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InnoVISION GeForce3 Ti200


Date
: 12/30/01 – 10:30:11 PM

Author
:

Category
: Video Cards

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer: InnoVISION
Price: About $170

Introduction

A couple of days ago, nVidia announced not to go public with their next generation GPUs before the month of february next year (depends on the date that you read this review of course). What does this mean for the video card market and the gamers out there? Well, one simple statement has to be made : the GeForce3 Ti remains the fastest nVidia GPU available to mankind for at least 2 more months. That's if nVidia doesn't postpone the launch of their new line-up even more of course. And even IF the line-up is introduced next february, you will not be able to buy a videocard based on these new GPUs that same month either. Conclusion : When we buy a GeForce3 Ti card now, we have a top notch gaming card! Or don't we? That's what we intend to find out during this review.

Today, we're about to have a look at the Inno3D Tornado GeForce3 Ti200 videocard. Right after our Inno3D Geforce2 Ti review last week, we've put their GF3 Ti200 in our testrig and started to torture it to unseen levels ;) No, seriously, we were very eager to take this GF3 Ti200 for a testdrive to compare some benchmark results to a couple of other popular videocard results …

What did you just say to me? Ti200? Alright, hang on a sec, I was just getting to that part. As you might have noticed, the videocard we're discussing today is based on nVidia's GeForce3 Ti200 GPU. If I say that there are 3 different versions of GeForce3 GPU … the GeForce3, the GeForce3 Ti200 and the GeForce3 Ti500, I can understand why one could get all mixed up and confused at the same time. That's why we'll explain the difference between these three GPUs as soon as we reach the specifications part of this article … which is in about 1 second after you've clicked the link below …

Page 2 : Specifications

Specifications

First of all, let's have a look at the Inno3D Tornada GF3 Ti200 specifications. Here's a copy/paste from the Inno3D website :

NVIDIA® GeForce3 Ti 200 GPU

- NfiniteFX Engine
- Shadow Buffer Technology
- 3D Textures
- Lightspeed Memory Architecture
- High-Resoultion Antialiasing (HRAA)
- Microsoft® DirectX® 8.1 Compatiblity
- Fastest DDR Memory Interface
- High-Definition Video Processor (HDVP)
- DirectX and OpenGL® Optimizations and Support t
- Unified Driver Architecture

Tornado GeForce3 Titanium 200 3D Accelerator

- 64MB Double Data Rate (DDR) DRAM
- 6.4GB/Sec total memory bandwidth
- AGP 4X/2X, AGP Texturing and Fast Write supported
- ATX / MicroATX / AT form factor board
- High-Resoultion Antialiasing (HRAA)
- Microsoft® DirectX® 8.1 Compatiblity
- Fastest DDR Memory Interface
- High-Definition Video Processor (HDVP)
- DirectX and OpenGL® Optimizations and Support t
- Unified Driver Architecture

GeForce3 Ti 3D Features

- NfiniteFX engine for full programmability
- Lightspeed Memory Architecture for unmatched performance
- Programmable Vertex Shaders
Procedural deformations
Programmable matrix palette skinning
Key-frame animation interpolation
Morphing
Fog effects: Radial, Elevation, Non-Liner
Lens effects: Fish eye, Wide angle, Fresnel effects, Water refraction
- Programmable Pixel Shader
Phong-style lighting for per-pixel accuracy
Dot3 bump mapping
Environmental bump mapping (EMBM)
Procedural textures
Per-pixel reflections
- HRAA – High-Resolution antialiasing
Featuring Quincunx AA mode
- Integrated Hardware transform engine
- Integrated Hardware lighting engine
- DirectX® and S3TC® texture compression
- Dual cube environment mapping compression
Reflection maps
Accurate, real-time environment reflections
- Hardware accelerated real-time shadows
- True, reflective bump mapping
Z-correct bump mapping
Phong-style lighting effects on bump maps with reflections

GeForce3 Ti 2D Features

- High-performance 3D rendering engine
Optimized for 32-, 24-, 16-, 15- and 8 bpp modes
True-color hardware cursor with alpha
Multi-buffering (double, triple or quad) for smooth animation and video playback

GeForce3 Ti Video Features

- High-quality HDTV / DVD playback
- High-definition video process (HDVP) for full-screen, full-frame video playback of HDTV and DVD content
Independent hardware color controls for video overlay
Hardware color-space conversion (YUV 4:2:2 and 4:2:0)
Motion compensation
8:1 up / down scaling
Per-pixel color keying
Multiple video windows supported for CSC and filtering
DVD sub-picture alpha-blended compositing

Software Driver

- Microsoft® Windows® XP, Windows® ME, Windows® 2000, Windows® NT and Windows® 9X support
- DirectX® 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3 and lower API support

Detailed Specs

Wow! Sweet mother of God! This is one hell of an amazing specifications list if you ask me. I know every gamer from around the globe will agree with me on this one. The most important sentence of the spec list however is the very first one : "NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200 GPU". This GPU powers the videocard and is the secret behind many high-end videocards. But I told you before that the GeForce3 family consists of three members, didn't I? We have the GeForce3, the GeForce3 Ti200 and the GeForce3 Ti500. Now, allow me to explain these a little more …

We all know the original GeForce3 GPU which has a 200MHz core clock and memory that runs at 460MHz (DDR). We reviewed videocards with that GF3 GPU here and here! The new GeForce3 Ti200 GPU comes with a core clock running at 175MHz and a memory speed of 400MHz (DDR). The GF3 Ti200 is nothing more and nothing less than a downclocked GeForce3 to decrease the price on the pricetag. The high-end GeForce3 Ti500 GPU is the souped-up version of the GeForce3 with a core clock of 240MHz and an effective memory speed of 500MHz. Damn, that's fast ;) Currently, the Ti500 is the fastest nVidia-based GPU money can buy ; but the downside is that you need a shitload of money if you want a high-end card based on a Ti500. That's the main reason why nVidia chose to come up with the cheaper, 'low(er)'-end Ti200 version.

What's different about the new GF3 Ti line-up compared to the older GeForce3 GPU besides the core/memory clock speed differences? To be honest … NOTHING AT ALL! The Inno3D GeForce3 Ti200 has the exact same nVidia features as its older GF3 brother. To freshen up your memory, I'll list a couple of the most important GeForce3 features :

- nfiniteFX Engine
- Vertex Shaders
- Pixel Shaders
- Lightspeed Memory Architecture
- High Resolution Antialiasing (HRAA)

The nfiniteFX engine of a GeForce3 GPU allows games to offer more exciting and stunning visual effects. Vertex and Pixel Shaders are two major architectural advancements that allow even more effects. Even though these are the most significant benefits of a GF3 GPU, it has an even wider range of extra features compared to let's say a GeForce2 GPU. For a detailed look at the specifications of a GeForce3 GPU, I suggest you take a look at our very first  Geforce3 review. To get you all excited, I'll give you a quote from that review about the 'Lightspeed Memory Architecture' of the GF3 :

Memory and bus bandwidth have always been and will remain critical factors in determining graphics performance and quality. Together with the GeForce3 GPU comes a great number of advances in graphics architecture that will significantly improve the GPU's efficiency with memory and bus bandwith which results in new level of performance and maybe even more important, improved image quality. By using an advanced technology like Lightspeed Memory Architecture, the GF3 tries to solve pixel bandwidth problems and reduce bandwidth consumption as much as possible. This results in the GeForce3 being able to make twice the use of memory bandwidth than any previous traditional architecture.

The Inno3D Tornado GeForce3 Ti200 comes with a sexy looking black PCB. I really love black or blue PCBs for my motherboards and videocards. If you have a window mod and neon lights in your case like I have, you can really show off at a LAN party with these colored PCBs. The GeForce3 Ti200 GPU on the PCB is kept as cool as possible by an Orb-shaped cooler. We can actually speak of a blue orb because the HSF has a nice blue color. The blue orb is larger than the orb on the GF2 Ti we reviewed last week. It should be able to cool the GPU down good enough to achieve some nice overclocking results. Because our Inno3D GF3 Ti200 comes with 64MB of 5ns DDR RAM running at 400MHz by default, Inno3D made a wise decision and installed RAM sinks on top of the memory chips. These blue RAM sinks should also contribute to a much better overclocking result later on. Maybe we can even clock this Ti200 close to a more expensive Ti500 ;)

Our sample of the Inno3D GF3 Ti200 didn't come with a TV-Out chip onboard, but there are versions of this card that do come with such a chip and allow you to send your windows desktop to your TV screen at a resolution of 1024×768. But I don't think many people will buy the card with the TV-Out option because this will make the card more expensive and chances are you will never use it anyway.

So what has InnoVISION included in the box? :

- the slick looking GF3 Ti200 board
- a small user manual
- the universal driver CD
- MegaPack Bundle
- bonus mousepad

The package looks just like any other InnoVISION package. We have the videocard, a user manual, the MegaPack bundle with driver CD and a mousepad. The tiny user manual isn't going to provide you with lots of houres of reading fun, but it does contain the information you need to install the drivers. But that's about all there is to read in the manual.

Just like I said in the Inno3D GF2 Ti review, I would strongly advise to download the latest detonator drivers from the nVidia website or our mirrors, because the universal driver CD inside the box contains rather old drivers. Why are new drivers so important? Well, they (should) increase card stability and overall performance. That's always nice, no? The mousepad is a good extra, but sadly enough it has a pretty small surface area. I still prefer my good old RatPad. The MegaPack software bundle hasn't changed much compared to the one we described last time. When we open it up, we see the game "Incoming Forces Deliverance" with a two-page manual, the universale driver CD, the software DVD-player WinDVD 2000, the Innocreation Media clipart Gallery CD and last but not least Ulead PhotoImpact 5. Except for the game, the package has remained unchanged compared to older bundles. The reason why Inno3D has included Incoming Forces Deliverance is because this game uses the GeForce3 features while Midnight GT (supplied with the GF2 Ti MegaPack bundle) is a very old game and doesn't support these GeForce3 features. Incoming Forces Deliverance is a good game with some sweet graphics and it sure is a better addition to the package than Midnight GT, but it just isn't my style.

Now, let's do some overclocking … can't wait any longer …

Page 3 : Overclocking

Overclocking

With a blue orb cooler on top of the GF3 Ti200 GPU and RAM sinks on the memory chips, this videocard has quite a lot of overclocking potential. There are two ways to overclock a videocard. One way is to download and install the Coolbits registry hack which allows you to adjust the core and memory speed from within the driver settings tab in your OS. The second way to crank up the core clock and memory speed of almost every recent videocard on the market is to install Powerstrip or any other videocard overclocking software.

Once you installed the overclocking tool you're going to use, you're set to begin the overclocking adventure. You should always increase the core clock and memory speed in small increments, because that's the only way to find out when a card reaches its limit. It's also important to know whether it is you core that has reached its limit or whether it is the memory that is maxed out. Can the Ti200 be clocked as high as a much more expensive stock Ti500? Hmmm … we'll see …

Experimenting with a videocard like this Inno3D GF3 Ti200 always guarantees houres of fun because it has so much potential. After one whole day of playing around with the core/memory settings which run at 175/400 by default, I was convinced that our sample is maxed out at 220/470. That's 45MHz increase of core speed while the memory runs even 70MHz higher than the default speed. The least we can say is : not bad for 5ns RAM, but then again, not too good either! I've seen GF3 Ti200s with a memory speed clocked at +500MHz! Still, our GF3 Ti200 is now clocked higher than a more expensive GeForce3 (not the Ti500). The Ti200 didn't even lockup when I tried an even higher memory speed like 490MHz but artifacts showed up during the 3DMark2k1 loops :(

Let's see how the Inno3D GeForce3 Ti200 handles 3DMark2001 and Quake3 Arena benchmarking …

Page 4 : Benchmarking

Benchmarking

Test System :

- AMD Athlon Tbird 1.4GHz
- EPoX 8KHA+ KT266A Mainboard
- Vantec CCK-6035 Heatsink
- Crucial PC2100 DDR RAM
- Inno3D GeForce3 Ti200 videocard
- Prolink Pixelview GF2 Ti videocard
- Inno3D GF2 Ti videocard
- Visiontek GeForce3 videocard
- IBM 20GB UDMA100 7200rpm hard drive
- Win2k + SP2 + VIA 4in1 4.35
- Deto 21.83

3DMARK2001

Quake 3 Arena v1.17 – Demo001

Quake 3 Arena v1.17 – Torture Demo

The benchmarks are very clear. The GeForce3 Ti200 from Inno3D is capable of keeping up with what used to be the fastest GPU on the market. I'm talking about the GeForce3 GPU on our Visiontek GF3 sample. When our Ti200 runs at default speed (175/400), the Visiontek GF3 is king of the world. BUT as soon as we start to overclock the Ti200 to higher levels (220/470), the GF3 from Visiontek loses its lead and the Ti200 becomes the fastest card in the tests. Not bad for a card that costs much less than the Visiontek ;)

Page 5 : Conclusion

Conclusion

Good

- Excellent performance
- Good GPU cooler & RAM sinks
- Overclocks nicely
- Value for money
- Sexy looks (black PCB & blue cooling)

Bad

- MegaPack has improved a little but still isn't awesome
- Not THE fastest GeForce3 available

What did we think of the InnoVISION Tornado GeForce3 Ti200? Well, we think it's a very good choice if you plan on buying a GeForce3 videocard in the near future or as a late Christmas gift. The sleek looking black PCB together with the blue cooling on top of the GPU and the RAM sinks make this card look better than the competition. That's not all. This GF3 Ti200 also has a very attractive pricetag. When you add to all this goodness that we could overclock the core/memory to 220MHz/470MHz which is faster than the original an more expensive GeForce3, I have no choice but to recommend this card to every hardcore gamer who asks me which GeForce3 card to get. Of course, the GeForce3 Ti500 is quite a lot faster, but do we really need this kind of power? I mean, this Ti200 allows us to play all games at a high resolution with the detail set to maximum. After all, what's the difference between 180FPS and 200FPS? The occasional gamer should not buy a GeForce3 (Ti) based videocard, but should rather go for a cheap GeForce2 Ti card and save some $$$. But if you DO need a GeForce3 Ti200, you won't be disappointed when you buy this Inno3D Tornado GF3 Ti200!