ASUS V9280 Ti4200-8x "Super Fast"
By:
| ASUS V9280 (NV28, AGP8x) |
| Chipset |
NV28 (GF4 Ti4200-8x) |
| GPU Speed |
275 MHz |
| Memory |
600MHz DDR; 128 Mb; |
| Overclocking |
303MHz/648MHz DDR |
| TV Out |
Yes, based on Philips7108AE |
| TV-In |
yes |
| Monitor output |
1xD-Sub15, 1xDVI |
| Two monitors? |
Yes, nView |
| Specific features |
AGP8x
memory cooling
TV In/Out |
| Price: |
$180-200 (Pricewatch.com) |
The name of this company has fixed in the users' mindset as expensive but invariably high-quality components for the PC. Next year, ASUSTek is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and on the Russian market the company has been successfully working for 10 years already. ASUS's leading positions are firmly held in many ways due to the rational marketing policies. Just another proof of that is the decision to launch the manufacture of cheap motherboards under the ASROCK trademark. This is very similar to the situation on the car market. Even though Toyota is associated in the consumer mindset as a manufacturer of no-frills inexpensive Japanese cars, it also produces prestigious technically perfect Lexus cars. Asus follows suit and can't afford diluting the quality of the brand name.
In the 3dfx epoch, ASUS started producing boards with support for 3D acceleration. By that time, the market was represented by such chips like Intel i740, nVidia Riva 128 and ATI Rage II. By the way, ASUS was the only third-party company to be able producing video cards on those chips. Accelerators made by ASUS have always been distinguished by excellent shipment bundles, the superb quality of video cards themselves, innovative design and, naturally, the price which was much higher than that offered by competitors. By now the situation is as it used to be then. That is, Asus video cards are fast, stable and the shipment bundle puts the competitors at a loss.
Today we'll be looking into another video card from Asus that we received for testing. This is Asus V9280S based on NVidia's Ti4200 chip with support for AGP8x (codenamed as NV28). As ever, Asus hasn't disappointed its amateurs and added some nice novelties into the new video card. Anyway, let's examine them step by step...
The video card
From year to year the package design is getting more catchy, and on the New Year eve the exterior of the package is especially topical. Even if you see it when buying and unwrapping all the property at home, the product does leave quite a bright impression since, as is well known, "clothes make the man.." The box follows the ASUS classical style and keeping up with the times it has slightly grown in size. It's amusing to see the PCB design style of the '70's brought to the background of the eye on the box.
Inside the cardboard box, another one made of plastic is enclosed in which all the accessories and the card are packed.
The shipment bundle inside the splendor can be regarded as one of the richest ever for the whole line of GeForce 4 Ti cards among all the manufacturers. The card comes bundled with the following:
- A splitter socket for plugging in TV-In and TV-out.
- a DVI to D-Sub15 adapter;
- A wiring panel for connecting the USB and Game port (!) - not clear what it is used for and it seems to have got in the pack by mistake during transportation to our test lab from ASUS' Moscow office;
- Documentation in 14 languages, including Russian, describing only how to install drivers.
The bundled software includes:
- A drivers CD (WDM Capture Driver, Twain Driver, Tweak Utility, SmartDoctor, VideoSecurity, DigitalVCR, VR Viewer, etc);
- AsusDVD (a player for DVD disks);
- MediaShow SE 2.0 (a software suite to prepare presentations);
- PowerDirector 2.1 ME (a software suite for video editing);
- VR Aquarium (Aquarium simulator :)
- Ghost Recon (a game, full version);
- Black Thorn (a game, full version);
- Worms Blast (a game, full version);
- Battle Realms (a game, demo version);
- IL2 Sturmovik (a game, demo version).
The video card drivers recorded on the CD are based on nVidia's drivers version 31.40. It will be more precise to say that the CD contains two drivers - the first is absolutely identical to the WHQL-certified nVidia driver including all the control panels, the second has more amendments introduced by Asus albeit not critical - the difference is that the second driver offers a 3D glasses control panel which is not highlighted since the video card in question is not of the Deluxe version and does not support these. The panel also has tabbed panes for tuning the color balance together with the information on the card itself and the drivers installed.
Another distinguishing feature of the driver is the more complete control panel invoked from the tray. All the other panels are completely matching the nVidia reference drivers.
Of special mention is the SmartDoctor 2 utility shipped on the drivers CD. The Asus9280S does not support electronic monitoring of the card's condition which is displayed by the installer during setting up the utility. Anyway, the utility does install but runs only as a primitive frequency tweak. Therefore, there is no practical sense in using the program.
Also remember that to make the TV-in and TV-out work, install the WDM capture driver from nVidia supplied on the bundled CD. In this regard, Asus has somehow degraded since the company has always been trying to produce own drivers with the full-featured control panel.
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