Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 Page 3 This isn't an ordinary Ultra TNT2! The Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 isn't an ordinary Ultra TNT2 card. Guillemot has done, like we call it, some ' card tweaking ' because the clock frequency of this card is higher clocked then the 'regular' Ultra TNT2 cards from other hardware manufacturers. Yes, right, this card is clocked at 175 Mhz while other U-TNT2 cards are just clocked at 150 Mhz which is basically the standard frequency that nVidia is shipping the chips with. Of course when you tweak the clock frequency, you must tweak the on-board memory too. Well, the Xentor 32 is equipped with a memory frequency of 183Mhz! That is again a lot more then its competitors. The card has 16 Mb of high speed 5.5ns 'EliteMT' SDRAM on its topside and 16 Mb of the same SDRAM on its back. That makes 32 Mb of high-speed SDRAM that is running at 5.5ns! With raising the clock and memory, the card will produce more fps (frame rates per second) then any other Ultra TNT2 card. Yes, even in true 32-bit rendering. Of course, when the Xentor 32 was released on the market, it wasn't really the 'fastest' kid on the block. No, another hardware manufacturer named 'Hercules' also released an Ultra TNT2 card and their memory speed was higher clocked (at 200Mhz) and they also used 5ns high-speed memory where the Xentor32 uses 5.5ns However, things weren't good for Hercules because a few weeks ago they went bankrupt. So, finding a Hercules U-TNT2 will be very hard and if you do find one, think about driver support! Now that Hercules is no-more, they won't release any specific Hercules only drivers for their cards. This means that Guillemot's Ultra TNT2 card is really the fastest kid on the block and you can find it 'almost' everywhere. Another thing that I would like to point out is the lack of AGP 4X. Exactly, this AGP card only supports AGP 1X and 2X. Of course todays mainboard only supports these speeds but with the upcoming Camino chip from Intel that supports AGP 4X, why did Guillemot just add AGP 2X? Well, other hardware manufacturers are saying that their TNT2/U-TNT2 is AGP 4X 'ready'. However, at this moment, there isn't any mainboard that is AGP 4X 'ready' and now that Intel has delayed the Camino chip a bit more, it could take some more months before we see the first true AGP 4X capable mainboards. It is hard for me to understand why a hardware manufacturer would release a high-end AGP card with AGP 4X support 'ready' when there is no mainboard that supports is. Have they done testing with those kind of mainboards? I don't think so. So I think that Guillemot was pretty wise to release a card that is just AGP 2X 'ready' because right now, gamers with an AGP 4X 'ready' TNT/U-TNT2 card from another hardware manufacturer aren't 100% sure if their card will work correct if they put it in such a mainboard. Higher clock, higher memory ... more HEAT? Well, as you already know by now, Guillemot raised the clock of the U-TNT2 chip and memory of their Ultra TNT2 card. Lets say to bypass any competition :) Fine. However, you must know that when you raise the chip and its memory the card will produce a lot more heat than it is used too. And we all know that 'heat' is the worst enemy of your whole system. If there is too much heat into your case, your system and all its cards could react instable! Giving you contantly erros and you'll reduce its lifetime as well. It is just like overclocking your beloved Celeron cpu. If the chip takes too much heat, its cpu lifetime will slow down drastically. Well, it is the same with this card. However, the smart folks from Guillemot have of course attached a HSF unit to the card. A HSF unit is a 'Heatsink / Fan' unit. This combination will keep the Ultra-TNT2 chip cool that is running @ 175Mhz. Some small details regarding the card. Guillemot has added rubber pushpins to the unit so that you can easily remove the HSF and replace it with a more powerful cooling method. It also gets the power directly from the card via a two-pin connector so replacing the unit wouldn't be a problem at all. I also noticed that Guillemot used a thin, even layer of heatsink compound. Thanks to this thermal compound, the heat from the chip will go direclty to the HSF unit. A very good method that will cool your card very efficiently! Excellent. After we have taken a closer look at this card, I say we move on to the cards installation on the next page. Next Page 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. 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