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VisionTek VisionTek GeForce3 Video Card Review
Date Posted: Apr 19 2001
Author: Joe
Posting Type: Review
Category: Video Card Reviews
Page: 1 of 4
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Note: This is a legacy article, imported from old code. Due to this some items on the page may not function as expected. Links, Colors, and some images may not be set correctly.
VisionTek GeForce3 Video Card Review By: Joe

Welcome to ProCooling's look inside the new Nvidia Chip - the Much hyped GeForce 3.  This review is here to tell you if it is all just Hype or if it really does perform as advertised.   We also look into Image Quality and a few other aspects of it. This review is a culmination of over 80 tests, Benchmarks, and runs on the VisionTek GeForce 3 Vs. a VisionTek GeForce 2 Ultra video card.    Well lets get on with it.

It Arrives -

Ok sorry for the glare... sucks to be trying to take good pictures when you are still half asleep.  That's the top of the VisionTek Retail GeForce 3 box that you will soon see littering the shelves of your local Geek ware store.

I woke up to the ring of the UPS guy delivering a package. I immediately knew what it was cause its April 16th, and its 28Deg and snowing out... (2 days before it was 70 out and sunny) obviously hell has froze over, and its about time the NV20 starts to make it out.

This is a bit different then the review boards or engineering samples some other sites have had on the web. This is the Finished product, the Retail board from VisionTek.

the back of the box is nothing special, standard news, pic of the board, got some lizards and some guy who looks strangely like me when I wake up in the morning.  Just keep wondering where the damn turban comes from.

The Inside of the box is stark of anything you are normally accustomed to.  No fliers for deals on non related BS, no poster diagram of the board, just a lil book on installing it, and the card. No driver CD was provided yet in this box but will be in the ones you find the on the shelf.

The Install manual is simple and brief it covers Win98, WinME, Windows 2000, Windows NT install procedures. The manual is not made for the GF3 board, but is a general driver install doc. Still quick and sweet.

And there we have it folks the already legendary NV20 - GeForce 3 by VisionTek. That there is 600$ of gaming performance.. or is it... that we will soon find out.

This is a 64mb 200/460 clocked GeForce 3, with the Nv reference Ram sinks and GPU cooler.  Its hard to tell but the board is a slight bit smaller then the GF2 Ultra. and there is a header for it, but no DVI out like the GF2 Ultra we have from them has.

The BIOS on the board clearly say NV20.  I know prerelease boards listed this, but I was expecting to see the official name of GeForce3 on it as the GF2 boards list GeForce 2 on their BIOS chips. But oh well, nothing to be hung up on.

Click on the below image for an 800x500 pic of the board

What is the GeForce 3?-

Key features:

  • The nfiniteFX engine makes GeForce3 the only GPU in the world with a programmable Vertex Processor and a programmable Pixel Processor.  This programmability enables a virtually infinite number of special effects. 
     
  • GeForce3's performance and patent-pending antialiasing technologies enable high-resolution antialiasing (HRAA) for the first time ever.  The Quincunx AA™ technology delivers a high level of detail and crisp, clean lines at high frame rates.
     
  • The Lightspeed Memory Architecturemakes GeForce3 the fastest GPU ever produced. Through its patented crossbar memory controller and Z-Occlusion Culling (to only render visible pixels), GeForce3 generates the power to deliver earth-shattering performance at all resolutions. 
     
  • GeForce3 is the only DirectX 8 1.1compliant graphics processor, as it has BOTH a programmable Pixel Shader and a programmable Vertex Shader.  NVIDIA licensed our Vertex and Pixel Shading technology to Microsoft for inclusion in DirectX 8.  

MAIN

Product  Name

VisionTek  GeForce3

Chipset

NVIDIA GeForce3

RAMDAC (MHz)

350

Speed of core (MHz)

200

Available  bus

AGP

Supported  API(s)

Open GL 1.2  + DirectX 8

TwinView Support

No

MEMORY

Amount of  RAM (MB)

64

Type of  RAM

DDR  SDRAM

Speed of RAM (MHz)

460

Speed of RAM (GB/sec)

4.0

Bandwidth

7.36

VIDEO OUT

CRT  Resolutions/Maximum Refresh Rates

yes

640x480

240

800x600

240

1024x768

200

1152x864

170

1280x1024

150

1600x1200

100

1920x1440

75

2048x1536

60

TV-Out (Svideo)

yes

TV-Out (Composite)

yes

TV-Out Max Res. (NTSC)

640X480

TV-Out Max Res. (PAL)

800X600

The Contenders -

The VisionTek GeForce2 Ultra
64Mb
Stock clock - 250/458

The VisionTek GeForce3
64Mb
Stock clock - 200/460

Besides for the Blorb on the Ultra its stock and hasn't been altered.  This should be a pretty fair fight as the Ultra on its own is a fierce competitor and can be OC'd to 300/520 if not 315/530.   At those speeds there is little that can beat it.  The GF3 is the only thing out that can attempt it, so lets get on with it.

The Test Setup

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