The Impact 4
GeForce2 Pro 32MB
Company: X-Micro

It's time do do the second product review from a company that we introduced to you last last week, X-Micro. To get you started, back then we reviewed two of their GeForce2 MX videocards, the Hulk-V series which we found to be excellent.

X-Micro Tech is founded two years ago in 1999 and is now an upfront manufacturer in the design and distribution of professional 3D graphics cards in Taiwan. They emphasize in innovative designs with the use of hi-tech IC chips to produce high performance graphics cards and quality video solutions. The  team has a strong R&D background with more than ten years' experience in this field of technology which their products definitely proof. All videocards have been equipped with high quality components. Here's a little piece of the companies overview:

X-Micro Tech. Corp.’s main product lines include 3D graphics cards and memory module. Ant to enhance the competitiveness in the computing area, X-Micro Tech. Corp. has continued its effort to invest substantially in R&D, in manufacturing as well as in engineering. X-Micro Tech. Corp. is devoted in providing Leading Graphics Cards to all our customers. In the manufacturing of our graphics cards, we include advanced SMT and Auto Test equipment. Our products go through several levels of rigorous testing in the manufacturing process. We have in placed quality programs as Incoming Quality Control, In Process Quality Control, Reliability Testing and Environment Testing to ensure the best qualities in our products. The products that we manufacture are certified by the fulfillment of ISO 9001 standards. We understand and strongly believe that the only way to gain the trust of our customers is to offer the best quality products. In the past years, X-Micro Tech. Corp. has successfully marked the tremendous image to our users by providing high quality assurance and technology product.

X-Micro is a Taiwanese company that seems to have specialized in high-quality videocards. The sample that we will review in this article is a GeForce2 PRO equipped with 32MB DDR memory, by the name Impact4. A rather strange combination, why ? Let me explain. If you buy a GeForce2 GTS videocard then you know that the bottleneck in higher resolutions for this card is memory. To carry the Pro name the videocards must have two important items equipped, one is of course the GeForce2 Pro video chip (which has in fact the same core as the GeForce2 GTS) and two, it must be equipped with 2x200MHz (or faster) DDR memory. So if you want to play games in higher resolution from let's say 1280x1024 and above then the need for faster memory thus a PRO GeForce2 is highly recommended. But hey .. it's equipped with 32MB which will not allow high performance big sceneries in those exact high resolutions. Or isn't  it ? Let's dig into the fundamentals of this videocard by taking a close look at it's hardware, features and then I'll make the card sweat by pushing it to the limits in several benchmarks. On we go ..