nView, 2D and the bundle
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nView, NVIDIA's dual-dispay program is extremely easy to setup. infact. Connect up a second display, configure the nView tab and away you go. nView is the reason that a second RAMDAC exists on the Geforce4 Ti series of cards.
You can have either have both displays cloning each other (shown above) or spanning horizontally or vertically, ideally you'd need monitors of the same size for spanning to work well. You can also set each monitors preferences independently, too. The Geforce2 and to some extent Geforce3 series of cards were criticised for having subjectively poor 2D quality. The reference Geforce4 Ti cards exhibited much better 2D generally. The ABIT Siluro Ti 4200 has excellent 2D up to 1600x1200x32 on my Sony 21" monitor (above right). 1920x1440x32 became a little blurry. I've been happy with the 2D from any Geforce4 Ti card, the ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 is no exception. The Bundle
You can see the all-important VGA-to-DVI adapter is included with the Siluro Ti 4200. The 64MB of on-board RAM is clearly shown on the front cover. A decent manual is included along with an installation CD containing drivers for various OS' and ABIT's in-house DVD software. As you can see, three leads are bundled to let you get the most of the VIVO on offer courtesy of the Philips SA7108E chip. You get the standard TV-Out cable, S-Video cable and an extension cable. It's all well packed and seems professional enough. The one omission that I have to draw attention to is the lack of bundled games with the card. I can appreciate that this is aimed at the more budget sector, but a couple of titles would have made it that much more enticing, especially as nowadays many manufacturers tend to bundle a reasonable amount of software with their cards. The pleasing thing about this particular video card is the online price. I've checked a few of the more popular e-tailers here in the UK and found it in stock for around £135 - £150. Considering that a retail Geforce4 Ti 4600 rarely retails for less than £300, paying half the price for what is essentially a cut-down version is something of a bargain. It seems the adage "power to the people" is relevant here. |
