3D Prophet SDR and DDR comparison - Page 4 Biggest question, SDR or DDR? As you may know by now, Hercules has released 2 different versions of the first Geforce256 GPU chip. Yes, Nvidia first released the original chip with plain SDR memory. Of course the card, with the onboard T&L unit was a lot faster then a regular TNT2. It was even faster then the Ultra-TNT2. Now, as time progressed, the technology progressed as well and some months later, Nvidia and all their OEMS announced the "Geforce DDR". This was basically the same card BUT with higher and better memory modules. "DDR" stands for Double Data Ram so basically it doubles performance! Of course, adding expensive memory to the card means that the price of the card will rise too. And that was the biggest problem. Many gamers did not know if they should spend more cash on the DDR version instead of the plain SDR card. By now, we all know that a DDR card is way faster then SDR and this is the case too with the 2 Hercules cards, the "3D Prophet" and the "3D Prophet DDR-DVI". Another problem was that many gamers already bought a SDR card and buying another, more expensive card was out of the question. Some of them sold their old card at a cheap price so that fresh cash was again available for spending on that Geforce DDR. Here @ PlayDevil.com we have tested both cards with applications and several games, going from Q3A, UT to NFS 5, Thief 2, etc etc and we must say that the DDR is the absolute winner! So our advice is that if you are looking to buy a new and good but cheaper graphic card then a Geforce 2 GTS or V5, we strongly suggest this card from Hercules, the 3D Prophet DDR-DVI. This card will give you a serious performance boost in games and in 2D applications. Your games will look better and play smoother and you will also have the opportunity to play games in higher resolutions such as 1280x1024x32 or 1600x1200x32 which was not quite possible with the first Geforce due to its memory bandwidth. All of this with +30 FPS! Of course, you can't expect +30 FPS if you play a game on 1600x1200x32 and are still running a PII 233. Then your CPU will be the bottleneck and not the grapic card. TV - and/or DVI Output? The other big difference between the Hercules 3D Prophet SDR and its big brother 3D Prophet DDR-DVI is that the second card also has a DVI output! But what is DVI exactly? Well 'DVI' stands for 'Digital Visual Interface'. It is the new standard for Digital Display which is supported by all major monitor manufacturers. What are the advantages of setting up the DVI output to a digital monitor? Well, - DVI will provide the user with a very high-quality 'digital' output. - Is also compatible with the former standards of digital display such as VESA P&D and DFP and it only requires an adapter cable. - High resolution display on digital monitors quaranteed. - Digital monitors also provide the user with an incredible sharpness However, and here's the catch, Digital Monitors are extremely expensive so we don't think that the average gamer or even the hardcore gamer will buy a expensive digital screen to enjoy the advantages of this DVI output. Maybe in the future, DVI could become useful if digital monitor prizes are lowered. But it is definitely a plus that Hercules ship the 3D Prophet DDR-DVI with a DVI output since many other hardware manufacturers only ship their cards with TV-Out Besides the DVI output, both cards (SDR and DDR) offers a TV-Out as well. Extremely useful if you want to play games or watch (dvd)movies on your television. Conclusion Hercules made 2 great graphic cards, both based on the NVidia GPU chip and while the 3D Prophet SDR will be very low priced we do think that if you need a new graphic card but don't want to pay 400 - 500$ you should get yourself a 3D Prophet DDR-DVI. The DDR memory will give you a higher performance boost for its price and you will be able to overclock the core/memory much further then its little brother, the SDR version. The 3D Prophet DDR-DVI is a quality graphic card that will give you, besides its TV and DVI output, good 2D-performance (thanks to the 350Mhz RAMDAC) and 3D performance in todays games! -Bjorn Up Previous Page If you want to review your favorite game, or if you work with a computer game company and want your products reviewing, mail info@playdevil.com. All contributions are welcome. Any problems and/or suggestions are always appreciated on webmaster@playdevil.com Nothing of this entire Site, animation & logo's included, may be reproduced, stored, saved, transmitted, in any form or means, electronic, written or otherwise without the prior permission of PlayDevil. Other Logos & Names are Copyrighted Material of its respectful owners. All Rights Reserved. PlayDevil Productions © 199/8-199/9 "rip your own stuff"