Hardware used
Pentium III Coppermine 500E @ 667 MHz, i820 133Mhz FSB 196 MB Memory

Software used
Windows 98 SE
DirectX 7.0a
Detonator Drivers 5.22 

The prelude
Manufacturer Absolute MultiMedia has joined the bandwagon of geforce2 products and recently released it's Outrageous Geforce2 GTS. Absolute MultiMedia has been very successful in the European and Asian markets, and is rapidly growing in the US. Although they do not have the name and reputation of bigger players like Guillemot and Creative Labs they certainly do know how to sell an interesting product. The Geforce2 GTS that they released and send out for reviewing is not an average videocard, no .. not at all. They know how to make a product competative. How ? here are some of the extra's:

1. They have a TV-Out Option that can be added to the board. (available in July). It would have been nice to see it as standard, but at least they offer it as a solution.
2. Their drivers now include overclocking of the memory and core clock.
3. The Geforce2 GTS is bundling with Soldiers of Fortune and 3 free Software Choice (You can choose one free title).
4. This particular  product comes with a gaming fan which we have tested against a Standard fan. The fan cooled the processor 10 degrees better than a standard spec. Geforce 2 GTS fan according to Abolute MM.
5. They have also taken a good look at Guillemot/Hercules and added Ram Sinks. These are standard !
6. They are using a 5-tap filter on the Video output now as standard which means clear picture quality!

The package is bundling with WinDVD2000 version 2.2 supporting Video motion compensation for the NVIDIA series processors. We can also tell you that a Geforce 2 GTS 64Mb version will be released in July.

Not too shabby for a price of $275 eh ? So you see, a lot of extra features here, not even creative can keep up this pace. We just love the game bundle and of course the ram heatsinks + ICE cooler which cools the GF2 GPU optimally which is good in general, but of course even better for all you overclockers and tweakers out there.

 The GeForce2 GTS

While looking closely at the OUtrageous Geforce2 GTS (GF2 from now on) we can see that it is a very close resemblance of the reference design GeForce2 GTS from NVIDIA. The card is equipped with 32 Mb DDR (Double Datarate) 6NS SGRAM from Infineon. There is no TV/S-VHS Output available on this videocard, however it is optional to buy a small kit that will allow you to output to the big screen. This GF2 comes in a simple design box and includes of course the videocard, a detailed manual, a driver CD, and Soldier of Fortune. 

The GF2 is now actually equipped with a HDTV processor, a new standard that is introduced in the US at this time. The HDTV processor can be connected to a HDTV decoder. Now we should be able to watch Full-screen HD television. Unfortunately in Europe this new standard is not introduced yet, so it will not play a big role on this side off the world.  The GF2 is an excellent card to show off and view DVD movies. It can decode in hardware MPEG streams in HQ and of course realtime. Luckily WinDVD 2000 is included in the software bundle.

Coming up: the videocard review continued

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