NVIDIA GeForce2/3 Titanium Roundup - January 2002

ASUS V8200T5 Pure/Deluxe

ASUS V8200T5 Pure/Deluxe
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GPU	NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500
Memory	64MB EliteMT DDR SDRAM 3.8ns
Cooling - Core	Interlocking fan/heatsink combo
Cooling - Memory	(2) 21 fin RAMsinks
Temperature - Core	140 F / 60 C
TV-Out	S-Video and Composite Philips SAA7108E (Deluxe Only)
Video-In	S-Video and Composite Philips SAA7108E (Deluxe Only)
Highest Overclock	270/600MHz
Software/Gaming Bundle	ASUS DVD, VideoLive Mail, Sacrifice, Messiah, Star Trek New Worlds WinCoder, WinProducer (Deluxe Only)
Average Online Price	$350 Pure $380 Deluxe

The ASUS V8200T5 Pure and the ASUS V8200T5 Deluxe differ only in the area of features. Both cards feature the same interlocking heatsink/fan unit. The unit was able to keep card core temperatures at 140 degrees Fahrenheit, making the cards somewhat hotter than competing ones. Although the core is bound to the heatsink/fan unit using thermal grease, the memory heatsinks simply sit on top of the 3.8ns ESMT DDR memory and are held in place with pins. This did not seem to effect overclocking speed, however, as the 270/600MHz that both cards were able to reach were among the highest speeds we saw.

As mentioned before, the ASUS V8200T5 Pure and Deluxe cards differ when it come to features. The Pure model is a relatively bare GeForce3 Ti 500 card, featuring no TV-out or DVI-out. The Pure card does include hardware monitoring provided thanks to a Windbond W83781D chip.

The ASUS V8200T5 Deluxe gains quite a few welcome additions. First off, full VIVO functionality is brought to the card. Using a Philips SAA7108E TV encoder/decoder chip, the Deluxe card features composite and S-video in and out. Added in the Deluxe version as well are VR glasses. The glasses remain the same type described in our ASUS V6600 Deluxe SDR GeForce256 review and still work on the same principal. As we have said in the past, we are not too impressed with the VR glasses. Also staying is the Windbond W83781D hardware monitoring chip. The full card back does not leave any room for a DVI connector.

The software bundle for both cards is extremely strong, coming not only with a DVD player but also full versions of many popular games.