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Posted by
Toby Crundwell
on August 09, 2001
Company: Abit
Product: Siluro
MX400
TwinView
Offers two screens through one graphics
card. Formats supported are mirroring (creates a clone
desktop) or extended desktop. Not quite as advanced as
Matrox's technology but nonetheless welcome, especially on a
budget gaming card. The main drawback is the second display
must be a television, which is far less defined than a
monitor, and only supports low resolutions.
Impressions
The distinctive triangular packaging the
Siluro shipped in was rather oversized considering its
contents, and on top of that its hard to store, perhaps Abit
wants you to always keep the box at the top of the pile. The
box contains a comprehensive installation, or at least more
comprehensive than manuals found with rivals Creative,
Hercules and Asus. The manual had 16 pages dedicated to
explaining settings to use with the card, in the form of a
tweak guide. The FAQs were quite comprehensive as well,
although don't expect something on the level of GeForceFAQ.
Strangely, the CD came with Direct X7, and old detonators.
What delighted me was the inclusion of a separate WinDVD
2000 CD, with the latest version, being 2.4. More on this
later.
The extra memory means the card is
physically bigger than most MX cards. Whereas the 32 Mb MX
cards such as the Hercules 3D Prophet MX and the Creative
Annihilator MX were quite diminutive, the Siluro MX400 is
quite large. This posed no problem for my case, but you may
want to check before you buy if you have a slimline case.
The card is 175 mm long and 105 mm wide. Not big when
compared to the likes of the Voodoo 5, but still
comparatively large.
The PCB is a distinctive black, although
not important to most people, it is good to see how Abit are
responding to the styles of leading board manufacturers such
as Hercules.
Miscellaneous information
Similar to many other nVidia boards, the
Siluro differs in OEM to retail. The OEM board, apart from
coming with no packaging, has slower 166 MHz memory. This is
not only a different speed, but a different type of memory
so it may not be possible to overclock it to the 183 MHz the
retail version of the board runs at. The Siluro employs a
350 MHz RAMDAC, which is slightly better than expected, and
certainly better than some of the competition. This gives
the card a possible refresh rate of 75 Hz at a ridiculous
2048x1536. The card is available in two slightly different
versions. The standard MX400 that is reviewed here does not
come with any TV out capabilities, whereas the slightly more
expensive T400 does. Again, its a nice touch on Abit's part
to make TV Out optional, as some users no doubt would not
need this functionality. The TV-Out model features a
composite connector adapter in addition to the standard
S-Video, which is welcome seeing as there is rarely a
Television without a composite or SCART input, whereas
Televisions that come with S-Video input are very rare
indeed, and it is usually necessary to buy an extra adapter
cable.
The Siluro shares many of the same
features of most other MX400 boards because it is made to
the reference board design nVidia specifies. The most
distinctive difference is the colour, otherwise the card
could have been made from any other unknown company.
The Siluro MX400 would theoretically run
at the same temperature as the original MX, however a quick
probing of the heatsink reveals it is in fact cooler, or at
least cooler than my previous 3D Prophet 2 MX. This means
Abit has done something to improve cooling. The chip
heatsink comes with no fan, but one was not expected on this
sort of card. The RAM does not come with heatsinks either.
Most MX cards come with minimal cooling, in fact the only
one I know that comes with a fan is the Leadtek. If you are
paranoid about this sort of thing you can fine an old guide
of mine here.
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