Hercules Dynamite TNT 16MB AGP

Performance

All tests were conducted on a Pentium II/400mhz w/

64MB RAM

5.1GIG WD CAVIAR UDMA drive

Windows 98

Quake2 3.19 demo1.dm2

Latest drivers for all products

The Dynamite TNT board is faster than both the creative board and the Erazor II even when "underclocked". Running at the default configuration of 98mhz clock, 125mhz RAM (98/125), the Dynamite TNT is quite a bit faster than the competition. Even though the Dynamite TNT is faster, there really isn't a noticeable difference between these cards at 640x480.

At 800x600, the default clocked Dynamite TNT pulls away. Clearly, the extra 8mhz on the clock are making a difference.

The Dynamite TNT is over 3fps faster than the nearest competitor, and the only card to break 40fps at 1024x768. The Dynamite TNT will please even the keenest eye at 1024x768.

At 32bit color, the Dynamite 98/125 absolutely demolishes the competition. This is most likely due to an increase in clock speed and the significant increase in memory speed. Since a limiting factor of 32bit color mode with the TNT is bandwidth, upping the memory clock should make a significant impact on the performance, and it does.

Performance Analysis

The Dynamite TNT is clearly the fastest TNT board in this test, in many cases scoring significantly higher than the competition. Of course, the Dynamite TNT can be considered overclocked; but, the board are stable enough to run at Hercules' default speed, and warranty is not voided. In other words, Hercules guarantees that the Dynamite TNT will run @ 98/125 and is willing to back it up with the 5 year warranty available. Regarding the 32bit performance, it looks as if RAM speed makes a difference after all.

Price

The Dynamite TNT retail can be purchased directly from Hercules for $139 with a 30 day money back guarantee and 5 year warranty. This price is already pretty good, and street prices for OEM (white box) models are even cheaper making the Dynamite TNT not only the fastest TNT board, but one of the cheapest as well.

Overclocked Performance

I decided to find out how high I could push the Dynamite TNT without applying extra cooling.

115/125 failed to complete demo1.dm2.

Upping the clock speed from a default 98mhz to 110mhz yielded a significant increase of around 10% without any apparent loss in stability. The demo completed multiple times with no noticeable tearing. It looks as if the cooling on the Dynamite TNT is more than adequate.

Impact of Memory speed on 32bit performance

Raising the memory clock speed 15mhz yielded an increase of almost 4 fps. This strongly suggests that bandwidth is the limiting the TNT's 32bit performance. The following chart should reinforce this conclusion.

Raising the memory clock speed by 15mhz only yielded a 1.2fps increase when running in 16bit color as opposed to the 3.5fps increase when running demo1.dm2 in 32bit color.

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