Asus V8200T2 and V8200T5 Titanium GeForce3's

Asus V8200T5 Deluxe and V8200T2 Deluxe
GeForce3 Titanium Series
Hot Hardware - nVidia Titanium - Light and Strong

By Dave Altavilla
12/3/01

Titanium, named after the mythological Greek Titans in reference to its strength, is an extremely light weight metal that is often used in alloys with Aluminum and Ferrocarbons.  Discovered in the late 1700s, Titanium is used especially in aircrafts for fire walls, outer skin, landing-gear components, hydraulic tubing, and engine supports.  Light weight tensile strength are key attributes that make this metal and compositions of it, in valuable for designs that need to be nimble, sleek and strong.  Nimble, sleek and strong...  It seems like the nVidia marketing folks really had their thinking caps on when they named their follow-on enhancement to the GeForce3.  The name Titanium conjures up just the right image, that's for sure.

So then, with our Greek Mythology lesson out of the way, we're here to show you just what Asus can build with a little "Titanium" under the hood.  The following is a HotHardware look into the Asus V8200T5 and V8200T2, GeForce3 Ti500 Deluxe and Ti200 Deluxe 3D Graphics Multimedia cards.

	Specifications and Features of the Asus V8200T5 Deluxe and V8200T2 Deluxe Titanium with all the trimmings

The difference between a Ti500 and Ti200 - Just a voltage regulator??
 
Aside from the obvious difference in clock speeds for the memory and core GPU, there really isn't much difference between these two Titantiums, physically.  However, the V8200T5 has a pretty black PCB and if you look closely at the card front shots above, there is a voltage regulator at the top right corner of the V8200T5 and there is not one in that site on the V8200T2. 

Now, we all know that higher voltage levels generally produce higher clock speeds.  Could this be the only difference between what makes a GF3 Ti500 or a Ti200?  I don't think we have enough information to even speculate.  Also, remember that on the Ti500 platform you get 3.8ns DDR SDRAM and on the Ti200 it's rated at 4ns.  However, it would be an interesting experiment to prove or disprove that the core could handle 240MHz., with just a little more clean voltage.

Marketing, Bells and Whistles:

Asus obviously knows a common "truth" if you will, about product marketing, that being "sex sells".  As you'll note, there is a decidedly female form on the font of the Ti500's box.  It seems like smart marketing to us. I mean after all, graphics cards do tend to blend together on retail shelves, so this is one way to make the V8200T5 and T2 stand out.

The cards themselves are designed with typical Asus quality in mind.  Layouts between the boards, are clean and efficient.  With the addition of all the extra I/O connectors needed to provide the TV In and Out functions, Asus could hardly stick to the basic reference design.

Both cards have S-Video in and S-Video out connectors, as well as Composite out and a "VR Out" connectors, for the 3D Shutter Glasses that Asus packs in with the unit.  These cards have just about any feature you could want with the exception of DVI output.  We won't hold that against Asus however.  The headers on the V8200T5 and T2 are already jam packed with connectors. 

In addition to feeding multiple video sources into the cards or outputting to a TV, you can also attach an Asus TVBox Tuner for desktop TV in a window.  More on this later in our review but suffice it to say, with both of these cards, you are well outfitted with the bells and whistles.

Software, Installation, The TVBox and Screenshots!