Leadtek WinFast A250 Ultra TD GeForce 4 Ti-4600

Manufactured and provided by Leadtek
Reviewed by Akimoto
Street price: $ 340 USD (Pricewatch)
Review Date: 5/24/02

The A250 Ultra

This is certainly one of the most visually stunning video cards on the market. The sheer magnitude of the cooling solution for which Leadtek opted is astounding, to say the least. Not only does it have a large cooling solution on top, but it also includes a heatsink solution on the bottom of the card. Its weight is very satisfying, and the words "kick-ass" must have been heard at least several times upon its removal from the packaging. The gargantuan heatsink isn't all that's selling this card, however. It also includes, aside from the standard VGA output, a DVI output as well as a TV-out via S-Video. The dual video outputs allow for the use of dual monitor's through nVidia's nView technology, which gives excellent support for running two monitors.

Unfortunately, Leadtek did not include a DVI to VGA adapter like most companies do, which makes a less than favorable impression. It may not be expensive for the buyer to go and get, but for something so ostensibly trivial Leadtek might as well include it. They do include the cables needed for TV use, both RCA and S-Video. While the gaming part of this package may not be too fantastic, the WinFox utility for overclocking and the WinFast DVD player are a nice part of the bundle. The DVD player has fine image quality, and didn't elicit any complaints. The documentation with the card was poor. The installation guide and manuals are universal for all Leadtek cards, and there was nothing specific nor comprehensive for the A250 Ultra. While this isn't a hassle for experienced users, a newbie on a spending spree might have some difficulty.

A Note on 2D

One of the major flaws of the GeForce series has pervasively been the lack of sharp image at high resolutions. If cards can be made to reach frame rates well over 200 in many games, surely 2D image quality should be a no brainer. At 1280x1024 and below everything was perfect, but at resolutions above 1600x1200 text gets a little fuzzy. This isn't to say it's unusable, but it is certainly no Radeon. Keep in mind that this is not a problem of the Leadtek specifically, but any card based on the GeForce4 GPU line.

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