Review: Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS (Page 6/6)

Posted: May 30, 2000
Written by: Tuan "Solace" Nguyen

Conclusion

Summing Things Up...

Performance:
[ 8.0/10 ]

The Prophet performed well, but considering that it came out after the Gladiac and delivered a little bit less in terms of overall performance, it loses a few points. However, it performs on par with the rest of the GeForce 2 GTS based cards (our ASUS V7700 review will go up soon).

FSAA currently works but not what it should be like. FSAA is currently in the drivers, but this does not mean that it functions properly. This is also a problem in the Gladiac, but it’s a driver issue.

Innovation:
[ 8.0/10 ]

Hercules did an excellent job designing the card. It looks much better than a reference design and the added heatsinks on the memory modules are a nice touch. Also implementing the video out component right on the board instead of a separate module is also a good point.

The Prophet would have beat the Gladiac here by a point, but due to lack of innovative drivers it lost a point. Mentioned earlier, drivers are extremely important to the overall performance and ease of use of a card. We’re wondering why Hercules put so much work into the hardware design but in the end decided to just slap a logo on NVIDIA’s reference drivers. Strange. Hopefully Hercules will provide more intuitive drivers in the next revision.

Installation and Setup:
[ 7.0/10 ]

The card installed flawlessly and worked without hesitation (after the driver installation of course). Unlike last time, I didn’t experience any problems with my MX300 like I did with the Gladiac. This is most likely due to solving the problem before and now that another GeForce 2 card is put in, the problem is already solved before hand. I can’t tell whether the card will exhibit the same problems if I move my cards back to the way they were before or not and I don’t want to try. I guess it was first come first serve and unfortunately the Gladiac got the bad side of my machine.

Bundle:
[ 8.5/10 ]

The CD contains drivers, NVIDIA's demos that show off the card, utilities such as NetMeeting, DirectX7.0a, Adobe Acrobat, and a few more utilities. Also included is CyberLink’s PowerDVD which is rumored to be one excellent software DVD decoder. We tried out PowerDVD and the controllers are excellent. It contains many features such as AC3 decoding (requiring you to give up some CPU cycles).

Click to enlarge

There were some small game demos that came with the card but really nothing to write home about. Included were demos of Tonic Trouble, Speed Buster, Monaco Grand Prix Racing and Rayman 2: The Great Escape.

Price:
[ 7/10 ]

Currently, the 32MB Prophet II GTS goes for around $359US and the 64MB version is expected to sell for around $459. Paying $359 for a card will be expensive depending on where you're coming from. If you're a TNT2 class user or below, $359 is not a bad deal for this type of "insane performance". But those of you who already have a GeForce based card should consider otherwise and probably wait until the fall when the price drops. But then again, if you make mountains of money, go right ahead!

As of this writing the price for the Elsa Gladiac is $10 cheaper than 3D Prophet II GTS.

Overall

Hercules has designed an amazing card. The hardware features on the card aren’t found anywhere. However, it’s really hampered by lack of work on the drivers, and the actual quality of the board may be in question. Hopefully more effort will be put into the next driver revision.

Comparing the 3D Prophet II GTS to the Gladiac reveals that the Gladiac wins, but not by much. Hercules does excel by a bit in 3DMark 2000 and does come with a software bundle. We really like PowerDVD.

A great card held back by a few minor issues that we’re positive can be addressed, the 3D Prophet II GTS is a good buy. If you’re looking for extreme performance and high overclocking speed, the Gladiac would be better suited. However, if you’re okay with some minor clocking (it’s not like the GeForce 2 GTS isn’t already insanely fast), possibly better cooling, and you are really hooked on the physical beauty of the card itself, then there is probably not a better option. But then again, if you go around finding PCBs to call beautiful, then heh...

Well, I hope you enjoyed our review of the Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS. Upcoming is the ASUS V7700 (GeForce 2 GTS). Until then.

Overall Rating: 7.5 / 10.0

First Page