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CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200 REVIEW

"In this article we review the Creative GeForce3 Ti200 to technologically inferior Gainward GeForce4 MX440."
CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200

Creative GeForce3 Ti200, 175MHz core clock speed, 64MB 400mhz DDR memory, Lightspeed Memory TM Architecture (LMA), nFinite FX engine & Programmable Vertex and Pixel Shaders.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Architecture Highlights

64MB 400MHz Double Data Rate (DDR) Memory
700 Billion Operations Per Second
35M triangles/sec
6.4 GB/sec Memory Bandwidth
4 anisotropic filtered pixels/clock
2.8 Billion Samples per Second FSAA Fill Rate
TV-Out
nfiniteFX Engine for full programmability
Lightspeed Memory Architecture

Specification

256-bit graphics architecture
AGP 1X, 2X and 4X support
64MB of DDR Memory @ 400Mhz
175Mhz Core Clock Speed
350Mhz RAMDAC

Programmable Vertex Shaders

Procedural deformations
Programmable matrix palette skinning
Keyframe animation interpolation
Morphing
Fog effects: Radial, Elevation & Non-linear

Programmable Pixel Shaders

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

Hardware Transform & Lighting engine

8 lights per rendering pass
Infinite, local, directional or spot
Colored lights

Dual cube environment mapping capability

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
High-performance 2D rendering engine
Optimized for 32-, 24-, 16-, 15- and 8bpp modes
True-color hardware cursor with alpha
Multi-buffering for smooth animation and video playback

High-quality HDTV/DVD playback

High-definition video processor (HDVP)
Independent hardware color controls for video overlay
Hardware color-space conversion (YUV 4:2:2 and 4:2:0)
Motion compensation
5-tap horizontal by 3-tap vertical filtering
8:1 up/down scaling

PERFORMANCE

Per-pixel color keying
Multiple video windows supported for CSC and filtering
DVD sub-picture alpha-blended compositing

Bundled Software

Incoming Forces : Full version
E-Racer : 4 track version

Warranty

3-year limited warranty covering parts and labour

NAME CHIPSET TECHNOLOGY GPU SPEED MEM SPEED COST (UK/US)
GEFORCE3 Ti200 NV20 0.15 micron 175Mhz 400Mhz DDR £73
GEFORCE4 MX440 NV17 0.15 micron 270Mhz 400MHz DDR £59

GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION

PROCESSOR AMD ATHLON XP 1700
VIDEO CARD CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440
NVIDIA DRIVER DETONATOR v30.82
MOTHERBOARD ASUS A7V266-C
MEMORY 512MB CRUCIAL PC2100 DDR
OPERATING SYSTEM WINDOWS 98 SE
DIRECTX VERSION v8.1

SERIOUS SAM

640x480

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200117
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440115

800x600

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200110
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440109

1024x768

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI20077
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX44074

1280x960

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI20052
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX44051

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200 GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440

BENCHMARK SETTINGS

Quality Setting
Memphis Suburbs Demo
Huge Texture Size
Detailed Textures Enabled
Huge Shadowmap Size
Standard Lens Flare
No Wait Vertical Retrace
Wide Screen Disabled

COMMENT - "Serious Sam is another close result for the Creative GeForce3 Ti200 which can only manage to outperform the Gainward GeForce4 MX440 by 1% to 4%."


STARTREK VOYAGER
ELITE FORCE

640x480

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200134
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440132

800x600

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200130
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440123

1024x768

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200106
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX44094

1280x1024

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI20090
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX44078

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 TI200 GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440

BENCHMARK SETTINGS

High Quality Setting
Timedemo Demo0001
Geometric Detail High
Texture Detail High
Texture Quality 32bit
Trilinear Filtering
Simple Shaders Disabled
Compressed Textures Disabled
Light Flares Enabled
Wall Marks Enabled
Dynamic Lights Enabled
Identify Target Enabled
Sync Every Frame Disabled
Simple Items Disabled

COMMENT - "Star Trek Voyager Elite Force is well known for being cpu limited at 640x480 there is only a 2% performance difference between the Creative GeForce3 Ti200 and the Gainward GeForce4 MX440. When we increase the resolution to 800x600 the Creative GeForce3 Ti200 is able to beat the Gainward GeForce4 MX440 by 6%. Increasing the resolution to 1024x768 increased the performance difference to 12% and then at 1280x1024 the Creative GeForce3 Ti200 delivers a very good 14% performance increase."


OVERCLOCKING WITH
QUAKE III ARENA

800x600

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 Ti200 (175/400)167
CREATIVE GEFORCE3 Ti200 (210/440)170
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440 (270/400)161
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440 (305/440)165

1024x768

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 Ti200 (175/400)144
CREATIVE GEFORCE3 Ti200 (210/440)154
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440 (270/400)132
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440 (305/440)140

1280x1024

CREATIVE GEFORCE3 Ti200 (175/400)126
CREATIVE GEFORCE3 Ti200 (210/440)138
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440 (270/400)114
GAINWARD GEFORCE4 MX440 (305/440)124

CREATIVE GF3 Ti200 (175/400) CREATIVE GF3 Ti200 (210/440)
GAINWARD GF4 MX440 (270/400) GAINWARD GF4 MX440 (305/440)

BENCHMARK SETTINGS

Four.dm68 Benchmark
32Bit Colour Depth
Texture Compress Disabled
Lightmap Lighting
High Geometric Detail
Full Texture Detail
Trilinear Texture Filtering

COMMENT - "Both of the video cards gain some extra fps from overclocking but the results aren't amazing with a maximum of 12fps gained for the Creative GeForce3 Ti200 and 10fps for the Gainward GeForce4 MX440."


CONCLUSION

GOOD POINTS
• DX 8.1 features make this video card more future proof than the GF4 MX440.
• It's supplied with an impressive heatsink making it overclocking friendly.
• Installation was problem free and the video card ran very stable.
BAD POINTS
• TV output quality is only average and is inferior to the GF4 MX440.
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