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ASUS V9280S

A wolf in sheep clothes amongst the crowd of NV28-based GeForce Ti 4200 AGP8X cards is the ASUS V9280S. Where other GeForce Ti 4200 cards are running at 250 MHz core and memory frequency, the ASUS V9280S is already factory clocked to 275 MHz core and a whopping 300 MHz memory. The higher memory speed is made possible by using a similar PCB as the one featured on the Ti 4600, that is, 8 layers instead of 6 and a BGA memory interface instead of the TSOP format supported by generic Ti 4200 versions. Memory chips used are Samsung -33 components officially specked at 300 MHz so there should be at least a little bit of headroom.

Inside the shipping carton is the "TV-Dinner" microwaveable packaging of the V9280S containing the card itself along with Cyberlink's "PowerDirector 2.1 ME Media@Show SE 2.0 and ASUS DVD along with the VR Aquarium simulation. For the gamer, Worms Blast, Rainbow Six-Rogue Spear Black Thorn and the ElderScrolls III Morrowind are included along with demo versions of IL2 Sturmovik and Battle Realms. Not a shabby bundle at all. Needless to say that a driver / utility CD is included, however, we were using the latest reference drivers instead.

Supporting hardware includes a multimedia breakout box that hooks into the special connector on the back panel. The manual is actually a Quick Start Guide in no less than 14 languages.

Note that the connector in the center is not a standard s-video out but a multimedia connector to be used with the breakout box included with the bundle. Needless to say that a DVI to VGA connector is included as well.

The V9280S is fully VIVO capable which is supported through the Philips SAA7108AE encoder/decoder chip for TV-Out and S-Video. Composite I/O is supported through the above mentioned breakout box. DVI is supported courtesy of the Silicon Image Sil164CT64 chip.

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