Hercules v ELSA

What do you do when you have two of the finest graphic card manufacturers in your labs, with the same GPU's? Head to Head of course and find the slickest performer, with the most features and providing the best value for money. Armed with our features list below we set about doing exactly that.

If looks is anything to go by the Hercules 3D Prophet II MX wins hands down, the slick and sexy blue tones are absolutely wasted on a video card, as it is hidden once the case cover goes on! what an absolute shame. Hercules certainly takes overheating seriously, and includes an active cooler, along with the necessary heatsinks (blue of course) to enable cooling of the GPU. Although this may seem like overkill, taking adequate precaution does no harm at all. In terms of features comparison between the two manufacturers, you can see from our table there are no obvious differences; in fact they are totally identical. The card that was shipped to us for our review was the retail version, and hence we had the 183MHz Memory bus on board, note if you purchase a ready built system, and the manufacturer has used the OEM version you will end up with a 166MHz Memory bus on board, and this will make a substantial difference in the cards 3D performance. Check before purchasing and establish exactly what you are getting.

Elsa is known for their quality and excellent drivers; they certainly do not stand out when it comes to looks. The Elsa card as is with the Hercules does not have the connector at the back necessary for Twinview functionality, but does have the luxury of a fan/heatsink combination for cooling purposes. As with the Hercules check what you are buying whether the product is a retail version or an OEM version the memory bus scenario applies to the ELSA as well.

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