Customer Reviews

Creative Labs 3DB6971 Blaster Annihilator Pro

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the greatest video card on the market (unless you don't mind waiting a little while and dropping 600 bucks on a Voodoo 5 6000.) This card features a revolutionary GPU (Geometry processing unit). Nvidia's GeForce 256 chipset is a new 256 chip that incorporates transform and lighting on the board. These two elements were origianlly processed by the CPU. Now that they are on the card, your CPU will have some extra power to process other game elements.

The big feature on the Annihilator Pro is its 32 megs of DDR(Double Data Rate) RAM. This RAM can process 2 calculations per CPU cycle, making it twice as fast as any other card currently out there. Plus, it supports AGP 4x and FastWrites, so if you've got a motherboard with an AGP 4x slot, you can widen that graphics bottleneck even further.

At present only a limited amount of games support GeForce's onboard T&L capabilities, so your older games won't be able to take full advantage of the cards features, but as many software developers are beginning to support onboard T&L this will soon change. You could say the 3d Annihilator Pro is an investment towards the future of gaming.

Now there is some important consumer information I feel obligated to let you in on.

YOU MUST HAVE A MOTHER BOARD THAT SUPPORTS AT LEAST AGP 2X, IF YOU DO NOT, THE CARD WILL NOT GET ENOUGH JUICE FROM THE MOTHERBOARD AND WILL SIMPLY NOT WORK.

Any of the other reviews you might have read on this page about the poor folk who say their power source is inadequate are mistaken, so don't worry yourselves with those reviews. JUST MAKE SURE YOUR MOTHERBOARD SUPPORTS AT LEAST AGP 2X AND YOU'LL BE FINE.

YOU CAN FIND OUT IF YOUR MOTHERBOARD IS ADEQUATE BY LOOKING IN THE REFERENCE MANUAL PROVIDED WITH YOUR COMPUTER. IF YOU'VE LOST THIS MANUAL, YOU SHOULD CALL YOUR RETAILER AND FIND OUT. REMEMBER, AN INFORMED CONSUMER IS ALMOST NEVER DISAPPOINTED.

There is no doubt that this card, powered by Nvidias new wonder chip, is right at the cutting edge of 3D graphics right now, and thanks to its DDR memory (twice as fast as conventional memory) it can really throw some polygons around. The drivers still need some work to make the most of the card,but on the whole it is fast and produces good looking images(though I think the Matrox G400max has a better overall 3D quality). Before you rush into buying this card though, keep a couple of things in mind. There are problems with some mother boards not supplying enough juice through the AGP slot, so visit Nvidia's site for a compatibility check. Also, this card runs very hot, so if your case ventilation is in any way suspect, I'd consider investing in a relatively cheap case cooling fan. I would also remember that at present, few games support the onboard transform and lighting that makes the Geforce shine, so you may find it simply "fast" rather than "blistering" Quake 3 players and openGL users should see immediate improvements though. Overclockers probably won't go wild on this board because while it can be done, the scope is limited and the rewards are not huge. for all but the TNT2 ultra users (who may as well wait for NV15), this is probably a worthy upgrade and one that will not dissapoint. A fine piece of silicon, but not the holy grail.

This card is awesome! But the only thing is you have to have a High end CPU to push it. It does great with 1024x768 32 bit setting and everything cranked to the maximum settings. If you are a hard core gamer like myself and have the newest hardware this is the card for YOU!

Well what is there not to say about the Annihilator. nVidia 256 GPU is the ultimate T&L engine. The DDRAM is the fastest memmory out there. The fill and refresh rates for 3D and 2D graphics are top notch. Not to mention that the RAMDAC is running at a whopping 350 MHZ. 2 Thumbs up.

This card is amazing! I have a Dell Pentium II 350 MHZ with 192 ram. My original card was a Rage Pro Expert 98 with 8 Meg of ram. I spent many hours researching articles on all the new graphics cards, and finally decided on the Anihilator Pro. Since I have installed it (now over a month ago), I have been enjoying truly amazing high speed graphics without a single glich. It installed in minutes, and I have never had a problem since. Even with my 350mhz, I blaze though games like Unreal Tournament, Soldier of Fortune and Quake III with ease. Nothing has caused this puppy to miss a beat. Trust me, you won't be disappointed. This card rocks and is well worth the money!

I bought this card right when it came out, excited at the newfeatures.

But be careful, it didn't work with my motherboard or mypower supply.

I have an Ibm Aptiva 450Mhz Pent III and 128mb of Ram. And I just couldn't get it to work without locking up the computer.

And it flat out doesn't like Athlon computers at all.

So do some research on your motherboard and power supply, or you will end up selling it on an auction site like I did. END

WOW, This Video Card is awesome, i have never seen such a good video card in my life. This thing is mega powerful in QUAKE 3 and it kicks the arse of a VOODOO. I reckommend this to everyone

Although this card has the highest recommendations, beware as to not get burnt. This card will not work with alot of motherboards...especially older LX boards. I suggest waiting awhile until games made for the card come out or the price comes down a bit.

This card is not for everyone at the moment. I was reading the reviews and the ones I saw were five stars that explained GENERALLY how awesome the card is and that was basically it. The one review I saw said "3-stars" was the best review I read but not very informative. He is right about the fact that the card doesn't work real well with other programs because those programs aren't "ahead of the game" and are not using the special skills this card is capable of. This card is for "Future Gamers", it is a great investment that you will be happy with several months down the line being able to push every game, program, etc. to there limits. I believe that if you I buy this card you will be happy for a long time.

What is the big deal with all the GeForce cards? I've read many reviews everywhere raving about these cards, but apparently they only help if you're playing Quake 3, Unreal Tournament or Half-Life, since those are the games used for framerate benchmarks. Well, if you're not playing those games I'd pass on this card. I for one play Baldur's Gate, NFS, and Drakan right now, and in a nutshell Baldur's Gate sees no difference, NFS High Stakes was slower & fuzzier, and Drakan was only slightly smoother when I upgraded from my Voodoo3 2000 to this card. I just hope that BG II, Diablo 2 and Icewind Dale will make use of the benefits of this card. I'm running an Athlon 600 on an FIC SD11 board, 128mb ram, Syncmaster 17Glsi. For all I've read I should have seen vast increases on my system, but it isn't happening! If you're going from an old video card then it might be worth it, otherwise I'd wait. Some sites talk about the next big thing in video cards coming, but I think its just more lip service, they called this card the latest & greatest, and I'm sorely disappointed.