Introduction

Since their acquisition of competing video card manufacturer, 3dfx, nVidia have been way ahead of the competition with no sign of things changing any time soon. Their current flagship GPU, the GeForce3, features customizable vertex and pixel shaders that allow developers to program unique effects into their games. Couple this with blistering performance and it is clear to see that the GeForce3 is in a league of its own.

However, in September 2001, ATi announced their latest graphics chipset, the Radeon 8500. This new chipset is in direct competition with nVidia's GeForce3 and early performance numbers indicated that the Radeon 8500 might just be the next card to beat. To ensure that the Radeon 8500 would not steal a large chunk of their market share, that same day nVidia announced the latest addition to their product lineup; the GeForce3 Ti500. This graphics chipset features the same GeForce3 GPU, just clocked at a higher frequency. Coinciding with the release of the Ti500, nVidia also announced two more graphics chipsets. These chipsets cater for the mid and low-end market, and were named the GeForce3 Ti200 and GeForce2 Ti. While the GeForce2 Ti offers average performance at a very low price, the GeForce3 Ti200 was an instant crowd pleaser because its performance is quite close to the regular GeForce3 and costs approximately half the price.

We were able to obtain Abit's latest addition to their graphics card lineup, the Siluro Ti200. Although Abit have mainly been known for their high performance, highly tweakable motherboards, they have recently decided to move into the video card market as well. Read on as we determine if nVidia's latest budget graphics chipset is worth your hard earned cash.