The NVIDIA spec sheer lists 'bump mapping' as a feature but the actual method used is 'embossing'. The only next-gen card to support true hardware environmental bump mapping will be the Matrox G400 (using a per pixel combination of three separate texture maps, including a special 'bump map'). So if bump mapping is something that you've seen in the flesh (not likely) and are absolutely sure that you can't live without the real thing (not very likely) then you might want to hold on for Matrox's G400MAX (choices eh?). On the other hand, the embossing looks pretty sharp and does the job fairly well.

The Quake 2 scores of the 32MB TNT2 were notably slower than for an UltraTNT2 part but obviously this is of little surprise due to the reduced graphics and memory clock speeds. The Voodoo3 3000 did considerably better and yet costs less. But Quake 2 won't be the game of choice for much longer… Higher color depths will only play to the S320 II's strengths. Not only does it support it, but also the performance hit is not all that significant, thus keeping frame rates high.

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The LeadTek's engineers decided to be 'brave' and included their little 'slider' utility within the control panel. This allows you to push the S320 II above and beyond the specifications that NVIDIA has recommended. Indeed we were able to push the S320 II to its limits with the graphics clocked at 160MHz and the memory speed set to 175MHz. With the fan and heat sink combination the board still ran relatively cool. No real 'heat' related issues but there were odd artifacts and graphical glitches. 1600x1200 was also unattainable in terms of timedemos. With some 'home-made' cooling (more fans etc…) we're pretty sure many S320 II's will run at this speed or at least somewhere close to it. The gains are pretty significant in 1024x768 and 800x600; thus it's well worth experimenting with.

Click images for larger graphs (opens in seperate window).

Benchmarks conducted on: Pentium III 500MHz w/128MB of PC100 RAM, Abit BH6 Motherboard, 10.2 Gig Quantum Fireball HD, Monster Sound MX300, 3COM PCI Network Card