Intro

Update

We met with a couple AOpen representatives after we posted our original review. As you can imagine, they were very concerned with the problems we encountered with the card. After we gave them quick demonstration on one of our test beds, it became apparent to them we had found a hardware bug! They called Taiwan immediately, and they had a fix ready in a matter of days. As we understand, all production boards should work perfectly.

The Pits

After coming out of the dank pit of hell that is FSAA, a video card was thrown at me to review. I didn't know if I should run or kiss James' feet. I shall never forget the scars that FSAA has left on me. The deep jaggies… I must now put this behind me and plod forth. So put on a smile Sarj, you get to live again.

Smiles and All

It's that time of the month again! (a few pills of prozac later…) Well not for me that is, but time for another GeForce2 review. This time we have the AOpen PA256 Deluxe. And for the life of me, I have no idea what the PA means. So what's special about an AOpen video card then? First thought that comes to mind with AOpen is AOwho? AOpen is actually a subsidiary of the Acer group.

Better known for its motherboards, it's not surprising that AOpen also manufactures video cards. Competitors such as ASUS and Abit have recently stepped up their retail video card presence. Luckily for the consumer, these motherboard manufacturers often use lower prices to bring in the sales. That means you can get a pretty decent card for less money. The MSRP for the Pro on the AOpen site is around $370, but our contact within the company tells us that the MSRP has been lowered to $350. I'm going to wager that the retail price is probably going to be at or below $300. With what we have seen, this card doesn't seem to be one of the ho-hum white box offerings. While we aren't sure what kind of box this card has it doesn't really disappoint, it doesn't wow either.

The results that follow are pretty much standard GeForce2 scores, after all this is a GeForce2 card. We did get some rather interesting results from this particular board in other areas though. Overclocking was pretty funky with this card. Along with the overclocking, some other pretty odd, and hopefully isolated, happenings took place in our test beds. Read on to see the wonderful and the not so wonderful faces of this card.