Over bij Sharky Extreme hebben ze een review gebakken van de Guillemot Maxi Gamer Cougar, een op de Riva TNT2 Model 64 gebaseerd videokaartje. Model 64 wil zeggen dat hij maar een 64-bits geheugen bus heeft, waardoor hij alleen in de lagere resoluties goed presteert. Check de volledige review hier.
Overall, the benchmarks show the Cougar to be a fast card at low resolutions, but when bandwidth needs increase, its 64bit memory bus becomes a serious bottleneck that throttles the Cougar's frame rate. This makes us wonder about one big part of the Cougar's spec list. Why does it have 32MB of RAM? 32MB of RAM is mostly useful when the game is run at a high resolution (it's also useful to for the OEM checklist). Because of the narrow memory bus and its speed limitations, few will be running the Cougar at a resolution where 32MB of memory will make a difference over 16MB. On the other hand, people who buy less expensive video cards like the Cougar will most likely expect to keep their card for a long time. As time goes on, games will be using more and more texture memory, and the 32MB of the Cougar will keep it a bit more future proof than it would be with only 16MB. Frankly, we would prefer to spend a little bit less on the card in exchange for the 16MB of RAM we may never use anyway. With RAM prices on the way up, this move could cut the card's price enough to make it more compelling.
