While almost every other has been content to use the reference designed GeForce3 Ti500, Asus has always been an innovative company willing to do things their way. In usual form, Asus have released two models of the V8200Ti500, the pure version which is a no frills videocard (which is what we're reviewing today) and the Deluxe model.

As both cards use the same PCB layout it's much cheaper for Asus to manufacturer the cards, only adding the necessary components to bring the Delux version some TV in/out and S-Video for example. Enough with that though, let's take a look at the V8200 Ti500 Pure that was featured in our review of the AMD Athlon XP 2000+ gaming system review.

Being the gamer I am, the V8200Ti500 Pure caters to me perfectly because I frankly dont need the other features dotting the Deluxe version. I wouldn't use them, and I really don't keep my videocards long enough to care much about them eventually being used.

The videocards used in this review are all shown below. The Asus card and the MSI GF3Ti500 are directly comparable. You can see where the Asus name comes into play, drawing a premium price of about $350USD.

video card comparisons
video cards	nvidia gpu	general specs	price range
		Asus V8200Ti500 Pure 64MB DDR SDRAM, 3.84 billion AA samples per second fill rate, 8.0GB/second memory bandwidth, Core/Memory speed 240/500 MHz, Support DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3 Optimizations.	$344 USD
		Asus V7700Pro GeForce 2 Pro nVidia GeForce2 Pro Chipset, 64MB DDR SDRAM, 800MPixel fill rate, 6.0GB/second memory bandwidth, Core/Memory speed 200/400 MHz, Support DirectX 7 and OpenGL 1.2 Optimizations	$130 USD
		MSI StarForce 822 GeForce 3 (MS-8822) Review nVidia GeForce 3 Chipset, 64MB DDR SDRAM, 4X AGP, 256-bit Graphic Architecture GPU, 57 Million Transistors, 800 Billion Operations Per Second, 7.4GB/sec Memory Bandwidth, 200MHz Core Clock, 460MHz Memory Clock, TV-Out, Video-In.	$225 USD
		MSI GeForce 3 Ti500 (MS-8854)  Review 64MB DDR SDRAM, 3.84 billion AA samples per second fill rate, 8.0GB/second memory bandwidth, Core/Memory speed 240/500 MHz, Support DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3 Optimizations, TV-Out, Video-in, S-Video.	$299 USD

The Asus V8200Ti500 Pure

For a overview of the features found in the GeForce3 chipset, please refer back to our MSI StarForce822 review. With the GeForce3 Titanium's (Ti200 and Ti500), nVidia claims that they've added new 3D Textures and Shadow Buffers, and while this is true in a sense, it's only because they were disabled in the drivers prior to the DetonatorXP's.

Owners of an original GeForce3 don't have to worry, yes your card does have those features too as long as you use the new DetonatorXP drivers. The actual main difference between the GeForce3 and GeForce 3 Ti500 is clock speed. The original GeForce3 is clocked at 200 MHz GPU, 460 MHz memory speed while the Ti500 models enjoy 240MHz/500MHz (note: this is usually just abbreviated to (240/500).

The memory powering the Asus V8200Ti500 is actually the same type that comes with all the classic GeForce3's. manufactured by Elite Semiconductor, it has a 3.8ns rating, second only in speed to ATi's Radeon8500 Hynix RAM which has a 3.6ns rating.