Specifications

The 3D Prophet DDR-DVI features the same general specifications as any other GeForce 256 card on the market, namely:

The Specs

120MHz core/166MHz memory clock (With DDR SGRAM memory bandwidth is the equivalent to 301MHz
32MB DDR SGRAM
256-bit quad-pipeline processing
480 million texture-mapped pixels/second
15 million triangles/second
4X AGP with Fast Writes
Hardware transform engine
Hardware lighting engine (8 hardware lights) for unique visual quality
100% hardware triangle setup
4.47GB/second memory bandwidth with 2 data transfers per clock
DVI interface for high resolution display on digital monitors up to 1600x1200 with 16 million colors
DVD Hardware Decoding
TV/Video Output: NTSC and PAL
350MHz RAMDAC
2D Resolutions up to 1920x1440 in 16.7 million colors and 2048x1536 in 65,000 colors
3 year limited warranty on labor and parts

In the box

Hercules 3D Prophet DDR-DVI card
Installation CD-ROM with installation drivers, online documentation, and playable demos
User Manual

If you're familiar with the features of the GeForce 256, then you're already well aware of the capabilities of this board. Unlike cards based on the TNT2, none of the manufacturer's with GeForce boards (with the sole exception being Elsa) are adding hardware features unique to their board. For instance, both Guillemot and Hercules' previous TNT2 offerings offered higher clock speeds than most standard TNT2 cards available on the market.

This news is disappointing to most hardcore hardware nuts (us included) but makes sense financially. Just think how much money Guillemot and Hercules lost on TNT2 chips that couldn't run at the higher clock speeds they were intended for.

One notable omission from the 3D Prophet DDR-DVI packaging is a notable game bundle. This isn't surprising, considering many gamers aren't concerned with game bundles anyway. With the frequent delays in game ship dates it definitely makes sense to skip the bundle altogether rather than risk having to ship the game to customers once it's released. (A la the Unreal Tournament coupon included with Voodoo3 3000/3500 cards)

Back in October, we took a look at the SDRAM version of the 3D Prophet. However, as mentioned before, our 3D Prophet DDR-DVI features DDR RAM. With Double Data Rate memory, (DDR) memory bandwidth is doubled as memory reads and writes occur on both the rising and falling edges of each clock cycle. With normal Single Data Rate (SDR) RAM only the rising edge of the clock cycle is used.

This higher performance comes at a cost, both literally to your wallet and (for the time being) in terms of availability. Once massive quantities of DDR memory chips are available expect the price of DDR boards to fall dramatically. Hopefully this will coincide with the release of future system chipsets from Intel and VIA which also plan to support DDR memory.