Abit Siluro GeForce Ti4200 w/OTES

by HH Editor — Tuesday, October 29, 2002, 11:00 PM EDT

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The Abit Siluro GeForce Ti4200 w/OTES - Page 1

4 dual rendering pipelines, 8 texels per clock cycle

Features at a Glance:

AGP 4x compatible with fast writes
256-bit 3D and 2D graphics accelerator
NVIDIA nView display technologies
Lightspeed Memory Architecture II
Accuview Antialiasing
High Definition Video Processing Engine
TV Out connector
DVI connector

Cooling solution:

OTES-Outside Thermal Exhaust System with 7200 RPM Fan

The Bundle:

The bundle that accompanied the Siluro GeForce4 Ti4200 OTES wasn't as impressive as the card itself. While Abit did include the necessary cabling for each feature of the card, the CD came with antiquated utilities and no games. The package included a detailed User Manual that contained some of the most thorough documentation we've seen in quite a while. We were please to see that Abit took the time to explain each available setting in the video card drivers, eliminating any guess work for the user. There was also full details for each of the additional software packages included on the Installation CD. Abit provided all the necessary cabling to access each of the card's outputs including a TV-Out Y-adapter with a standard RCA connection as well as a S-Video connection for digital output. A DVI to VGA adapter was included for connecting a CRT monitor to the DVI port.

The installation CD had a decent list of software packages included on it, although some titles were not compatible with all versions of Windows. The CD included the necessary drivers to get the card installed as well as a copy of DirectX 8.1. An electronic version of the User Manual was included on the disk for quick reference and a copy of Acrobat Reader 5.0 was also provided. There appeared to be a nice selection utilities available on the CD, but we were soon disappointed to find that several of them were legacy products that would only work with Windows 98/ME. The first of the legacy titles was a handy looking tool called Graphics MAX, an application designed for overclocking the video card. The other title was 3Deep Color, a color balancing program designed to tweak the quality of the monitor output. Both of these products looked useful and we were saddened to see that Abit hasn't made any efforts to update these products to support the very popular Windows 2000/XP Operating Systems. Abit did include fully functional DVD player software called SiluroDVD. This appears to be a customized version of WinDVD and it turned out to be a terrific player with all of the functions needed to experience DVD playback on your computer.

Now let's take a closer look at the card itself.

Setup and Overclocking

The Abit Siluro GeForce Ti4200 OTES
Taking Value to a New Level

By, Jeff Bouton
October 30, 2002

Today we'll be taking a look at the Siluro GeForce4 Ti4200 OTES, a high-performance, value minded graphics card from Abit. Capitalizing on the reputation of the GeForce4 Ti4200 being a great overclocker, Abit has taken the popular card and given it some tweaks of their own. This is no ordinary Ti4200, but one that comes with a GPU and memory that is clocked faster than your average Ti4200. The end result is a midrange video card that offers high-end performance without the high-end price tag. In order to give the Siluro GeForce4 Ti4200 OTES its extra edge, Abit introduced an innovative new cooling design like nothing we've ever seen before, the Outside Thermal Exhaust System or OTES. Coupling a unique heat pipe design with a 7200 RPM fan, OTES looks to keep the temperatures of the Siluro GeForce4 Ti4200 relatively low at stock and overclocked speeds.

Obviously, once we laid eyes on the Siluro GeForce4 Ti4200 OTES, we were eager to put it to the test. Not only did we want to see how it performed versus a Ti4600, we wanted to see if OTES gave the card greater overclocking abilities over an ordinary GeForce Ti4200. So strap yourself in folks, things could get interesting.