GA-660
Plus - TNT2 Videocard
GIGA-BYTE TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. 
Chinese: www.gigabyte.com.tw
German : www.gigabyte.de
US : www.giga-byte.com
Friday, October 08, 1999
Hilbert Hagedoorn
Hardware used
Pentium II 350Mhz 100Mhz Bus
128Mb PC 100 SDRAM
Software used
Windows 98 build 4.10.x
DirectX 6.x
Latest Gigabyte drivers based up-on Detonator 2.08
General
GA-660 Plus is based upon nVIDIA's Riva TNT2A chipset. And has 32 Megabyte
6ns SDRAM onboard. The TNT2A chipset is cooled by a Dual Cooling System.
Package is bundled with a driver CD, game-pack and manual.
The Review
With all the
hype around GeForce 256, Voodoo 4, Glaze 3D, Savage 2000 and more we
almost seem to have forgotten that the TNT2 chipset is being developed
on a higher level. Not too long ago we have tested the GA-660 (TNT2) from Gigabyte.
It was the fastest card at that time. In that review I slipped you
guys a hint that Gigabyte would come up with a faster version of the
Ga-660 called the GA-665. This product never hit the shells. A little
while ago nVIDIA moved it's manufacturing process from .25 micron fab
towards .22 micron fab. Basically this will result in faster core
speeds and less heat. That newer chip is called the TNT2-A. Gigabyte
saw some potential in it and decided to integrate it in the GA-660
line-up. With blistering speeds and incredible performance they can
now present you the GA-660 Plus which is at this time the fastest
TNT-2 based card that we have tested.
The
Ga-660 Plus is like I said based up-on that Model (A) chipset and can therefore
be clocked at much higher speeds then it's predecessor. The
GA-660 is clocked at a 156.5 Memory and 156.5 core clock. The Ga-660
Plus is clocked at a default 180 MHz Memory and 170 Mhz core clock.
With this default configuration the card can compete with cards like
Guillemot's Maxi gamer Xentor 32 and the bloody fast Voodoo 3 3000. (Which we of
course will show later on in this review).
The GA-660 Plus (660 from now on) comes in several flavors:
- GA-660Plus:
32MB
standard monitor output*
- GA-660Plus
TV:
32/16MB with standard monitor output TV-out support
- GA-660Plus
DFP:
32/16MB with support for both standard monitors and digital flat
panels
- GA-660Plus
FT:
32/16MB with monitors, digital panels, and TV-out support
Included in the box, are one GA-660
Plus videocard, a driver CD, a full version of Need Speed III,
trial versions of Populous: The begining, Future Cop: Lapd, Super
Bike: World Championship. Furthermore you will find a manual. The driver CD includes the latest drivers
(based up-on nVIDIA's 2.08 detonator drivers), and some software like:
- CyberLink CDWizard '98
- Trend PC-cillin 98 OEM Setup Ver.4.02 (Anti Virus)
- Adobe Acrobat Reader
- Final Reality Benchmark Ver.1.01
- GA-660 Plus Video Bios Flash Utility
- DirectX 6.1
- Windows 9x/NT40/2000 display drivers
Like I said the drivers are 'based'
up-on the official detonator drivers. Gigabyte included extra goodies
like V-SYNC on/off, OpenGL buffer flipping and most importantly the
ability to change core/memory speeds. Basically this card is an
overclockers dream.
Compared to TNT (1) the GA-660 Plus is of course a hell-of-a-lot faster, but also carries AGP4x
support which will become available somewhere next month. Another
great new feature on the TNT2 based cards is the ability to do hardware motion
compensation. This feature will reduce CPU utilization while playing MPG/DVD
(MPEG-2) multimedia files. Other major advantages are full 32Bit 3D gaming support and
of course a texture mapping size of 2048x2048.
Furthermore a very detailed, efficient, huge and well written manual was included to get even
the lame a TNT2 card installed with ease. What I like about this manual is that EVERYTHING
get described, hardware installation, software installation and even all display
properties. Not a lot of companies do this anymore. I said it in the
Ga-660 review and I'll say it again, thumbs up for Gigabyte !
[ GA-660 Plus snapshot ]
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