ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES, ASUS V8420S Video Cards Review

Peculiarities of the ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES and ASUS V8420S video cards
Testbeds, test tools, 2D quality
Information on performance of video cards of the GeForce4 Ti 4200 class
Conclusion

It's still far from the launch of so long-awaited and revolutionary NVIDIA's NV30, that is why card makers who use processors from this Californian company have to look for other ways of increasing the demand for their products based on the NV25 chips, including both expensive GeForce4 Ti 4600 based solutions and widely popular Ti 4200 ones. As you know, the intermediate version of Ti 4400 left the stage, and production of such cards and chips was ceased.

The Ti4200 based solutions poured onto the store shelves in large quantities, and only very small or faithful to ATI firms didn't bring into production. In such conditions even brand-name companies are in desperate straits because of the hard competition, as there are lot of companies that offer almost copies of the reference cards at much smaller prices. And one of the ways to attract attentions of customers is to use something unusual. The first thing that the manufacturers did was usage of the faster memory. Many card makers liked the 3.3ns memory which is currently used at higher frequencies. We have already examined several such cards.

You can get thorough information on the Ti 4200 (as well as on the whole GeForce4 Ti line) from our reviews devoted to the GeForce4 Ti cards.

Theoretical and analytical videocard reviews, containing functional analysis of NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti GPU: NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti

NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti review
MSI GF4Ti4600 on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti - concerns anisotropic filtering in the 3DMark2001 SE, and new Advanced Pixel Shader Test from this packet.
Leadtek WinFast GeForce4 Ti 4600 on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 - tests based on the Vulpine GLMark with anisotropy enabled.
Gainward PowerPack GeForce4 Ultra/700XP and Ultra/750XP Golden Sample on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400/4600 - Codecult Code Creatures and Novalogic Comanche4 Benchmark.
Chaintech A-GF61 SE on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 - dependence of the performance on a CPU speed (AMD Athlon 750, 1000 MHz, Athlon XP 1250, 1666 MHz; in Serious Sam II, Return to Castle Wolfenstein).
Creative 3D Blaster GeForce4 Ti 4400 on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 - dependence of the performance on a CPU speed (Intel Pentium III 1000, Pentium 4 2000, 2200 MHz; in Serious Sam II, Return to Castle Wolfenstein).
ASUS V8440 and V8460 on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 and 4600 - dependence of the performance on a CPU speed (Intel Pentium III 1000, Pentium 4 2000, 2200 MHz, AMD Athlon 750, 1000 MHz, Athlon XP 1250, 1666 MHz; in 3DMark2001 SE).
ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 - AA operation in the 3DMark2001 SE.
Palit Daytona GeForce4 Ti 4600 - operation of anisotropy on different platforms based on the 3DMark2001 SE (Game1, Game2).
Joytech Apollo Bloody Monster II GeForce4 Ti 4600 - examination of anisotropy on different platforms on the 3DMark2001 SE (Game3, Game4).
S/U/M/A/ Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4400 DVI and GeForce4 Ti 4600 SE - examination of anti-aliasing on different platforms in 3DMark2001 SE (Game1, Game2).
Triplex Millennium Silver GeForce Ti 4600 - examination of anti-aliasing on different platforms in 3DMark2001 SE (Game3, Game4).
Leadtek WinFast A250LE 64 MBytes and Gainward Powerpack Ultra/650XP 128 MBytes on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200
S/U/M/A/ Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4200 64 MBytes, GeForce4 Ti 4200 SE 64 MBytes, GeForce4 Ti 4200 SE 128 MBytes - examination of anisotropy in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Serious Sam: The Second Encounter.
S/U/M/A/ Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4200 64 MBytes, 4200SE 64 MBytes and 4200SE 128 MBytes - examination of anisotropy in 3DMark2001 SE, RtCW, Serious Sam: TSE.
Sparkle GeForce4 Ti 4400 and GeForce4 Ti 4600 cards
A lbatron GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB, Sparkle GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB and Gainward Powerpack Ultra/650XP GS 64MB on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 - analyses of the Nvidia's quick anisotropy under the 30.* drivers in 3DMark2001SE.
Galaxy 3G Graphic GeForce4 Ti 4200 64MB, MSI GF4Ti4200 VIVO 64MB, Triplex Millennium Silver GeForce4 Ti 4200 64MB on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 - operation of VIVO on such cards of the GeForce4 family, and performance in Unreal Tournament 2003 DEMO final release

One of the ways to draw attention to the improved cards on the GeForce4 Ti 4200 is usage of the PCB from Ti 4600. We have already studied such cards from S/U/M/A/ and Albatron, as well as from ASUSTeK. Today we will take a look at one more such solution.

The developers from ABIT have erected a really unique construction...

Cards

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES

ASUS V8420S 128MB

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES
The card has AGP x2/x4 interface, 64 MB DDR SDRAM located in 8 chips on both PCB sides. The card comes with Hynix memory of 3.6ns access time which corresponds to 275 (550) MHz. The GPU works at 275 MHz which is also an increased frequency of the Ti 4200. This is in fact a 64MB version of the Ti 4400.
ASUS V8420S 128MB
The card has AGP x2/x4 interface, 128 MB DDR SDRAM located in 8 chips on both PCB sides. The card comes with Samsung memory of 3.3ns access time which corresponds to 300 (600) MHz, but the memory is working at 275 (550) MHz. The GPU runs at 260 MHz. A similar card was described already in the review of the GeForce4 Ti Deluxe line of ASUS. But at that time it was a redesigned PCB, but now... see below.

Comparison with the reference design, front view
ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES	Reference card NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

ASUS V8420S 128MB

Reference card NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600

Comparison with the reference design, back view
ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES	Reference card NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

ASUS V8420S 128MB

Reference card NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600

The ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES has a very intriguing design, though the PCS is virtually built on the reference one. Only the VGA's place is taken by a tubular radiator.

This card takes place in the main unit dedicated for two slots. The card has a bracket twice wider than a usual one:

The d-Sub and TV-out are laid out on the daughter card, and the connectors are taken to the "second" bracket:

The daughter card is connected to the main board with such long pins:

I must say that 2D quality is not affected by such construction, if you have a good cable and a high-quality monitor.

Let's take off this bulky cooler

and have a more careful look at it. And remove the chip as well:

The base of the copper heatsink is well polished:

The principle of operation of such complicated device is quite simple: the chip heats up the heatsink base which is soldered to a tube with certain liquid:

When heated, the liquid evaporates, and its vapor carries heat to the tubular radiator on the fan's left. This fan is cooled down with a strong air flow created with a turbine-like fan with the liquid condensing in the tube, and the process starts anew.

Thus, the cooling system is located not above the chip but aside. An air flow carries out the heat outside the system unit which is then exhausted through a hole in the lower part of the bracket. Hence the name of OTES: Outside Thermal Exhaust System.

Such a complicated construction needs good fastening:

Well, it is attached with 4 bolts and some kind of a hook on the back. The heatsink base is firmly pressed to the chip and the heatsink is fixed in a definite position.

I decided to try such a cooling method and measured the chip's temperature with an external thermo sensor which is traditionally delivered with certain boards:

The ASUS's board is based on the PCB from Ti 4600 and differs from earlier released solutions from ASUS in its yellow color. Such boards are based on the 8-layer design which makes them very stable at high frequencies.

And now we are turning to the cooling devices:

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES	275/550 -> 320/626 MHz, a very good overclocking potential for the Ti 4200. OTES works! :-)
ASUS V8420S 128MB	260/550 -> 310/685 MHz, not bad for the chip, but seems to be quite weak for the memory. The 3.3ns chips could easily work at 700 MHz and higher.

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES

275/550 -> 320/626 MHz, a very good overclocking potential for the Ti 4200. OTES works! :-)

ASUS V8420S 128MB

260/550 -> 310/685 MHz, not bad for the chip, but seems to be quite weak for the memory. The 3.3ns chips could easily work at 700 MHz and higher.

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES,
ASUS V8420S Video Cards Review

Contents

Cards

Overclocking

Test system and drivers

Test results

Test results: information from the 3Digest

4. Summary diagrams of performance of the video cards on the latest drivers for September 2002

Conclusion

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES
As I explained above, the turbine-like fan creates a strong air flow which passes through the tubular heatsink. The flow is created by a high-speed fan rotating at 7200 rpm. The noise level of such system resembles that of the ThermalTake Volcano 6Cu+. This is an unpleasant side of this device though the developers claimed reduced noiseness.

ASUS V8420S 128MB
Such a device could be seen a lot of times before. Besides, the ASUS V8420 Deluxe card had the same design of the cooler. This has both an attractive exterior and a high performance level due to a large cooling area.

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES
Here we can find a user manual, a CD with drivers and utilities (including WinDVD), adapters and extenders for TV-out (an effective semitransparent design), DVI-to-d-Sub adapter.
ASUS V8420S 128MB
2(!) user manuals, CD with drivers and utilities, ASUS DVD, 3 complete games and 6 demo versions, S-Video-to-RCA adapter, DVI-to-d-Sub adapter.

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES
Such a luxurious card is put in such a poor box! It seems that the designers have spent all their efforts on developing the card.
ASUS V8420S 128MB
ASUS's typical box with a yellow stripe. Note that it informs about 25% increase in frequency, though 275 (550) MHz for memory and 260 MHz for chip differ from 250 MHz certainly not by 25% :-). By the way, 550 is written in really large figures.

ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES	1600x1200x75Hz, 1280x1024x120Hz, 1024x768x160Hz
ASUS V8420S 128MB	1600x1200x85Hz, 1280x1024x120Hz, 1024x768x160Hz

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