Another Nvidia GeForce 4 chip to receive the 8X AGP treatment is the Ti4200. Codenamed the NV28, this revamp of one of Nvidia's most popular chips is the basis of the V9280S from Asus.

What makes the Asus V9280S stand out from other Ti4200 cards, apart from its 8X AGP support, is that it's built on a GeForce 4 Ti4600, 8-layer PCB. This allows for a faster core speed and memory clock. The standard 128MB Ti4200 has a core speed of 250MHz and a memory clock speed of 500MHz, but with the V9280S, Asus has raised the core speed to 275MHz and the memory speed to a whopping 600MHz, using 128MB of 3.3ns Samsung DDR memory.

All of this means that Asus has taken the Ti4200 graphics processor into Ti4600 levels of performance straight out of the box, with the added advantage that you can overclock this beast a little to get even more out of it.

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The GPU cooler is made up of a copper base and fins with a gold painted aluminum cover and a reasonably quiet fan. This latter utilises Asus's own Smart Cooling technology which adjusts the fan speed according to load. The heat sinks on the memory chips are also gold painted aluminum and, with its black PCB, the Asus V9280S is an attractive looking card.

The backplate has standard 15-pin VGA, DVI-I and S-Video connectors and Asus supplies a DVI-I adapter. A multimedia breakout box is supplied, which connects to the S-Video port and provides S-Video in/out and composite in/out, allowing for real-time video capture, video editing and high quality TV output. Unfortunately Asus doesn't supply any other cables with the V9280S so you'll have to use or buy your own.

Asus provides a large bundle of goodies with the V9280S. There is a well written manual and a driver CD. The latter also contains an Asus utility suite including Smart Doctor, Smart Tweak, Digital VCR, VideoSecurity, Asus DVDXP, PowerDirector 2.1ME and Media Showcase SE. Pretty much all you'd need for card management, DVD playback and digital video manipulation is there. Completing the bundle are three full games; Morrowind, Black Thorn and Worms Blast.