What is the Asus V7100 "Magic"?

[Guest]

Hi

Wanna know what the difference is between an Asus V7100 Pure, a V7100 T/32 and a V7100 "Magic"!! Never heard of the last one before I saw the pack!! It doesn't say anyhting different on the pack at all than what it does on the Pure V7100. What's the "Magic" label for? Is it at all different? If yes, better or worse than the V7100 T/32.

Manuj

 

[bungee]

I don't know what is T/32, but the magic is made with the "new" GeForce MX200 which is less good than the older MX(PURE) and the "new" MX400 which is the best of all the MX. However, the difference between all three is not very big. I would add however that MX200 is clearly made for replacement in the very low-end market of TNT2 and Vanta.

 

[bungee]

After reading another post, I must say that MX200 is awfully awfull!! never go under MX!

 

[Crashman]

Yes, it is awfully awfull, I tested one, it reaked of stinkiosity.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine

 

[AMD_Man]

While the Asus v7100 Magic MX-200 is one of the worst MX based boards ever, the v7100 Pro is probably THE BEST MX board available. I have tried the v7100 Pro and I can easily get it to 240/260 (perfectly stable). It also works at 260/270 but it overheats after a few minutes with some artifacts. I can probably get it to run at 260/270 at a reasonable temperature with a Blue Orb and RAM sinks. At that clock speed, WHO NEEDS A GEFORCE2 GTS?

 

[Crashman]

My GTS runs DDR rates about 50% faster than that, and since memory is the path to righteous performance, I guess I need the GTS.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine

 

[AMD_Man]

I disagree, I get 90fps in 1024*768* 32bit colour in HQ mode in Quake III Arena on a 1.4 GHz Athlon. That is also what the average GTS gets at the same res. On a clock for clock basis, DDR RAM is less efficient than SDR RAM, meaning DDR's average bandwidth is farther from it's maximum bandiwidth than SDR is from it's maximum bandwidth. This is clearly illustrated in SiSoft Sandra's system RAM benchmark where a KT133A chipset with PC133 RAM is very close in performance to a DDR chipset. The benchmark suggests that DDR is approximately 40% efficient and SDR is 60% efficent. I believe this is a cause of latency and unequal timings due to the doubling nature of DDR. What I mean by that is that the Motherboard/Graphics Board is no longer synchronized with the RAM and monitoring Asynchronous RAM for feedback adds a toll to latency.

Now I'm not a RAM expert but from what I've read, I believe what I'm saying sounds logical. Again, I stress I'm not trying to be biased but how else can a MX tie a GTS? BTW, I have tried several different tests on both MX and GTS boards and for all but the most demanding tests, the number of rendering pipelines and core speed have almost no effect on overall performance. So in that respect, I agree RAM performance is vital however, DDR is not the ultimate solution as I said before. If I were offered a 166 MHz DDR (333MHz effective) board and a 333 MHz SDR GTS (if it existed), I would definitely choose the latter as it's performance would probably be near or even at the GeForce2 Ultra level.

If you're interested, here are my system specs:

AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz (AXIA) @ 1.4 GHz (30c idle, 40c load)
GlobalWin WBK-38
1 5000 RPM Exhaust fan + 1 5000 RPM Slot fan beside Graphics card
Abit KT7A RAID (140MHz)
256 MB Micron PC133 CL2
40 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM Hard Drive
Asus v7100 Pro @ 260/260 <- the ultimate MX board (but I'm probably getting a GeForce3 Ultra or Radeon2 or Kyro III when they come out)
ATI TV-Wonder
12x Sony DVD ROM
8x4x32x HP CD-Writer
Network Card
19" NEC Monitor

 

[Crashman]

Even the fastest MX 400 with 3.5ns memory can't match the GTS in speed, so regardless of whether it's a memory issue or a pipeline issue, the GTS still performs better. That's merely proven by benchmarks, available from several reviewers.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine

 

[bungee]

I agree with crashman. In tom's review of Gainward, the MX400 is badly beaten by the GTS...

<font color=red>Hail total victory of AMD versus Intel!

 

[phsstpok]

I get 90fps in 1024*768* 32bit colour in HQ mode in Quake III Arena

Interesting, in addition to selecting High Quality and 1024x768x32 did you remember to move the Texture Detail slide all the way to right? This is how most Quake III benchmarks are done.

 

[AMD_Man]

Well, when I do that it goes down to around 85 - 88fps.

 

[phsstpok]

Thanks for retesting. Those are still very playable, excellent framerates. I have to admit I expected an MX-200 to be very poor but you are getting about 50% better performance than my highly overclocked Geforce256 SDR.

What's that old expression? "The proof is in the pudding."

 

[AMD_Man]

Sorry, I think you misunderstood. Those are results from the Asus v7100 Pro TV-Out 32MB running at 260/260 (I used to run at 240/260 but now with my new PCI slot cooler 260/260 is perfectly stable at a cool 52c under load, using the Asus SmartDoctor). The Asus v7100 Magic is terrible, scoring perhaps half of what I'm getting due to the limited 64-bit memory interface. I have only found one review of the v7100 Pro, http://www.digit-life.com/articles/gf2mx400v7100pro/index.html . Digital Life got the Pro up to 240/260 but more can be done with better cooling.

I hope this clears things up a bit.

 

[phsstpok]

That's what happens when one just scans to quickly. I was reading messages in "flat mode" and somehow I missed reading one post. I then thought you were disagreeing with claims that the MX-200 performs poorly and were stating numbers to prove it. Sorry, about that.

Thanks for clarifying.