While the market is waiting for the new generation graphics cards based on GeForce256 chipfrom NVIDIA this manufacturer doesn't feel like being idle and keeps on improving the alreadyexisting achievements. In fact, some time before the launching of Riva TNT2 NVIDIA was going todevelop TNT-A, which was supposed to differ from the ordinary TNT only by the technology used forits manufacturing - 0.25 micron. Some companies were even ready to design graphics cards based onthis chip, but… But life is such an unpredictable thing! So, TNT-A never came into the world.

That is why when there emerged the information about the allegedly coming NVIDIA Riva TNT2/Prochipset, which was later renamed to NVIDIA Riva TNT2-A, we really doubted that any graphics cardmanufacturer would pay any attention to it. Nevertheless, we were mistaken. For instance,Gigabyte famous for its Turbo-card based on a usual NVIDIA Riva TNT2 (working at almost thesame frequencies as NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra) announced a new modification of their graphicscard - GA-660 Plus. Besides, a few other manufacturers did the same thing.

In order to avoid confusion we will try to help you correctly place NVIDIA Riva TNT2-Ainto the already existing bunch of different chipsets starting from a weak Vanta and finishingwith a highly powerful Riva TNT2 Ultra.

NVIDIA Riva TNT2-A is manufactured with 0.22 micron technology and looks just the same asNVIDIA Riva TNT2. With the only exception: our piece works at higher frequencies (143MHz againstthose 125MHz of an ordinary). In this case it sounds quite logical to ask: how does it differfrom Riva TNT2 Ultra with the working frequency of 150MHz, which also supports higher frequenciesthough with 0.25 micron technology. First of all, the main difference is the price. NVIDIA RivaTNT2-A costs about the same as NVIDIA Riva TNT2 and can be positioned to replace NVIDIA Riva TNT2in the existing models of the graphics card. In other words, we get a faster graphics card for thesame money. :-)

So, we managed to test GA-660 Plus card sample provided by Gigabyte. This card looks very muchlike a regular GA-660.

However, you may find it quite interesting, but Gigabyte GA-660 Plus is equipped with 6nsmemory. To tell the truth, it is Diamond Viper V770, which has been the only one among allother TNT2-cards with such incredible data access rate for a considerable while. All the othercards were equipped with slower chips. Moreover, the card can boast AGP-constructive, 32MB SDRAM,active ball-bearing cooler on the chipset and a passive heatsink on the reverse side of the card.It is also possible to install microchips dealing with the TV-out and LCD display. However, thesechips are not soldered to the card. Another typical peculiarity of Gigabyte graphics cards, whichis also represented on GA-660 Plus, is a jumper responsible for the card's Turbo-mode (higherfrequencies mode). This mode is usually set as default.

When we tried to remove the cooler from the chipset we found out that its marking coincideswith what we saw by NVIDIA Riva TNT2. But in either case we failed to dig out at least one singlething, which could prove our suppositions about this card being a TNT2-A.

The Gigabyte GA-660 Plus package includes of course the card, a very detailed user's manual,and CDs with the drivers and other software.

And now a few words about the drivers. They are made with the help of the latest officiallyreleased Detonator 2.08 and have the same settings as the reference-driver. The only exceptionis a certain properties list, which allows changing the cards working frequencies, i.e.overclocking.

So, what do you thing about the advantage Gigabyte provided its offspring with?! As default,the frequencies equal 170/180MHz (in non-Turbo mode they are 150/166MHz correspondingly). In otherwords, you pay the money for a regular NVIDIA Riva TNT2, but you will get a device, which workingfrequencies will be higher than even those by NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra! Note that the declaredinitial frequency for Riva TNT2-A is 143MHz. Well, Gigabyte doesn't seem to have disappointedus with its new Turbo graphics card.

Here we have to point out that the chipset can be overclocked up to 183MHz. At higher frequenciesthe card proved unstable at work. Besides, to our great disappointment it turned out that thisextremely fast memory, which allowed overclocking up to 220MHz when used on Diamond Viper V770,it appeared unable even to overcome the threshold: we overclocked it only to 195MHz.

And now let's pass over to the practical part of our investigation. The testing system wasassembled on Intel Pentium III CPU and includes the following parts:

• Intel Pentium III 500 CPU;
• ASUS P3B-F mainboard;
• 128MB PC100 system memory;
• Quantum FB CR 6.4GB HDD;
• Monitor ViewSonic P810
• MS Windows 98.

To estimate the card's performance and to carry out the required comparative analysis wemade use of the information about the graphics cards, such as: Matrox Millennium G400 MAX, 3dfxVoodoo3 3500TV Creative 3D Blaster Riva TNT2 Ultra. It is not just by chance that we chose theseparticular cards. And although they cost quite a considerable sum of money, they are still veryclose to the Gigabyte GA-660 Plus in terms of performance.

As for 2D, the performance of our card does not differ at all from that of NVIDIA Riva TNT2based ones. The image quality remains on a very high level even at 1600x1200.

Now let's take a look at the performance in 3D. We applied the following tests:

• FutureMark 3D Mark99 MAX (Direct3D)
• Monolith Shogo, revshogo (Direct3D)
• Rage Expendable (Direct3D, multitexturing)
• id Quake2, massive1 (OpenGL)
• id Quake3 v.1.08, demo1 (OpenGL)

Here are the actual results:

Well, what conclusion can be derived from the data offered above? First of all, GigabyteGA-660 Plus managed to take an indisputable lead over its main more expensive competitor -Creative 3D Blaster Riva TNT2 Ultra and to leave it far behind at nominal frequencies. MatroxMillennium G400 MAX just slightly surpasses Gigabyte GA-660 Plus at the highest resolutionsand with the maximum color depth - 32-bit. And of course we have noticed that 3dfx Voodoo33500TV proved better than Gigabyte GA-660 Plus in the games with multitexturing enabled.

If the working frequencies are set to their maximum, i.e. if overclocked up to 183/190MHz,we can see a slight performance gain of 8-10%. We would like to stress once again that we failedto overclock the card a bit higher, because Gigabyte uses NVIDIA Riva TNT2-A in a regime far frombeing nominal :-)

Now let's sum up. We are offered a graphics card for the same price we pay for an ordinaryNVIDIA Riva TNT2 while the features are much cooler and sometimes even TNT2 Ultra card versionfails to retain its leadership. Here we can say that the only remaining advantage of NVIDIA RivaTNT2 Ultra based graphics cards is higher memory overclocking, because all the graphics cards ofthis type are initially equipped with 5-5.5ns microchips.

As you can see, Gigabyte GA-660 Plus occupies a very stable position among the most powerfulgraphics cards of the latest generation however, it is much cheaper, which cannot be disregardedby the users. Of course, we can't mention all the graphics cards based on NVIDIA Riva TNT2-A andwho knows, maybe they will turn out not successful, because Gigabyte sets the default frequencieshigher than NVIDIA actually recommends. It's also quite possible that some manufacturers will behappy even with a slight increase in their graphics cards' working frequencies compared to TNT2,however, we can't deny that we are very glad to get a faster graphics card for the same price.

But the chance to see graphics cards like that in the market pretty soon can't be absolutelydisregarded. The thing is that not everybody feels like revealing his or her secrets and givingaway the info about the replacement of the chip with a new NVIDIA Riva TNT2-A, the way Gigabytedid it. Chaintech, for instance, is going to release the cards based on this new chip under theold name - Desperado AGP-RI40/41. And in the meanwhile NVIDIA is very likely to completely stopthe manufacturing of the ordinary TNT2 chips replacing it with TNT2-A that is why the graphicscards manufacturers will be simply forced to shift to a new chipset version.