The Two Flavors of Viper

The Viper 770, as with most TNT2 cards, comes in two flavors: regular, and "Ultra." Although the details will differ from vendor to vendor, the most important difference between the two versions is the clock speed. Since the features of the TNT2 chip have been covered in detail elsewhere, such as our Hercules Dynamite TNT2 review, I will concentrate on the unique items that Diamond has added to the mix with these two cards.

Viper 770

125MHz core clock, 150MHz memory clock

Heatsink on TNT2 chip

Two games of your choice for $12.95 from the Diamond GameZone

Four hour playable version of Need for Speed III

Zoran SoftDVD

Viper 770 "Ultra"

150MHz core clock, 183MHz memory clock

Heatsink and fan on TNT2 chip

Two games of your choice for $12.95 from the Diamond GameZone

Four hour playable version of Need for Speed III

Zoran SoftDVD

Wild Metal Country, full version

Superbike World Championship, full version

One of my biggest pet peeves with retail video card purchases is the throwaway nature of the bundled game titles. Diamond deserves a lot of credit for doing something different here. While the Ultra version does include some games bundled in the traditional manner, both cards give you the option of buying two titles of your choice from the Diamond GameZone for only $12.95. The great thing about this is that you actually get a choice of games, or you can forgo the bundle entirely and save a little money. The games offered on GameZone are actually quality first tier titles like Heretic II, Shogo, Sin, Fighter Squadron, and Asteroids.

The other interesting touch is the four hour playable full version of Need for Speed III. The time limit method is an excellent way to give players a chance to try the full game, without shipping them a watered down "lite" version. If you play more than four hours, you can purchase the game for a small additional fee. I like the "play, then pay" model. At least this way you've had a fair way to evaluate the game without plopping down full retail price, sight unseen. This method does, however, require a connection to the internet for validation purposes.

The final item of interest is the Zoran SoftDVD player. While no software DVD player is currently stable or fast enough to earn my unqualified approval, the Zoran player is quite good. After I enabled DMA on my Pioneer EIDE DVD-ROM drive, playback was smooth and sound quality was excellent. CPU usage was typical for unaccelerated DVD hardware, with playback eating up about 50% of CPU time on a P2-500.