We have stated on numerous
occasions that with the video card market in it's current
state, differentiating one product from another has become
increasingly more difficult for both manufacturers and
consumers. Now that the
ATi Radeon 7500 and 8500s have arrived and have
matured nicely, there are finally other legitimate,
high-performance alternatives out there. If you have an NVIDIA based video card
in mind however, choosing
one manufacturer's card over another is a confusing task.
Due to the fact that, virtually all NVIDIA powered boards are based on
standard reference designs and use the exact same
drivers, most products perform at identical levels.
Manufacturers are forced to differentiate their products
by including useful bundled software, using colored PCBs,
enhanced cooling or by offering some other type of "tweak"
to sway potential buyers in their direction.
Well,
the
Gainward Co., renowned for their "Golden Sample"
branded video cards, has set out to please the most
discriminating power users with their new GeForce Titanium
line of products. They are based on standard
reference designs but feature a few enhancements that set
them apart from the "crowd"...
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Specifications and Features of the Gainward
Titanium Series |
Titanium Cubed |
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Features and Benefits
of The Gainward GeForce 2 Ti/500 ViVo XP (Golden Sample)
Graphics Chipset
GeForce2 Ti
Graphics Core
250MHz, 256-bit 2D/3D GPU
270MHz in Enhanced Mode
Memory/Interface
64MB DDR/128-bit wide
Memory Clock
400MHz SDR Equivalent
500MHz in Enhanced Mode
Memory Bandwidth
6.4 GB/sec.
Fill Rate (texels)
2B/sec.
2D/3D resolution (max)
2048 x 1536 @ 75Hz
Video In and Out Module
1 Billion Pixel/Second
Rendering
Second Generation Integrated Transform Lighting
(T&L) Engines
NVIDIA Shading Rasterizer (NSR)
High-Definition Video Processor
AGP 4X/2X, AGP Texturing, and Fast Writes Support
32-bit Z/stencil buffer
Microsoft® DirectX® and OpenGL® Optimizations and
Support
Unified Driver Support
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Features and Benefits of The
Gainward GeForce 3 Ti/450 PowerPack (Golden Sample)
Graphics Chipset
GeForce3 Ti 200
Graphics Core
175MHz, 256-bit 2D/3D GPU (Normal)
200MHz in Enhanced Mode
Memory/Interface
64MB DDR/128-bit wide
Memory Clock
400MHz SDR Equivalent (Normal)
444MHz in Enhanced Mode
Memory Bandwidth
6.4 GB/sec.
Fill Rate (texels)
1400M/sec.
2D/3D resolution (max)
2048 x 1536 @ 75Hz
Shadow
Buffers
nfiniteFX® Engine
Vertex & Pixel Shaders
Lightspeed Memory Architecture
High-Resolution Antialiasing (HRAA)
High-Definition Video
TV
/ S-Video Out
DirectX®8.1 Compatibility.
AGP
4X/2X, AGP Texturing Support
DirectX and OpenGL Optimizations
Unified Driver Support
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Features and Benefits
of The Gainward GeForce 3 Ti/550 PowerPack
Graphics Chipset
GeForce3 Ti 500
Graphics Core
240MHz, 256-bit 2D/3D GPU (Normal)
249MHz
in Enhanced Mode
Memory/Interface
64MB DDR/128-bit wide
Memory Clock
500MHz SDR Equivalent (Normal)
544MHz
in Enhanced Mode
Memory Bandwidth
8.0 GB/sec.
Fill Rate (texels)
1920M/sec.
2D/3D resolution (max)
2048 x 1536 @ 75Hz
Shadow
Buffers
3D
Textures
nfiniteFX? Engine
Vertex & Pixel Shaders
Lightspeed Memory Architecture
High-Resolution Antialiasing (HRAA)
High-Definition Video Processor
VGA
/ TV / S-Video Out / DVI-I
AGP
4X/2X, AGP Texturing Support
DirectX and OpenGL Optimizations
Unified Driver Support
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This is one
article, where I really hope you all took the time to scan
the specifications of all three of the Gainward Titaniums
we are looking at today. Most importantly, take note
of the "Enhanced" mode clock speeds. All of these
boards are guaranteed to overclock to the these higher
clock speeds right out of the box.
THE BUNDLES:
GF2 TI500 BUNDLE
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GF3 TI450 BUNDLE
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GF3 TI550 BUNDLE
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The Gainward GeForce 3 Ti /
450 and Ti / 550 PowerPacks came with the exact same
bundles. Included with the boards were driver CDs, a
utility CD containing Adobe ActiveShare, Imagemore,
E-Color 3Deep, trial versions of Cyberlink's Medi@show,
PowerVCR and VideoLive Mail, and a complete version of
Intervideo's WinDVD 3.0. There was also an S-Video to
Composite (RCA) video adapter for use with the TV-Out
feature.
The Gainward GeForce 2 Ti /
500 XP ViVo included all of the same items as it's GeForce
3 counterparts plus a copy of Ulead VideoStudio, and a
slightly different adapter that provides both composite
and S-Video in and out connectors. The bundles were
very complete, the only thing Gainward could have done to
make them better would have been to include a good game or
two. :)
Quality,
Setup and the Drivers
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