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| The GA-GF1280's Side Profile |
NVIDIAs Geforce2 GPU is arguably one of the most versatile consumer-level GPUs of all-time (all-time being the last 20 years of course :-p ). Released in the Spring of 2000, the Geforce2 has since been adapted for use in virtually every segment in the video card market; their Geforce2 Ultra, Pro, GTS, MX, and Go chips suit everything from hardcore 3d gaming to low-power, mobile solutions. Some Geforce2 MX based cards are even rivaling the functionality of Matroxs Dualhead feature with NVIDIAs TwinView technology. Prices are continuing to drop as the GPU is nearing its first anniversary, bringing an even greater value to these cards.
The most popular version of the Geforce2 is the MX which is easy to understand why: when you blend reasonable performance and image quality with great features and a low price, youve got yourself one bad-ass combination.
Introduction
Gigabyte is most well known for their motherboards, which makes sense seeing as how they have been in doing it for about 15 years. It wasnt until recently that they began producing video cards and great quality cards they are.
Here is a cursory look at the specs for the GF1280T. For a full list, check out the official product page.
Specs
| GPU: | NVIDIA Geforce2 MX |
| RAM: | 32MB (SDR SDRAM) |
| Core Speed: | 175MHz |
| Memory Speed: | 166MHz |
| AGP Mode: | 4x (with Fast Writes) |
| Resolutions: | 640x480@240Hz to 2048x1536@75Hz |
| Other: | TV-out (RCA or S-Video), DVD decoding, TwinView |
Not mentioned in the specs is that this card uses Blue PCB! How cool is that?? I dont know precisely why, but everyone that I have talked to agrees that blue is definitely the coolest color of PCB (although red PCB is a close second). Are we easy to please or what?
Box Contents
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| GA-GF1280 Box Contents |
Box contents: the manual, one S-Video cable, one RCA cable, PowerDVD 3.0, Need For Speed II, the drivers CD, and the card.
The manual pretty good, although it could be more detailed. For example, it describes the DirectX settings but not the OpenGL settings. It does, however, describe the driver setup for Windows 98, NT 4.0, and 2000 using actual screenshots which is helpful for inexperienced users. Overall this manual is better than most.
The software bundle isnt the most robust we have seen but PowerDVD and Need for Speed II are still great titles to have (although the latter is getting pretty old).
The drivers CD contains the latest Gigabyte drivers for the GF1280T which are version 5.30. Since the Detonator drivers are up to v6.50 already, it would be nice to see Gigabyte update theirs soon.
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