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Don't bet (get) an MPEG decoder. They are useless if you (have a) fast processor like you do

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As for a drive I really like Pioneer.

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Introduction

In an interesting shift away from their usual release schedule, NVIDIA introduced the GeForce3 Ti 200 a product different in both design and positioning. Instead of duplicating their GeForce2 MX experiment, whereby the actual core was modified from 4 to 2 pixel pipelines, the GeForce3 Ti 200 is the same chip as in previous GeForce3 products, but with lower core and memory speeds. Instead of lowering the core specs like they did with the GeForce2 MX, NVIDIA has just lowered the reference design specs instead.

This makes the GeForce3 Ti 200 perhaps the most interesting NVIDIA release in some time and helps define a whole new level of performance for the mid-range market. No longer do gamers have to wait for the next NVIDIA release and then hope GeForce3 prices lower enough to buy a new board. NVIDIA has already done that work for us, and inserted the GeForce3 Ti 200 right between the GeForce2 ULTRA and GeForce3. While this likely due to competition from ATI, it's still nice to see this sort of gamer friendly product being released in the first place.




3D Prophet III Titanium 200 Overclocking

The GeForce2 Ti 200 is one of the prime overclocking targets these days and with good reason. The initial spec for the GeForce3 called for a 200 MHz GPU, while the GeForce3 Ti 200 GPU is only running at 175 MHz. Do you think that NVIDIA changed their GeForce3 manufacturing process or maybe some of these are actually underclocked chips that could in fact run at 200 MHz.

The other part of the equation is memory speed, which is a bit more difficult to quantify. The default memory speed of the GeForce3 Ti 200 is 400 MHz DDR and the minimum specification is 5 ns DDR memory. That's riding right on the edge of the default memory speed, though as we found with the VisionTek Xtasy 6564, this memory can go a bit higher. In the case of the Hercules 3D Prophet III Titanium 200, the news is a bit better and the card itself is advertised as having 4 ns DDR memory.

Throughout the benchmarking, we concentrated on the 500 MHz memory speeds, but left the core at the 175 MHz default. There is an important reason for this, as well as a distinction to be made. Hercules freely promotes the 3D Prophet III Titanium 200 as sporting 4 ns memory capable of 500 MHz memory operation, so we simply took them at their word. No higher specifications or ratings are given to the core itself, so we left that as is.

That was then and this is now. In the overclocking section, we freely jack both the core and memory rates to see what kind of speeds we can eke out of the hardware. We had already taken the memory to 500 MHz, so we concentrated on the core speed. Immediately taking this to the NVIDIA reference driver limit of 220 MHz went off without a hitch, so there we were with a card sporting 220 MHz core/500 MHz memory speeds and the sliders maxed out already. Using NVMAX, we were able to increase both the core and memory speeds a bit more to around the 230/515 level and decided to call it a day after running it through a serious torture test.

One important note is the core heat, or lack thereof, generated by the 3D Prophet III Titanium 200. After overclocking it to 220 MHz and running through a half-hour of Quake 3 and multiples runs of 3DMark 2001, we were prepared for some ambient heat from the card. Surprisingly, the card was hardly warmer than when running at standard speeds. This can either be attributed to a more robust cooling solution, or another log on the fire concerning rumors that NVIDIA may or may supply higher quality cores to certain vendors. Either way you slice it, our review card must have a primo core easily on par with a GeForce3.

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