Today we continue examination of production video cards based on the NVIDIA Titanium. NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 and ATI RADEON 8500 based cards are the most powerful accelerators today. The former is a bit quicker but NVIDIA doesn't have such a confident leadership as it recently had. We'll see for how long ATI will be able to keep up with its competitor.

We already studied several NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 based cards, and the whole theoretical base connected with the GeForce3 is concentrated in the following articles:

• Theoretical and analytical videocard reviews, containing functional analysis of NVIDIA GeForce3 GPU
  • GPU NVIDIA GeForce3 and cards on it
  • Optimization of NVIDIA GeForce3 for Intel Pentium4 and AMD Athlon
  • MadOnion 3DMark2001 and NVIDIA GeForce3 - the love story
  • NVIDIA GeForce3 benchmarking with Vulpine GLMark
  • NVIDIA GeForce3 extreme overclocking
  • ASUS AGP-V8200 Deluxe - the following issues are concerned: anti-aliasing, scalability, operation in severe conditions (Giants, Aquanox, Quake3 (Maximum,Quaver))
  • Leadtek WinFast GeForce3 - the following issues are concerned: anisotropy in Direct3D (3DMark2001), operation in severe conditions (GLMark), time dependence of FPS introduced in graphs
  • Gigabyte GV-GF3000D - the following issues are concerned: simultaneous activation of anisotropy and anti-aliasing , their complex effect on the performance (Quake3)
  • Inno3D Tornado GeForce3 - activation of the DXTC texture compression technology (3DMark2001)
  • SUMA Platinum GeForce3 - operation in the Direct3D by the example of 3DMark2000, anisotropy filtering in the Direct3D
  • Gainward CARDEXpert GeForce3 PowerPack !!! on NVIDIA GeForce3 - dependence of the performance of GeForce3 on CPU frequency (in Quake3)
  • Palit Daytona GeForce3 on NVIDIA GeForce3 - Level8 anisotropy activation in Direct3D
  • MSI GF3-VD64T (MS 8822) on NVIDIA GeForce3 (with VIVO) v DroneZ tests
  • ABIT Siluro GF3 VIO on NVIDIA GeForce3 (with VIVO) v testing of the new Detonator XP (v 21.81) for Windows 98SE
  • Hercules 3D Prophet III on NVIDIA GeForce3 - the quality of the new Detonator XP driver (v21.81) for Windows 98SE is concerned
  • NVIDIA Titanium - a new series of the GeForce3 Ti 200/500 and GeForce2 Ti cards " peculiarities of the GeForce3 followers (a base review of the new line)
  • MSI G3Ti500 Pro-VTG on NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 " operation of the video card in the Return to Castle Wolfenstein test
  • NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 and ATI RADEON 8500: extreme overclocking

• Short reviews of GeForce3 cards without GeForce3 GPU analysis
  • ELSA Gladiac 920 on NVIDIA GeForce3 - a new version of Giants, using GeForce3 advantages
  • MSI StarForce822 (MS 8822) on NVIDIA GeForce3
  • Leadtek WinFast GeForce3 TDH on NVIDIA GeForce3
  • Prolink PixelView XX Player on the NVIDIA GeForce3
  • Leadtek WinFast GeForce3 Titanium on NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200/500
  • Prolink PixelView GeForce3 Ti 200 on NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200
  • ASUS AGP-V8200T2/T5 on NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200/500
  • Hercules 3D Prophet III Titanium 500 and Gigabyte Thundra GeForce3 Ti 500
  • Palit Daytona GeForce3 Ti 200 on NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200
  • Chaintech A-G320 GeForce3 Ti 200 on NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200

Today the GeForce3 Ti 500 is the most powerful 3D accelerator of the gaming class (but in some tests the ATI RADEON 8500 catches up with it). The GeForce3 Ti 500 works at 240/250 (500) MHz. All details on speed characteristics of Ti 500 based cards can be found in our 3Digest and in the above articles.

And now we are moving to one more sample on this chipset - ABIT Siluro GF3 Ti500.

Card

The ABIT Siluro GF3 Ti 500 has an AGP x2/x4 interface, 64 MB DDR SDRAM located in 8 chips on the right side of the PCB.

The card has memory modules from ESMT (EliteMT) with a 3.8 ns access time which corresponds to 263 (526) MHz. (And the memory operates at 250 (500) MHz.)

In the Titanium series review and the following articles we showed that video cards based on the Ti 200/500 and those on the ordinary GeForce3 differ in design. It is done to make operation of the cards more stable as the memory works at a very high frequency - 250 (500) MHz. But not all Ti 500 video cards are based on the reference design. Let's compare the ABIT Siluro GF3 Ti500 and the NVIDIA's reference card:

ABIT Siluro GF3 Ti 500

NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 reference card

As you can see, the design is identical to the reference one. And we can be sure in stable and reliable operation of the card.

The PCB has dark brown textolite and a silvery cooler:

A cooler's construction is quite effective. The upper heatsink of the memory is made longer, it covers one memory chip of the vertical row, and the side heatsink is made shorter.

The heatsinks stuck to the memory modules and the central heatsink are not actually connected:

The central cooler has an intriguing design: pins are getting smaller as they move away from the center. It doesn't affect cooling ability of the device but makes it looking more interesting.

But if you are going to overclock your card you should provide additional cooling:

The ABIT Siluro GF3 Ti500 card is equipped both with TV-out and DVI.

The card ships in a Retail package with the "Certified NVIDIA vendor" mark on.

Accessories:

• User manual;
• CD with software and utilities and a WinDVD player;
• S-Video-to-RCA adapter;
• S-Video extender.

Overclocking

The ABIT Siluro GF3 Ti 500 (DVI) showed a record level in frequency growth " 270/300 (600) MHz.

At the same time, the card costs $310-320 which is less than the ASUS V8200T5 that is why this card turns out to be the most optimal among Ti 500 models.

Note:

• in course of overclocking you must provide additional cooling, in particular, for the card (first of all, for its memory);
• overclocking depends on the definite sample, and you shouldn't generalize the results of one card to all video cards of this mark or series. The overclocking results are not the obligatory characteristics of a video card.

Installation and drivers

Test system:

• Pentium4 get-up (Socket 478):
• Intel Pentium 4 2100;
• ASUS P4T-E (i850);
• 512 MBytes RDRAM PC800;
• Quantum FB AS HDD, 20 GBytes;
• Windows ME;
• ViewSonic P810 (21") and ViewSonic P817 (21") monitors.

In the tests we used NVIDIA drivers of v.21.85. VSync was off, S3TC was on.

For the comparative analyses we used the following cards:

• Reference card NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 (240/250 (500) MÃö, 64 MÁ);
• ASUS AGP-V8200 Deluxe (GeForce3, 200/230(460) MHz, 64 MBytes);
• ATI RADEON 8500 (RADEON 8500, 275/275 (550) MÃö, 64 MÁ, driver 7.206).

Test results

2D quality is excellent. I tried to replace the card with the RADEON 8500 but no difference could be noticed. The operation was flawless even in 1600x1200 at 85 Hz. But bear in mind that 2D quality much depends on a sample of the card and on its friendliness towards a monitor.

For estimation of 3D quality we used:

• Quake3 Arena v.1.17 (id Software/Activision) " a gaming test which demonstrates operation of a card in OpenGL with a standard demo benchmark demo002 and Quaver.
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein (id Software) " a gaming test which demonstrates operation of a card in OpenGL with the Checkpoint demo benchmark.

Quake3 Arena

Quaver, High Quality Modes

The test was carried out in 32-bit color mode at the highest detailing level and with complicated geometry (r_subdivisions "1" r_lodCurveError "30000"). This benchmark loads an accelerator with geometry, large textures and huge effects.

The test reveals that the ABIT Siluro GF3 Ti 500 easily beats the ATI RADEON 8500 and is identical to the NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 reference card in performance. As we expected the overclocking boosts up the performance greatly.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Multiplayer)

Checkpoint, High Quality Modes

The tests were carried out in 32-bit color mode at the highest detailing and quality level of textures.

This quite complicated test shows that the Ti 500 is not an unquestioned leader as it goes on a par with the ATI RADEON 8500 in 1600x1200. In other respects the ABIT performs similar to the GeForce3 Ti 500 reference card.

We examined anisotropic filtering in the OpenGL of the GeForce3 cards lots of times and every time the performance drop was rather considerable, especially at Level 4 and 8. Anti-aliasing is not free as well, though every gamer dreams of playing with these two functions enabled. So, let's take a look at playability by the example of the Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Single player mode) with both functions enabled on the overclocked ABIT Siluro GF3 Ti500 card.

Well, the performance falls down considerably. Taking into account that 35 fps is enough for this game, 1024x768 provides decent playability even at the highest anisotropic level and at the 4x degree of anti-aliasing. It means that the Ti 500 video cards can provide an acceptable speed with high quality and these two functions enabled. You only have to find the compromise between an AA degree and an anisotropic level. Though with such excellent overclocking results all these functions work at their highest level without damaging the quality!

In closing, I'd like to advise you to read also other reviews of GeForce3 based video cards. Besides, in our 3Digest you can get thorough information on performance of these cards on different platforms.

Conclusion

The card we examined today is one of the best among GeForce3 Ti 500 models in respect to an overclocking potential. However, a set of accessories is quite scanty. Although the Abit's card is a little cheaper than the MSI GF3TI500-ProVTG, it doesn't have such a rich set of accessories including VIVO. Nevertheless, if you don't need these additional functions but just a stable reference-based card the ABIT Siluro GF3 Ti500 will be an excellent choice.

1. ABIT Siluro GF3 Ti 500 corresponds to the reference card in all parameters.
2. Taking into account the overclocking potential some samples can become the most powerful 3D accelerators of the gaming class.
3. Excellent 2D quality.

The complete characteristics of video cards of this and other classes can be found in our 3Digest.

Highs:

• Excellent performance in 3D graphics in 32-bit color;
• High quality of the card based on the reference design for GeForce3 Ti 500;
• Full support of all functions and features of the GeForce3;
• Relatively low price ($310-320 in the middle of January 2002);
• Excellent overclockability of some samples.

Lows:

• Lack of games.

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