As we have already mentioned in our news several times, both new chips from NVIDIA GeForce3 Titanium family are in fact absolutely identical. GeForce3 Ti 500 and GeForce3 Ti 200 are none other but the same good old GeForce3 with that only difference that now NVIDIA selects chips capable of working at higher core frequency to be shipped as GeForce3 Ti 500 and less successful chips are shipped as Ti 200. The regular GeForce3 chips are no longer shipped. Nevertheless, the presence of three versions of a single chip with the same marking could have aroused a great confusion especially among the graphics card makers. That is why having tested the maximum core clock of its chips, NVIDIA marks them additionally. This marking should let distinguish between the chips, which can work at 240MHz (for Ti 500) and the chips intended for low-cost graphics cards working at 175MHz core frequency (for Ti 200).
Here is what this marking looks like:

GeForce3 Ti 500		GeForce3 Ti 200

As you can notice, the marking differs only by one latter located in the very bottom of the chip. The chips intended for GeForce3 Ti 500 graphics cards are market with "T" (Top Model), the chips for GeForce3 Ti 200 – with "V" (Value Model). Moreover, we have also come across GeForce3 Ti 200 chips marked with “VP”.
However, this marking will not last long. The graphics cards manufacturers didn’t like this kind of non-trivial distinguishing feature, which will not allow unsophisticated users to tell a Ti 500 from Ti 200. That is why the marking will be changed into a more natural one in the nearest future:

GeForce3 Ti 200

In other words, very soon we will see chips supporting 240MHz core frequency marked as "Ti500" and those, which failed this frequency tests, - as "Ti200".