Goodbye, Ti? Abit’s Siluro GF3 Vio Faces Off Against The Establishment – THG.RU

It Doesn’t Have To Be Ti: Abit’s Siluro GeForce3 Vio

The recent popular fascination with ATI’s Radeon 8500 has created a serious threat to Nvidia’s supremacy. Nvidia’s response is to replace their GeForce2 and GeForce3 models with slightly modified versions, and give them the attractive Titanium suffix ‘Ti’. The intention was to make everybody believe the Titanium chips would be significantly better. However, regardless of the newer-and-cooler name, there is nothing really exciting behind this – Nvidia simply combined the release of a new and considerably faster driver version (the Detonator 4) with a slight modification of their GeForce3 chip.

While the GeForce3 Ti500 is definitely faster because of a faster chip clock (240 instead of 200 MHz) and a slightly increased memory clock, the Ti200 comes with reduced clock speeds (only 175 MHz core / 200 MHz memory), which makes it resemble the less interesting GeForce3 product. The GeForce3, as we know it, is destined to vanish, and that’s why the prices for these cards, unadorned by the fancy “Titanium” title, could drop considerably.

If you can live with that, you will be very happy with a GeForce3 model like Abit’s Siluro GeForce3 Vio – it doesn’t carry the fancy name Ti, but it comes with lots of interesting features. Obviously, Abit also seems to believe that the “normal” GeForce3 will not be outdated as soon as Nvidia would like it to be.

The Siluro GeForce3 Vio: A Graphics Flagship, Continued

The Siluro GeForce3 Vio comes with a full set of video cables (in/out), Ulead VideoStudio 4SE and a driver CD.

As you can see, both the GPU and the memory (3.8 ns) are furnished with aluminum coolers, which provides a good opportunity for overclocking.

The Siluro GeForce3 Vio: A Graphics Flagship, Continued

Here, you can see the connectors: One 15-pin D-SUB monitor interface; a DVI connector for digital flat panels; and, an S-Video connector that requires a splitting cable (included) for simultaneous video-in and video-out. Thanks to the Philips encoder/decoder SAA7108E, it’s possible to easily record a video stream via S-Video or composite, while simultaneously playing a game on a huge television.

The Competitors: Other GeForce3 Cards

The difference in performance and quality between graphics cards using the same GPU is slight, which is not surprising. However, the cards can be differentiated by the addition of certain useful features, such as TV-in/TV-out, or a DVI connector, used for digital flat panels.

Other differences consist of the software bundled with the card (games, video editing or 3D software, DVD player), overclockability and, of course, the price.

The Competitors: Other GeForce3 Cards, Continued

• Asus V8200 Deluxe
  The Asus board can be recognized by its golden coolers for the GPU and the memory. Experts will also see that the design of the Asus V8200 differs from Nvidia’s reference design. There are two versions available: the Deluxe version that we received for review in July comes with Asus’ VR-100G 3D glasses, while the Pure version does not even have TV-out.
  The Deluxe edition also has a video encoder/decoder chip, the Philips SAA7108E. This chip provides basic video in and out capabilities, but does not replace video editing solutions.
• Elsa Gladiac 920
  Elsa’s graphics board sticks to the Nvidia reference design and comes with TV-out (Brooktree BT869). Also, the drivers haven’t been altered much.
• Gainward CARDEXpert GeForce3
  Gainward has a red PCB which is certainly eye-catching. There are no games included, but it does include Ulead Video Studio and 3Deep. This card is fairly similar to Abit’s Siluro GeForce3. Gainward’s ExperTool utility (part of the drivers) provides an easy way to overclock both the GPU and the video memory. If you are interersted in that, please check out the link to the CARDEXpert GeForce3.
• Hercules 3DProphet GeForce3
  The blue board from Hercules/Guillemot comes with TV-out only, as the Conexants CX25871 does not support TV-in. The Hercules drivers have been enhanced by a clock frequency tab in order to make overclocking as easy as possible.
• Leadtek WinFast GeForce3
  A single heat sink is used for both the GPU and the graphics memory, which is generally seen as a disadvantage, as the memory inevitably heats up. Leadtek successfully rearranged the drivers, making it very simple to adjust everything. They also include overclocking software called SpeedRunner.
• MSI Starforce 822
  MSI sticks to the Nvidia reference design. StarForce 822 is attractively priced, bundled with two games, and supports both TV-in and TV-out. The look and feel of the Nvidia reference drivers have been changed, but there is not much extra value save for basic overclocking functions.
• Visiontek GeForce3
  Visiontek also stays with the Nvidia reference design and comes with a simple TV-out and few add-ons.

Test Setup

In order to arrive at a fair comparison, we did not change the test setup that we used for our initial GeForce3 graphics card round-up. There’s just one thing to mention about the drivers we used: back in July, the latest reference driver set was ver. 12.00. All other versions that were developed by graphics card manufacturers are based on this version. Nowadays, the Detonator 4 is also available (version 2x.xx), which boosts up the performance of any GeForce2 / GeForce3 graphics card considerably! Abit offers version 14.10 on their FTP server, and this is also faster than the reference version 12.00.

Using any newer version would have forced us to re-test all other GeForce3 cards with the latest drivers as well – which would merely increase the performance level by a few percent, but would not change the overall result. That’s why we stuck with version 12.00 for testing.

Evolva (DirectX 7 w/ T&L)

As expected, the differences are only minor. Abit’s Siluro GeForce3 Vio is fast.

At the premium resolution of 1600×1200, the differences are even smaller, since all cards have one bottleneck in common: the memory bandwitdh. Running ultra-high resolutions causes a tremendous increase in the amount of data.

MDK2 (OpenGL)

MDK2 is a rather simple OpenGL game by today’s standards. It does not support fancy 3D features, and this is exactly what makes it interesting for benchmarking. Then again, a difference of 4 fps does not really make a huge difference.

The scene is similar at 1600×1200: all cards are equally suitable for this resolution, running MDK2 on our Athlon 1200 system at > 80 fps. It’s nice to see how the GeForce2 cards are being outperformed. The GTS in particular suffers from its low memory bandwidth.

Aquamark (DirectX 8)

Aquamark is no benchmark to determine fine differences in performance. Instead, it wants as much performance as possible. That’s obvious here, as the results hardly differ at all.

The same at 1600×1200 – at clearly lower frame rates. Don’t forget that Aquamark is one of the most spectacular 3D games to come – with amazing underwater graphics. I think that makes it clear that even a GeForce3 can be pushed to the limits.

Quake III Arena (OpenGL), High Quality

Though it’s already more than two years old, Quake III Arena is still one of the most popular games and quite important for benchmarking, as it requires both a fast CPU and a decent graphics board for fast gaming action. Here you can see a difference of approximately 2 fps between the fastest and the slowest GeForce3 board. I guess there’s no point in talking about “fast” and “slow” in this context!

Again, at 1600×1200, the differences are even smaller.

Dronez (OpenGL, Pixel & Vertex Shader)

Dronez shows a difference of almost 4 fps; Abit’s Siluro GeForce3 Vio performs exactly in the midfield.

Even 1600×1200 is no problem for these GeForce3 pixel monsters. Here, the Abit belongs to the fastest, but still, the differences are minor.

Mercedes Benz Truck Racing (DirectX 7)

3Dmark 2000/2001

Overclocking Results: Quake III Arena High Quality

The overclocking tests were originally performed on a Pentium 4 system, so we put together a similar system in order to get comparable results.

The following table shows the clock speeds at which all cards were able to run stably (numbers indicate core/memory clock):

As you can see, most of the cards are able to run at 240 MHz, as is the Siluro. Doing this, the Quake III result at the default clock speed of 200/460 MHz can easily be exceeded by all boards. If you plan to buy a graphics card with respect to overclocking, the Abit GeForce3 is certainly a good choice. Also, note that the new GeForce3 Ti 500 is running at 240 MHz core and 500 MHz memory clock (double pumped). Exceeding these numbers by overclocking a standard GeForce3 will also make certain that your graphics board outperforms the Ti500!

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