Goodbye, Ti? Abit's Siluro GF3 Vio Faces Off Against The Establishment

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Conclusion

The continuing price drops on GeForce3-based graphics cards are finally making those high-end boards more attractive. Although none of the cards have gone below $300 as of yet, I expect some models to be available at $250 or even slightly less before Christmas. This is finally a price that should be acceptable for high-end gamers.

The Siluro GeForce3 Vio is queuing into the line of GeForce3 products with a good price/performance ratio and useful hardware features (DVI, TV-in/ out). In additon, the card can be overclocked safely by 15-20%.

Many of you may wonder if it could also be of interest to buy a GeForce3 Ti200, due to the fact that this one is manufactured in 0.15 µm and thus should have better overclocking capability.

Basically, the idea is nice, but you can be sure that only a few Ti200 cards will be equipped with memory that is fast enough to give you the results you want. This is different with the Ti500, but you can be sure that it will stay very expensive for some time.

Feature Comparison Table

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Manu-facturer	ASUS	ELSA	Gainward	Hercules	Leadtek	MSI	Visiontek	Abit
Model	AGP-V8200 Deluxe	GLADIAC 920	CARDEXpert GeForce3	3D Prophet III	WinFast GF3	StarForce 822	GeForce3	Siluto GeForce3 Vio
Street Price *)	US$340	US$350	US$300	US$330	US$315	US$280	US$300	US$315
3D Chip	GeForce3	GeForce3	GeForce3	GeForce3	GeForce3	GeForce3	GeForce3	GeForce3
Memory	64 MB	64 MB	64 MB	64 MB	64 MB	64 MB	64 MB	64 MB
Memory Bus Interface	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit
Chip Clock	200 MHz	200 MHz	200 MHz	200 MHz	200 MHz	200 MHz	200 MHz	200 MHz
Memory Clock **)	230 MHz DDR	230 MHz DDR	230 MHz DDR	230 MHz DDR	230 MHz DDR	230 MHz DDR	230 MHz DDR	230 MHz DDR
Memory Access Time	3.8ns	3.8ns	3.8ns	3.8ns	3.8ns	3.8ns	3.8ns	3.8ns
Memory Bandwidth	7.4 GB/s	7.4 GB/s	7.4 GB/s	7.4 GB/s	7.4 GB/s	7.4 GB/s	7.4 GB/s	7.4 GB/s
Ramdac	350 MHz	350 MHz	350 MHz	350 MHz	350 MHz	350 MHz	350 MHz	350 MHz
Card Features
3D Chip Cooler and Fan	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Heat Sink on Memory	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	yes
TV-Out Encoder Chip	Philips SAA7108E	Bt 869KRF	Philips SAA7108E	CX25871-13	CX25871-13	Philips SAA7108E	Bt 869KRF	Philips SAA7108E
TV-Out Connect-ors	Chinch and S-VHS	Chinch or S-VHS	Chinch and S-VHS	Chinch or S-VHS	Chinch or S-VHS	Chinch and S-VHS	Chinch or S-VHS	Chinch or S-VHS
Video In Decoder Chip	Philips SAA7108E	no	Philips SAA7108E	no	no	Philips SAA7108E	no	Philips SAA7108E
Video In Connect-ors	Chinch or S-VHS	no	Chinch and S-VHS	no	no	Chinch	no	Chinch and S-VHS
DVI Output	no	no	yes	yes	yes	no	no	yes
Hardware Monitor-ing	yes	no	no	no	no	no	no	no
3D Glasses	yes	no	no	no	no	no	no	no
Software
Driver Tools	yes	no	yes	no	yes	yes	no	no
DVD Player	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no
VCR Software	Digital VCR	no	no	no	no	no	no	no
Games (No demos)	Messiah / Sacrifice / Star Trek New Worlds	Giants (GF3 version)	no	no	no	Rouge Spear / V-Rally 2	no	no
Software (No demos)	3Deep / Ulead VideoStudio 4SE / Video Life Mail 4	no	3Deep / Ulead VideoStudio 4SE	no	3Deep / Cult 3D	no	no	3Deep / Ulead VideoStudio 4SE