At a time when the GeForce 3 graphics chip is dominating the gamers' news pages, here's a cheaper, less ostentatious rival - albeit from the same stable.

At the core of this card is Nvidia's GeForce 2 MX400 chip, the 'boosted' version of the standard GeForce 2. This chip runs at a core speed of 200MHz, immediately giving it a performance hike over the GeForce 2 MX200 variant, which runs at 175MHz. The 64MB of memory also helps the performance and in our tests, the card was slap-bang in the middle of the current market pack, in both OpenGL and DirectX benchmarks.

In addition to the usual D-sub VGA output on the card's back plate, there's also an S-video port. This means that the card is capable of simultaneously driving a monitor and a TV set, which might be of interest to anyone wanting to work and watch DVD movies at the same time, for example (although you'll probably need two brains).

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This also means that you can play games on your TV if you wish, or record the graphics card's output onto video. Conveniently, an S-video cable is supplied with the card, as is a convertor cable for driving a composite-input TV, and there's also a copy of WinDVD, for software DVD playback.

The Siluro T400 TV Out comes with an excellent manual, covering hardware installation and a step-by-step explanation of driver installation, plus other useful items such as a guide to upgrading the card's BIOS using a flash utility.

A capable enough card, the Siluro T400 TV Out offers mid-range 3D performance and flexible output options in a reasonably-priced package. This should help Abit expand its current, motherboard-only reputation.