Conclusion
With the AGP-V3400 TNT/TV ASUS has made the big deal.
The board easily reaches the 3D-performance of Erazor II and Viper V550. Because ELSA
offers no Video I/O for the Erazor II and Diamond sticks to Video-Out only, the V3400 is
the card of choice for friends of Video I/O! Using all TNT features i
ncluding active cooling the ASUS AGP-V3400TNT/TV
gets the RIVA Station FEATURE AWARD!
If you want to have a TNT board without Video
I/O you have several choices. The performance of the boards is rather identical. Only the
market price decides here. Because of the cooling fan the version without Video I/O is
interesting, too, and as the cooling fan poll of RIVA Station showed, this can influence
the buyer's decision.
The software bundle is OK, even if Incoming is
not the newest game anymore.
ELSA bundles the retail version of the Erazor II with the games Need for Speed III
and Recoil. These newer games give a better impression of the TNT features. A 3D Demo
sampler as ELSA offers would be fine too.
In support ELSA offers multilangual Newsgroups
for each graphics card and Diamond has its E-Mail service that informs you when new
drivers are available for your card. These boards do also have a longer warranty.
ASUS does also have a Newsgroup but it is a multimedia newsgroup at all - no
special graphics card group. The price of the V3400 with Video I/O should be in regions of
Viper V550 and Erazor II!
The drivers and software are not perfect yet,
but the card is fairly new and the performance is on the same level as Erazor II and Viper
V550. The installation software is a lot better than ELSAīs or Diamondīs. Only the
limited resolution of the Video I/O driver is a problem. But newer drivers will surely fix
that.
If ASUS takes as much care of his graphics
boards as of his mainboards you will not have to worry about new drivers. And one thing is
for sure: Owners of a ASUS mainboard will surely not be sent to the mainboard manufacturer
by the support if problems should occur. :)
* Note 18/11/98
It is possible to capture images with higher resolutions than 352x288 using the
LIVE 3400 software. But the dialogue for that is a bit hidden in file format menu.
RIVA Station 1998 - Lars Weinand |
