Hercules Dynamite TNT2 Ultra

Once a strong force in the industry, a series of defeated products in this competitive marketplace has put Hercules at a position where they must go above and beyond their competitors in order to hang on to what market share they have left. Their faith in the Savage3D part from S3 last year proved, in the end, to be another addition to a frightening list of failed products. With the aid of NVIDIA's Riva TNT chipset, their Dynamite TNT accelerator turned out to be a hit, relatively speaking in comparison to their last product, the Savage3D based Terminator Beast.

Although Hercules has another S3 based product in their lineup this time around they aren't relying on S3 to generate the sales they'll be looking for to make an entry back into the eyes of the users, that duty is once again put on NVIDIA with their TNT2 chip.

The first TNT2 based accelerators have finally hit the streets, and although they aren't the best accelerators money can buy, the rest are on the way. Among those that fall into the "on-the-way" category is Hercules' Dynamite TNT2 Ultra board, what is soon to be their flagship product as soon as it hits the streets in the coming few weeks. The original Dynamite TNT was an overclocker's choice, and shadowed the competition in terms of performance, driver quality, and gave more meaning to the Hercules brand name. Unfortunately, with the TNT2, things are much more complicated in the market. The market for TNT2 accelerators is a unique one and with all of the different clock speeds available as well as all of the different card manufacturers, it can be very difficult to pick out the card that's right for you. It's Hercules' job to make sure that the card that's right for you is the Dynamite TNT2 Ultra, as it is Diamond's job to make sure that the card that's right for you is the V770. How do you decide between the two? Well, it's AnandTech's job to make sure you get the card that's right for you, bar none. Let's get to the Hercules Dynamite TNT2 Ultra.

• NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 (Ultra) graphics and multimedia processor
• AGP 2x/AGP 4x ready
• 128-bit TwiN Texel Engine, delivering single cycle multi-texturing
• Up to 32MB of high performance memory
• 32-bit true color 3D rendering
• 32-bit Z/Stencil buffer
• Resolutions up to 1920x1440
• 300 MHz DAC