Steelo,
As the owner of both a Hercules Prophet 2 MX AGP and a Creative Annihilator 2 MX PCI, I can tell you what I've observed. The Prophet uses SD-RAM with a 128 bit memory data path, the Annihilator uses DDR memory with a 64 bit memory data path. Reviews have shown that the 128 path with the slower memory yields higher frame rates which is what I've observed. This is especially true with games like Unreal Tournament which is very memory sensitive due to it's complex texture maps. Though my Prophet is an AGP, and the Annihilator is a PCI, the differences I see in D3D benchmarks stem from other problems. The D3D performance of the Annihilator is half that of the Prophet. I was told that nVidia is aware of a problem with PCI and some AGP 64 bit DDR cards when using T&L optimizations. I proved this by running 3D Mark and comparing T&L optimization with Intel PIII optimization. The T&L dogged out bad, especially at higher resolutions. nVidia says it will address this issue in an upcoming driver release.
Bottom line, if you have an AGP slot, get an MX board that has the slower RAM with the 128 bit memory path. I know the Hercules Prophet follows this design....I beleive the Ledtek board does also. Check it out for yourself. I paid the extra $20 for the Prophet because I knew it was designed this way. I get 4700 3D Marks with an 800 Copermine, no tweaks, default test. I got 2600 with the same system running a TNT2...definatley worth $130. I get 60 fps in Q3 demo1 at 1024x768x32 with all visuals maxed out....my TNT2 got 33 with the same settings. Here's the cool part....both cards use the same drivers....the 6.31's from nVidia. I pulled out the TNT2, installed the MX, directed Windows to the directory where I store the extracted 6.31 files and loaded up....works great...no problems at all....all games run great!
Go for the Prophet if you can find one.
Good Luck,
JP
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