Geforce 2 pro vs Geforce 2 ultra?

[Budd]

i need a new video card and i am looking at the Geforce 2 Ultra and Geforce 2 Pro. anyone know what the difference between the two is? the system is mainly for gaming. or should i go for a Geforce 3? thanks guys

[CobraTekMax]

The Geforce 2 Pro is just your regular, run of the mill GF2, but with slightly faster memory, giving it about 20% more memory bandwidth. The Ultra also uses this memory, and has 64MB of it on board. Nvidia CLAIMS to have tweaked a few things in the core on the Ultra, such as the TNL engine and the Per Pixel Shading. Technically, I guess you could say it's a Geforce 2.5 (better than the 2, but not quite the 3).

I will go on record and say that I want the Geforce 3 to be the mother of my children.

[Tones2]

If you can afford it and have at least a 1 GHz processor, opt for the GeForce3 (about $400 right now) - it rocks! By year-end, many of the games will support the AMAZING programmable shaders that it supports, AND RIGHT now you get top of the line speed and real support for Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) at decent frame rates that you won't get with GeForce2 Ultra or Pro.

If your system is under 1 GHz and you don't plan to upgrade in the next year, I'd get the 64 MB DDR GeForce2 PRO (at about $175) since it's still about $100 cheaper than the Ultra and with in all practicality the same feature set and only about 5% slower. It's just a better value right now, especially if you have a slower processor. You can then get the GeForce3 next year probably at around $175 and you'll have spent less in total.

Tony