Abit Siluro MX


The Abit Siluro MX - Page 2

The Abit Siluro MX
Budget Video cards come of age...

By Marco "BigWop" Chiappetta
November 28, 2000

Quality and Installation Of The Abit Siluro MX
Come on in...

Visual inspection of the Siluro MX shows us some good things.  As is the case with most reputable manufacturers such as Abit, all of the traces and solder connections are very clean and in general show good craftsmanship.  The MX reference design is fairly simple and there really is very little to comment on.

One of the very obvious aspects worth mentioning is the inclusion if a TV-Out connector.  Most cards in the price range where the Siluro MX falls do not include any "bells and whistles" and it is nice to see Abit including some of these extra features.

Another thing that you will notice if you pay attention to virtually all of the pictures in this review is the heatsink that is mounted on the MX chip.  We're not 100% sure how to feel about this heatsink though.  On one hand, nVidia's reference design does not call for any extra cooling because the GeForce 2 MX runs very cool and uses very little power, so Abit's decision to install a heatsink is a plus.  On the other hand, this is Abit we're talking about!  Coming from a company so widely known for their overclocking prowess it is disappointing that this card, targeted squarely at the budget market (who, incidentally is the largest overclocking crowd), doesn't offer a better cooling solution. The kicker is the heatsink is mounted with thermal compound.  If you've read any of my other video card reviews, you know how strongly we frown upon the use of thermal compound.  

The bundle that comes with the Siluro MX is fairly respectable.  Most users shouldn't be disappointed when they first open the box.

Included with the Siluro MX is an S-Video cable, a REAL users manual, a diver CD which also contains Intervideo's WinDVD 2000 and 2 full version games, Test Drive 5 and Shogo: Mobile Armor Division.  Granted the games aren't cutting edge but something is always better than nothing!  

The drivers that came included on Abit's CD were relatively old, so we won't be going to in-depth into them.  The testing of the card was done was with nVidia's 6.31 reference drivers.  Should you opt to use Abit's drivers, they do come with a proprietary overclocking utility called "Graphic Max".

              

The board we received was a decent overclocker.  We were able to get the core up from it's default 175MHz. clockspeed to 195Mhz and the memory up from 166MHz. to 190Mhz.  Overclocking was done with the card in it's stock configuration, with some creative cooling solutions, your luck will probably be better.

Well, we've given you enough background on the Abit Siluro MX let's jump right into some benchmarks shall we!

Overclocking and Gaming Performance

 

Tags:  Abit

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