A great value card (nVidia inno3D Geforce 3 Ti 200)

Member Name: Retron

Product:	nVidia inno3D Geforce 3 Ti 200
Date:	08/07/02 (1614 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Pixel shaders, Well established drivers

Disadvantages: No TV out, Basic software supplied, Somewhat slow

This card is based around the slowest and cheapest GPU in the GeForce 3 range. Don't let that put you off, though, as the card is still extremely capable as it offers full DirectX 8 compatibility, which newer cards such as the comparitivly priced GeForce 4 MX do not.

The reason this is so important is because games are finally being released that support features such as pixel shaders, which give a fantastic reflective rippling effect to water. The GeForce3 range supports pixel shaders, meaning that games such as Morrowind and Commanche 4 have water that looks an order of magnitude more realistic. As a result, this card should serve you well until the next major feature comes along - and at £85 from Dabs, it's the cheapest way to get hardware DirectX 8 capabilities for your PC.

Having said that, the card is relatively slow by today's standards, although this Inno3D card has a reputation for being eaily overclockable - some people have even managed to clock theirs to the equivalent of a Ti500, which costs twice as much. The card itself sports only a standard VGA port - there are no TV out facilities, which is a problem if you wanted to use the included DVD player to view movies on a large screen.

The software bundle isn't exceptional, either, with Incoming Forces being the highlight. My particular card did come with Windows XP drivers, although as I had a GeForce2 GTS installed previously, I already had the latest Detonator package available to reinstall.

Overall, I'd recommend this card - it's certainly better than GeForce4 MXs, which are really higher clocked GeForce2s with a few tweaks. I'd go as far as to say it's the best value card out there at the moment - there isn't a game it can't play and it sports pixel shaders which really do make a difference to games that use them.

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