GF2s: Suma GF2 SE & GF2 gts

[Guest]

Hey guys
I've been considering putting a GF2 in my new box and I've come down to two options, the Suma and the GTS. I didn't notice a review pitting these two against each other, so I thought I'd ask here if anyone knows how they compare.

Also, (heh), the Suma isn't available yet...I just saw the review for it on tomshardware and it's looking mighty tasty Anyone have a "guesstimation" as to when/<b>if</b> this one's coming out?

One final thing, I have been told (I don't know if this is true), that the Geforce family (I and II) don't especially like athlons and have a performance degredation compared to use with P3 systems. My new box will be a Tbird 1.2 ghz, and since the Tbird is essentially a socket A athlon with on-die L2, would this allegededly existing "problem" be present in the Tbird as well?

I'd appreciate any help you can throw my way, thanks.

Down with bloatware!
Proud user of <b>ICQ98A</b>

 

[Grizely1]

First of all, the Suma <i>is</i> a GTS. Suma is just the company that makes it. And yes, it is much faster than normal GTS cards. The review on Tom's Hardware is pretty old, and you'll be a REAL lucky dude if you can find one for sale anywhere (I've been looking for a couple months and haven't even seen the name Suma anywhere, even though they were released awhile ago).

As for the Athlon thing, it's not the Athlon that the GeForce family has trouble with. It's the VIA chipsets..... Some people report a card works on their systems, some report it doesn't. Just go with the plan and see if it works. If it does, good for you. If it doesn't.... well, reshape your plan and try again.

Good luck.

--Grizely1

 

[Crashman]

Well put Grizely (the friendly bear).

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply. I went venturing in search of another review of the suma and found this one which more clearly indicated that I/you/we would be better off buying a 32 meg. Yielded some slightly different results than tom's review but was pretty much on target.

On my second look at both reviews, it seems as though the card is basically pointless if you're not going to run in 32 bit color at a high, high res. The url I posted talks some 500,000 times about how the extra 32 megs doesn't show its face until 32 meg cards starts swapping textures in 32 bit color. And I see no difference between 16 bit and 32 bit color in Quake3 as far as color quality is concerned. All I see is that d**n texture swapping in action because I have a crappy 16 meg card.

Heh can't wait to build an entirely new system--I think I'm going to wait a few months to see nvidia's newest child and what agp8x is going to be all about.

Oh yeah, the url, heh:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1224&p=1

Down with bloatware!
Proud user of <b>ICQ98A</b>

 

[Grizely1]

Actually that Anandtech review is of the Suma GeForce256 card, not GTS SE. (Tom's review of the Suma GeForce2 GTS SE is the one to follow, nobody buys 256 cards anymore)

So don't dismiss the thought too soon....