Last year, ASUS made one of the best graphics cards based on the Riva TNT chipset; the AGP V3400, a full-featured card with solid driver support and also very overclockable into the bargain. Now they have built a brand-new series of graphics cards based on nVidia’s TNT2 chipset, the AGP-V3800 series. This lineup consists of three cards based on the TNT2 chipset and one high-end part based on the Ultra TNT2 chipset, which last is the model that we tested for this review, the AGP V3800 Ultra Deluxe.
 

The PCB of the V3800 Ultra Deluxe is packed, the rear panel has the VGA connector and four more connectors for video input and output. A standard active cooling unit is mounted on top of the Ultra TNT2 chip. The onboard Ultra TNT2 chipset is clocked at the default speed of 150MHz, along with the 32MB video memory also clocked at the default speed, in this case 183MHz. So it would appear that ASUS has opted to go with nVidia’s recommended speeds for their unit.

But there is also a big difference- this is one of very few cards that feature SGRAM instead of SDRAM.

Naturally, one of the first questions that spring to mind on hearing that is whether the price of this unit slightly higher than the average Ultra TNT2 card. Well, yes, it is... but the high price of the card is not affected by the type of the video memory alone, because the card has video-in, TV-out, VR 3D Glasses, and a LCD out. As you can see, this is no ordinary card and the retail price tag of $260+ is fully justified by the stellar list of features.

With the ASUS V3400, TNT users were treated to an incredibly well performing card with plenty of overclockability and some nifty video capture abilities. Following up, the V3800 line of cards takes this to the next level with TNT2 performance, higher video capture sizes and a list of upgrade options that could take up a shelf at your local electronics store. The V3800TVR Deluxe kit that I’m reviewing is a TNT2 based card with 32MB of RAM, TV-in and TV-out and a nifty set of 3D LCD glasses as well. 
Extra accessories for this unit include the $90 ASUS TV-Box, a small box with wireless remote control allowing you to watch TV on your PC. And then there’s a DVD kit to wash everything down. 

The package includes an easy installation utility and some video capturing software. However I did have some problems with the drivers and getting the Dual-View option to work. So the installation process wasn't hassle-free. For beginners I recomend going through all documentation before installing the card, though of course if you’re 
an experienced user you can just go about it. After the driver installation, the display properties will be updated with the ASUS display menus. Tweaking options for Direct 3D, Open GL and the VR glasses are found on the advanced properties box. 

ASUS provides their standard VR Glasses with this kit; the glasses look a bit bulky and aren’t as nice looking as the Elsa Revelator glasses, which had a more streamlined, modern look to it. But hey, other than the appearance, the glasses work great on Direct 3D games. The video input on the unit allows the user to plug in a VCR and capture video at window sizes up to 352 x 240 NTSC and 352 x 288 PAL. Since the unit supports NTSC and PAL color schemes, many users worldwide will be able to enjoy the video capturing features. But keep in mind that the card has no onboard tuner, so you cannot plug in your antenna or cable TV jack for direct TV on PC. That’s what the $90 TV box is for.  Apart from that, the TV features work very well, the picture quality is quite good and anyone with a Pentium II 450 or an o/c Celeron will be able to capture vide at 30 fps without having to drop any frames at the highest window size. Even the TV-out on this card looks nice at 800x600, not to mention the fact that it also supports the TV-out and the monitor simultaneously at boot up. 
 

The picture quality of the desktop screen looks average, TNT2 Ultra style. The 300MHz RAMDAC on these processors obviously gives them better picture quality than the Riva TNT cards.  But the thing is, at 1600x1200 the screen sharpness decreases somewhat- compared to the Matrox G400 Max cards, the TNT2 cards don’t deliver the same level of sharpness at high resolutions. As for the visual quality in 3D gaming, it’s very good. I only noticed one glitch with the Quake III Arena 1.05 demo with the v1.91 drivers. But other than that, all Open GL and Direct 3D applications performed nicely at both 32-bit and 16-bit.

Now we come to a more important point; performance. First, this card isn’t the fastest Ultra TNT2 card and it’s not meant to be because the core and the memory clocks are set to 150MHz and 183MHz respectively. However, the V3800 Ultra Deluxe cards can be overclocked to 175/200. At this setting, 
I found our card to be about 90% stable. Keep in mind, this unit does house an active cooling unit, which is not of very high quality but it’s meant to get the job done at 150/183. But all in all, the performance from this card (clocked at 150/183 MHz) is generally average when compared to the rest of the cards clocked at this setting.