NVIDIA GeForce DDR Roundup (March 00)

Outrageous 3D Graphics Specifications
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Memory	32 MB Infineon DDR SGRAM 6 ns
Cooling	Heatsink/Fan Combo
TV-Out	Brooktree 869
TV-In	Not Supported
Drivers	NVIDIA Reference
Highest Overclock	156/326 MHz
Overclocking Utility	None
Software/Gaming Bundle	Intervideo DVD, choice of 3: Colin McRae Rally, TOCA 2, Supreme Snowboarding, Rollercoaster Tycoonector, Sin, Heretic II, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Unreal Tournament, Driver, UEFA Champions League, or Rollcage (all optional)
Estimated Street Price	$265 OEM, $285 retail (includes 3 of the above titles)
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Of the cards reviewed, Absolute Multimedia's Outrageous 3D GeForce is by far the least expensive. With an OEM price that runs about $20 less than the competition, one has to ask how Absolute Multimedia can afford to sell cards at a discount. As it turns out, it appears that the company has cut costs in three different ways. First, it seems that lesser quality graphics filters were used between the RAMDAC and the VGA output in order to cut cost. The result of this is not seen until high resolutions are viewed, such as 1600x1200, for it is here that the 2D image quality is severely degraded and left almost unusable. No problems were noted at lower resolutions, however if you ever plan to upgrade your monitor to one where 1600x1200 is normal for 2D, beware of the Outrageous 3D GeForce. The second way at which Absolute Multimedia cut costs is with the software bundle. The $265 price is for the card without any additional software included. The price is raised to the DDR GeForce standard of $285 when the "Software Choice" package is added, a neat feature that allows you to try out a multitude of games and then choose the ones you want with your card. Including the very popular Unreal Tournament game, the use of software choice was a good choice made by Absolute Multimedia, however the retail box comes only with a software choice DVD, leaving CD-ROM only computers having to request and wait for a CD-ROM version.

The third way that Absolute Multimedia found to keep the price of the Outrageous 3D GeForce down is by using NVIDIA's reference driver set as their shipping driver version. By using the standard driver set, with out the addition of any Absolute Multimedia icons or logos, the company was able to reduce development time which in turn decreased production costs. Often frowned upon, using the reference drivers as a primary driver set does have its advantages. Many users choose to use the reference drivers from NVIDIA any way due to the fact that they are updated often and have a good degree of success in their releases. By choosing to use the reference drivers, Absolute Multimedia also gains from the advantages that some consumers know already: more frequent driver updates and more stable and sometimes more powerful drivers.

Pros: Low cost, software choice, reference drivers

Cons: Poor 2D image quality at high resolutions, hotter running than some other cards, reference drivers