm still waiting on Step for my mobo and cpu. I'm dying to get that puppy up and running.

[padawan]

Just wanted to let everyone know that there is indeed a Hercules 64MB MX card in production. The PR lady from Hercules said they had a card in the works, I assumed it was the GeForce3...my bad for assuming. Still, even on the bigger cards, the 64MB of RAM is a waste unless you run in 1200x1024 or higher.

Cheers