| Guillemot Maxi Gamer Xentor 32
by Tim "Flyboy" Henderson |
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I overclocked the Xentor 32 using Powerstrip. However, testing under Falcon4 found virtually no difference in frame rate. Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator, on the other hand, went from 22 fps at 1024x768 to 26 fps when moving from the default clock speed of 175MHz to 185MHz.
 The problem with state of the art hardware always remains the same. Todays games don't show a lot of benefit, but tomorrows games.. ooh la la! This problem increases with the complexity of the game. It doesn't take nearly as much time to develop an action game as it does a military simulation. Consequently, support for the latest hardware features show up soonest in the games I am least interested in! Sigh. The only real limitation of the Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 is that it does not support AGP 4x. Big deal. None of the games I play support even AGP2x, and the mainboards for AGP4x have not yet arrived. For those of you interested in the games bundle, try Kingpin and Speed Busters: American Highways. I know, I know.. when will someone bundle a real simulation with one of these boards? SUMMARY If you are a heavy duty F4 fan, avoid this board. What you need is 3dfx Voodoo3 running Glide. On the other hand, Voodoo3 is limited by memory, color depth and texture size. If you are buying for the future, this board may be well suited to you. Look for a good price. Click to continue |
 You could opt for the Hercules board, which has faster memory and offers APG4x. However, the Xentor 32 Ultra provides some features that the Hercules product lacks: TV-Out and full DVD support via a small S-Video port. If you are buying for a combination of game genres: action, shooters, simulations, the Maxi Gamer Xentor 32 is an excellent choice. You'll get better image quality under D3d, AGP support and support for larger textures. On the other hand, if you have a good gaming board (Voodoo2 or V3) already, maybe you should wait a few months and see what NV10 brings. Finally, you can opt for the budget solution and go for the 16 MB version at 135MHz for $95.95 after a $30 rebate. Ain't it nice to have choices? (Note: Guillemot is also offering a $30 rebate on the Xentor 32.) Test System:
 Speed, compatability, ease of installation, affordable: for overall excellence we award Guillemot our Top-Pick. Join a discussion forum on this article by clicking HERE.
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