Gainward GEFORCE4 Ti 4200 64MB Adapter
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7 million colors)Gainward GeForce4 PowerPack ! Ultra/650XP Golden Sample
Bjorn3D.com Reviewer
November 14, 2002
Hardware, Reviews & Articles
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Introduction
Despite much of the computer hardware press focusing on the Radeon 9700 and the upcoming Nvidia NV30, the fact remains that out in the real world most users aren’t willing or able to spend $400 on a new video card. Those cards are for high end gaming enthusiasts with the resources to snag them when they first come out. For the rest of us, we’re left to find that video card sweet spot that gives us the most performance for the best price.
The GeForce4 Ti4200 is one of the cards filling that sweet spot now. They’re rock solid cards with great performance and generally sell in the $150-$175 range. That’s a range that’s reasonable and reachable for a good many gamers so it’s no wonder it’s one of the graphics industries more popular marketing niches.
Gainward’s latest Golden Sample vid card fits into that niche nicely and is probably one of the nicer packages you’ll find too. Bjorn3d actually recieved this test card for our Halloween inspired Hack-O-Lantern contest, and I have to say that it’s not without some regret that I’ll pass this on to one of our winners! The Gainward GeForce4 PowerPack! Ultra/650XP Golden Sample is one of the more appealing vid cards that I’ve reviewed and would be high up on my list of choices if I were in the market for a new card right now. Let’s take a look at what it has to offer and what sets Gainward’s card out from the masses of other GeForce4’s out there.
Specifications and Features
There are a myriad of Ti4200’s out there to choose from these days, but Gainward really has one of the higher quality packages out there.
Their Ultra 650 XP is a 128MB DDR version that features both VGA and DVI connectors as well as TV out and Video In and Video Out (VIVO) capabilities. Let’s stop and take a look at the factory specs for this card before we go any further:
Key Features
- Integrated nVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200 – the most powerful GPU.
- Support 128MB high-speed 128bit DDR RAM/SDRAM memory.
- Support high quality TV-OUT for NTSC/PAL system
- TV-out connector support S-VHS mini Din and one Composite .
- Support capture Video from TV,VCR,DV or camcorder with Composite and S-Video.
- Video capture rate up to 30f/s.
- Support LCD Monitor with DVI connecter.
- DVI on board support up to 1600×1200 resolution.
- AGP 2X/4X AGP support and easy Plug-and -play AUTORUN installation From CD-ROM include.
Specifications
- Support nfiniteFX TM II Engine for full programmability.
- NVIDIA nView Display Technology provides flexibility an control for using multiple displays.
- Accuview Antialiasing delivers unbeatable visual quality and frames rates.
- Dual Programmable Pixel product surface details never before seen on the desktop
- Integrated 32-bit color and 32-bit Z/Stencil Buffer
- Integrated Cube environment mapping, and true reflective bump mapping.
- Multibuffering (double, triple, quadruple) for smooth animation and video playback.
- Video-out support (NTSC/PAL) TV system. It can providing best-of-class TV-out functionality up to 800×600 resolutions.
- Support LCD output with DVI connect, the resolution up to 1600×1200
Gainward’s XP-Feature for Video-In and Video-Out
Gainward’s award-winning XP feature, also known as “VIVO”, provides two video-in connectors and two video-out connectors (both composite video and s-video for PAL and NTSC) for smooth video recording and video editing including accelerated DVD playback with enhanced motion compensation in hardware.
EXPERTool TM Performance Tuning Utility
EXPERTool TM is Gainward’s performance tuning utility that allows the user to easily adjust the engine clock and memory clock of any Gainward product from nVIDIA’s recommended default settings to even higher settings. Gainward offers the end user the choice to either run the board in “Safe Mode Setting” or at “Enhanced Setting” (“Golden Sample” products only, featuring a more stable design with faster memory) which offer enhanced real-world 3D performance for higher resolution. Performance tuning is the most commonly used method among the ultimate power gamers to extract the utmost performance out of a high quality 3D graphics card.
API SUPPORT
- DirectDraw(R),Direct3D(R)
- DirectX 8.1
- FULL Open GLR ICD 1.3 support
OS SUPPORT
- Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP/NT
Aside from an impressive array of features, Gainward also does a nice job from an aesthetical standpoint as well.
Their bright red board coloration and unique cooler and fan are aesthetically pleasing and beg to be shown off through a case window. While not everyone is worried about how their vid cards look, it’s rather nice to see that Gainward takes into account those who do and presents an appealing package for the case mod crowd.
In the above pic you can see the Gainward card compared to my PNY Verto GeForce4 Ti4600 which I used as a reference card in this review. The 4200, as is typical, is a little shorter than the 4600 and should be a better fit in some tight cases and on some motherboards. I know in a couple of travel boxes we’ve experimented with here at Bjorn3d, the 4600’s were a bit too long but the 4200’s fit without an issue. If your case is a little tight, this might be something to keep in mind.
Contents
Gainward’s PowerPack! packaging was fairly good and should present a good facing presence on the retail shelves.
I found the orcish figure on the front of the box rather charming myself. The back of the box had some basic info about the card in six different languages.
I mentioned in my intro that Gainward had one of the nicer Ti4200 packages around so lets take a look and see exactly what they give you.
- Gainward Golden Sample Ultra 650 XP GeForce4 Ti4200 video card
- TV Out cables
- DVI to VGA adapter
- Driver CD
- Serious Sam, full version
- WinDVD CD
- WinProducer/WinCoder CD
That’s not a bad setup! The DVI to VGA adapter is a real nice touch in my opinion. A lot of the cards in the Geforce4 line have DVI connectors on them these days but comparatively few users have DVI monitors yet so most folks can’t really use it for a second monitor and take advanatge of Nvidia’s nView dual monitor support out of the box. At best you need to pick up an adapter to do so, and I suspect most folks never bother even trying it because of that.
Gainward’s inclusion of the adapter in their retail pack ensures that you at least have the option of fully utilizing your card right out of the box and is a thoughtful addition by the manufacturer.
The provided software is pretty good on the Ultra 650 XP as well. First off you get a full game, in this case Serious Sam. While I might have liked to see a more current game included, you can’t have everything. At least they’re giving you something that’ll let you see the beauty of your new vid card in action right away. Serious Sam isn’t a bad game either although a lot of you may already have it by now.
In addition to Serious Sam, Gainward also provides some more serious software as well in the form of WinDVD, WinProducer and WinCoder. WinDVD is DVD playback software and obviously needs to be used in conjunction with your DVD drive. WinCoder is an app that lets you capture digital audio and video, and WinProducer lets you work with that captured media. With WinProducer you can edit your video tracks, add special effects to them and add titles and text to create your own home movies.
Gainward also provides a pretty darn good user’s manual, but we’ll take a look at that in our next section…
Installation
Installing the Gainward Ultra 650 XP was about as painless as you can get. After removing my case’s side panel, I simply pulled out my Ti4600, inserted the Ultra 650 XP and rebooted my machine. Windows immediately found the card and asked for drivers upon boot up. I opted to cancel at this point and re-installed Nvidia’s Detonator 40.41 drivers as these are the ones I used with my PNY Ti4600 as a baseline for comparison. The provided driver CD is certainly another viable option as it has a great, easy to use interface that walks you through the driver software installation if need be.
Although I didn’t need it for this installation, Gainward actually provides a very good user manual that covers not only the installation of the card but also the set up and use of the extra features such as nView, VIVO and TV Out.
Even a novice should be able to follow along with it and have little trouble getting their card up and running quickly.
Testing
I ran the Gainward Ti4200 through the usual battery of tests including Quake 3 Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Nvidia’s ChameleonMark and MadOnion’s 3dMark2001SE. For comparison purposes, I used my the PNY Geforce4 Ti4600 that we tested here earlier this year. All tests were done with VSYNC set to “Off” and Anisotropic filtering set to 4.
My test machine’s specifications are as follows:
- AMD Athlon XP 2000+
- Leadtek K7N420DA nForce motherboard
- 2 256MB OCZ PC3000 DDR RAM
- PNY Verto Geforce4 Ti4600 (used as a reference card)
- MaxiSound Muse 5.1 DVD Soundcard
- 2 20gb 7200rpm Maxtor HD’s
- Iomega 8x4x32x CD Burner
- Creative 52x CD-ROM
- Microsoft Windows 2000 SP2 OS
- Nvidia Detonator 40.
41 video drivers
3dMark2001SE
For MadOnion’s 3dMark2001SE, we tested at both 1024×768 and 1280×1024 resolutions with 32 bit textures and 32 bit colordepth selected and texture compression turned off. While obviously not matching the Ti4600, the Gainward Ultra 650 XP still brought in some respectable scores for these settings. In some cases, such as the 1024×768 settings at No and 2x anti-aliasing the actual scores weren’t all that far from the 4600’s scores.
Nvidia’s 40.41 drivers gave a real boost to the Geforce4 line, and it’s especially notable when you look at the 3dMark scores. The Gainward Ultra 650 XP’s scores shown here actually beat some of our earlier tests of Ti4600 cards using older driver sets.
Nvidia’s ChameleonMark
ChameleonMark is a benchmarking demo created by NVIDIA to showcase the advanced pixel and vertex shading techniques of DirectX 8.
1. The demo shows a chameleon walking across a branch and renders it with three different skins (glassy, real and shiny).We ran the Glass benchmark with No, 2x, and 4x anti-aliasing settings to get an idea how the Gainward card would perform. Glass seems to be the toughest of the 3 ChameleonMark tests and should give you a good “worst case” performance score. The Ti4200 runs about 15 points behind the Ti4600 at 1024×768, but the gap closes to only about 10fps difference up at 1280×1024. The overall scores looked pretty respectable though.
Quake 3 Arena
Quake 3 Arena is getting a bit long in the tooth now, but it’s still an OpenGL standard that everyone is familiar with so it’s included here for that reason if for no other. The 1.31 point release and Demo 4 were used for this test. Settings for Q3A were maxed out as follows:
- Trilinear filtering
- 32 bit textures
- Maximum texture detail
- Compressed textures
- High Quality Sky
- High Geometric detail
- Sound On
Scores for Q3A were more than acceptable at every setting except 1280×1024 and 4x AA.
At that setting you’re getting a bit borderline for smooth gameplay with a score of just under 46fps. A good “compromise” setting might be 1280×1024 with 2x AA on. More than 91fps at that setting should appease most gamers I suspect. If you typically game at 1024×768, then you can take your pick of anti-aliasing settings since the 4200 breezed through these benchmarks with great scores at all levels.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
RTCW’s tweaked engine provides a tougher OpenGL test than the original Q3A engine that it’s based on. It’s a bit newer game and stresses cards a little more and is probably representative of the level of games that many of us are currently playing. We used version 1.33 and the Checkpoint Demo 59 for these round of tests and maxed out the settings for it as well as you can see below:
- Color-depth: 32 bit
- Geometric detail: high
- Character textures: Extra
- General Textures: High
- Filtering: Trilinear
- Texture Quality: 32 bit
- Nvidia display fog: yes
- Compressed Textures
- Sound On
Scores for this one were still pretty good.
At 1024×768, the Ti4600 didn’t really have much of a lead over the Gainward Ultra 650 XP until you got to the 4x AA setting. At 1280×1024, the 4600 does keep a fair lead on the Ultra although the Ultra is still quite playable at that setting.
Unreal Tournament 2003
One of the newest games to hit the scene has been the long awaited Unreal Tournament 2003, and the good folks at Epic were kind enough to ship it and the demo version with benchmarking utilities built right in! This is a pretty brutal game engine that’s brought a lot of cards to their knees now, and it’s a good indicator as to what you’ll need for next year’s top end games. For this test we used the Citadel Flyby. The Flyby demo’s seem to give a little more consistent results than the bot matches and are probably a more stable base for comparison.
Once again, settings were maxed out for UT2k3, and I was actually pretty pleased with the results.
At 1024×768, both cards brought in respectable scores and the Gainward Ti4200 was neck and neck with the Ti4600 with No AA turned on. At 1280×1024, the gap between the two widens although not by as much as I would have expected. Scores were still pretty good until we turned on 4x AA. At that level, even the 4600 was staggering under the load that UT2k3 threw at it.
Generally speaking, I thought this test boded well for the 4200’s ability to handle the next gen games. You may not be able to run them with everything maxed out and the AA cranked all the way up, but you should still be able to run at a respectable resolution with most of the eye candy and 2x or Quincunx anti-aliasing turned on anyway. In other words, you should still have a viable card for the near future as long as you don’t have to have everything maxed out.
Conclusion
Ti4200’s aren’t breaking any speed records out there, but then again they aren’t intended too.
They are a mainstream gaming solution intended for the “average” gamer, and Gainward offers a very appealing product for that market. They’ve got a visually appealing card that’ll please those with case windows, a great accessory pack, and a card which provides very good gaming performance for today’s games and that should still be viable for the next generation games like UT 2003 and Doom III as well.
Comparing the Ti4200 to a Ti4600 isn’t an entirely fair comparison and was done here simply to give the reader a reference point from which to judge its performance. If you go back and look at some of our previous reviews, you’ll see that the Gainward PowerPack! Ultra 650 XP compares very favorably to other 4200’s we’ve reviewed in the past, aces the GeForce4 MX cards and meets or beats the 128MB Radeons as well. Nvidia’s recent driver releases have really given some pretty good boosts to the “old” Geforce4 line and kept it a viable player even in these days of Radeon 9700’s and the looming NV30 launch.
The Gainward Ultra 650 XP comes in as a solid buy on our Bang for the Buck scale too. If you take a look at the following graphs you’ll be able to get a quick feel for the FPS value for your dollar offered by this card.
The graphs are normalized based upon the cost of the respective video cards (we used current Pricewatch figures for each card). The benchmark scores were divided by the costs of the cards to give you a performance to cost ratio. While the Ultra 650 XP Ti4200 may not have quite the punch of the Ti4600 it actually offers you a better performance value for the money spent, in some cases by as much as a 20%. If you’re on a budget and looking at getting the most gaming performance possible for your limited dollars, this is one way to look at things. When you do, you’ll see that the Gainward Ultra 650 XP represents a pretty good value and nestles nicely into that bang for the buck sweet spot that we talked about at the beginning of this review.
For its excellent design, comprehensive retail package, and great performance to cost ratio, I’m giving the Gainward Powerpack! Ultra 650 XP a score of 9.5 out of 10 and the Bjorn3d Golden Bear Award.
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Pixel Shaders 1,3 Vertex Shaders 1,1 Fill Rate, Mpix/s 1000 Fill Rate, Mtex/s 2000 Smoothing (Max) MS — 4x Anisotropic filtration (MAX) 8x 9005 Directx 8.0 9004ETFury XRadeon R9 FuryRadeon R9 NanoRadeon R9 390XRadeon R9 390Radeon R9 380XRadeon R9 380Radeon R7 370Radeon R7 360Radeon R9 295X2Radeon R9 290XRadeon R9 290Radeon R9 280XRadeon R9 285Radeon R9 280Radeon R9 270XRadeon R9 270Radeon R7 265Radeon R7 260XRadeon R7 260Radeon R7 250Radeon R7 240Radeon HD 7970Radeon HD 7950Radeon HD 7870 XTRadeon HD 7870Radeon HD 7850Radeon HD 7790Radeon HD 7770Radeon HD 7750Radeon HD 6990Radeon HD 6970Radeon HD 6950Radeon HD 6930Radeon HD 6870Radeon HD 6850Radeon HD 6790Radeon HD 6770Radeon HD 6750Radeon HD 6670 GDDR5Radeon HD 6670 GDDR3Radeon HD 6570 GDDR5Radeon HD 6570 GDDR3Radeon HD 6450 GDDR5Radeon HD 6450 GDDR3Radeon HD 5570 GDDR5Radeon HD 3750Radeon HD 3730Radeon HD 5970Radeon HD 5870Radeon HD 5850Radeon HD 5830Radeon HD 5770Radeon HD 5750Radeon HD 5670Radeon HD 5570Radeon HD 5550Radeon HD 5450Radeon HD 4890Radeon HD 4870 X2Radeon HD 4870Radeon HD 4860Radeon HD 4850 X2Radeon HD 4850Radeon HD 4830Radeon HD 4790Radeon HD 4770Radeon HD 4730Radeon HD 4670Radeon HD 4650Radeon HD 4550Radeon HD 4350Radeon HD 4350Radeon HD 43500 (IGP 890GX) Radeon HD 4200 (IGP)Radeon HD 3870 X2Radeon HD 3870Radeon HD 3850Radeon HD 3690Radeon HD 3650Radeon HD 3470Radeon HD 3450Radeon HD 3300 (IGP)Radeon HD 3200 (IGP)Radeon HD 3100 (IGP)Radeon HD 2900 XT 1Gb GDDR4Radeon HD 2900 XTRadeon HD 2900 PRORadeon HD 2900 GTRadeon HD 2600 XT DUALRadeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4Radeon HD 2600 XTRadeon HD 2600 PRORadeon HD 2400 XTRadeon HD 2400 PRORadeon HD 2350Radeon X1950 CrossFire EditionRadeon X1950 XTXRadeon X1950 XTRadeon X1950 PRO DUALRadeon X1950 PRORadeon X1950 GTRadeon X1900 CrossFire EditionRadeon X1900 XTXRadeon X1900 XTRadeon X1900 GT Rev2Radeon X1900 GTRadeon X1800 CrossFire EditionRadeon X1800 XT PE 512MBRadeon X1800 XTRadeon X1800 XLRadeon X1800 GTORadeon X1650 XTRadeon X1650 GTRadeon X1650 XL DDR3Radeon X1650 XL DDR2Radeon X1650 PRO on RV530XTRadeon X1650 PRO on RV535XTRadeon X1650Radeon X1600 XTRadeon X1600 PRORadeon X1550 PRORadeon X1550Radeon X1550 LERadeon X1300 XT on RV530ProRadeon X1300 XT on RV535ProRadeon X1300 CERadeon X1300 ProRadeon X1300Radeon X1300 LERadeon X1300 HMRadeon X1050Radeon X850 XT Platinum EditionRadeon X850 XT CrossFire EditionRadeon X850 XT Radeon X850 Pro Radeon X800 XT Platinum EditionRadeon X800 XTRadeon X800 CrossFire EditionRadeon X800 XLRadeon X800 GTO 256MBRadeon X800 GTO 128MBRadeon X800 GTO2 256MBRadeon X800Radeon X800 ProRadeon X800 GT 256MBRadeon X800 GT 128MBRadeon X800 SERadeon X700 XTRadeon X700 ProRadeon X700Radeon X600 XTRadeon X600 ProRadeon X550 XTRadeon X550Radeon X300 SE 128MB HM-256MBR adeon X300 SE 32MB HM-128MBRadeon X300Radeon X300 SERadeon 9800 XTRadeon 9800 PRO /DDR IIRadeon 9800 PRO /DDRRadeon 9800Radeon 9800 SE-256 bitRadeon 9800 SE-128 bitRadeon 9700 PRORadeon 9700Radeon 9600 XTRadeon 9600 PRORadeon 9600Radeon 9600 SERadeon 9600 TXRadeon 9550 XTRadeon 9550Radeon 9550 SERadeon 9500 PRORadeon 9500 /128 MBRadeon 9500 /64 MBRadeon 9250Radeon 9200 PRORadeon 9200Radeon 9200 SERadeon 9000 PRORadeon 9000Radeon 9000 XTRadeon 8500 LE / 9100Radeon 8500Radeon 7500Radeon 7200 Radeon LE Radeon DDR OEM Radeon DDR Radeon SDR Radeon VE / 7000Rage 128 GL Rage 128 VR Rage 128 PRO AFRRage 128 PRORage 1283D Rage ProIntelArc A770 16GBArc A770 8GBArc A750Arc A380Arc A310NVIDIAGeForce RTX 4090GeForce RTX 4080GeForce RTX 4080 12GBGeForce RTX 3090 TiGeForce RTX 3090GeForce RTX 3080 TiGeForce RTX 3080 12GBGeForce RTX 3080GeForce RTX 3070 TiGeForce RTX 3070GeForce RTX 3060 TiGeForce RTX 3060 rev. 2GeForce RTX 3060GeForce RTX 3050GeForce RTX 2080 TiGeForce RTX 2080 SuperGeForce RTX 2080GeForce RTX 2070 SuperGeForce RTX 2070GeForce RTX 2060 SuperGeForce RTX 2060GeForce GTX 1660 TiGeForce GTX 1660 SuperGeForce GTX 1660GeForce GTX 1650 SuperGeForce GTX 1650 GDDR6GeForce GTX 1650 rev.3GeForce GTX 1650 rev.2GeForce GTX 1650GeForce GTX 1630GeForce GTX 1080 TiGeForce GTX 1080GeForce GTX 1070 TiGeForce GTX 1070GeForce GTX 1060GeForce GTX 1060 3GBGeForce GTX 1050 TiGeForce GTX 1050 3GBGeForce GTX 1050GeForce GT 1030GeForce GTX Titan XGeForce GTX 980 TiGeForce GTX 980GeForce GTX 970GeForce GTX 960GeForce GTX 950GeForce GTX TitanGeForce GTX 780 TiGeForce GTX 780GeForce GTX 770GeForce GTX 760GeForce GTX 750 TiGeForce GTX 750GeForce GT 740GeForce GT 730GeForce GTX 690GeForce GTX 680GeForce GTX 670GeForce GTX 660 TiGeForce GTX 660GeForce GTX 650 Ti BoostGeForce GTX 650 TiGeForce GTX 650GeForce GT 640 rev.2GeForce GT 640GeForce GT 630 rev.2GeForce GT 630GeForce GTX 590GeForce GTX 580GeForce GTX 570GeForce GTX 560 TiGeForce GTX 560GeForce GTX 550 TiGeForce GT 520GeForce GTX 480GeForce GTX 470GeForce GTX 465GeForce GTX 460 SEGeForce GTX 460 1024MBGeForce GTX 460 768MBGeForce GTS 450GeForce GT 440 GDDR5GeForce GT 440 GDDR3GeForce GT 430GeForce GT 420GeForce GTX 295GeForce GTX 285GeForce GTX 280GeForce GTX 275GeForce GTX 260 rev.
2GeForce GTX 260GeForce GTS 250GeForce GTS 240GeForce GT 240GeForce GT 230GeForce GT 220GeForce 210Geforce 205GeForce GTS 150GeForce GT 130GeForce GT 120GeForce G100GeForce 9800 GTX+GeForce 9800 GTXGeForce 9800 GTSGeForce 9800 GTGeForce 9800 GX2GeForce 9600 GTGeForce 9600 GSO (G94)GeForce 9600 GSOGeForce 9500 GTGeForce 9500 GSGeForce 9400 GTGeForce 9400GeForce 9300GeForce 8800 ULTRAGeForce 8800 GTXGeForce 8800 GTS Rev2GeForce 8800 GTSGeForce 8800 GTGeForce 8800 GS 768MBGeForce 8800 GS 384MBGeForce 8600 GTSGeForce 8600 GTGeForce 8600 GSGeForce 8500 GT DDR3GeForce 8500 GT DDR2GeForce 8400 GSGeForce 8300GeForce 8200GeForce 8100GeForce 7950 GX2GeForce 7950 GTGeForce 7900 GTXGeForce 7900 GTOGeForce 7900 GTGeForce 7900 GSGeForce 7800 GTX 512MBGeForce 7800 GTXGeForce 7800 GTGeForce 7800 GS AGPGeForce 7800 GSGeForce 7600 GT Rev.2GeForce 7600 GTGeForce 7600 GS 256MBGeForce 7600 GS 512MBGeForce 7300 GT Ver2GeForce 7300 GTGeForce 7300 GSGeForce 7300 LEGeForce 7300 SEGeForce 7200 GSGeForce 7100 GS TC 128 (512)GeForce 6800 Ultra 512MBGeForce 6800 UltraGeForce 6800 GT 256MBGeForce 6800 GT 128MBGeForce 6800 GTOGeForce 6800 256MB PCI-EGeForce 6800 128MB PCI-EGeForce 6800 LE PCI-EGeForce 6800 256MB AGPGeForce 6800 128MB AGPGeForce 6800 LE AGPGeForce 6800 GS AGPGeForce 6800 GS PCI-EGeForce 6800 XTGeForce 6600 GT PCI-EGeForce 6600 GT AGPGeForce 6600 DDR2GeForce 6600 PCI-EGeForce 6600 AGPGeForce 6600 LEGeForce 6200 NV43VGeForce 6200GeForce 6200 NV43AGeForce 6500GeForce 6200 TC 64(256)GeForce 6200 TC 32(128)GeForce 6200 TC 16(128)GeForce PCX5950GeForce PCX 5900GeForce PCX 5750GeForce PCX 5550GeForce PCX 5300GeForce PCX 4300GeForce FX 5950 UltraGeForce FX 5900 UltraGeForce FX 5900GeForce FX 5900 ZTGeForce FX 5900 XTGeForce FX 5800 UltraGeForce FX 5800GeForce FX 5700 Ultra /DDR-3GeForce FX 5700 Ultra /DDR-2GeForce FX 5700GeForce FX 5700 LEGeForce FX 5600 Ultra (rev.
2)GeForce FX 5600 Ultra (rev.1)GeForce FX 5600 XTGeForce FX 5600GeForce FX 5500GeForce FX 5200 UltraGeForce FX 5200GeForce FX 5200 SEGeForce 4 Ti 4800GeForce 4 Ti 4800-SEGeForce 4 Ti 4200-8xGeForce 4 Ti 4600GeForce 4 Ti 4400GeForce 4 Ti 4200GeForce 4 MX 4000GeForce 4 MX 440-8x / 480GeForce 4 MX 460GeForce 4 MX 440GeForce 4 MX 440-SEGeForce 4 MX 420GeForce 3 Ti500GeForce 3 Ti200GeForce 3GeForce 2 Ti VXGeForce 2 TitaniumGeForce 2 UltraGeForce 2 PROGeForce 2 GTSGeForce 2 MX 400GeForce 2 MX 200GeForce 2 MXGeForce 256 DDRGeForce 256Riva TNT 2 UltraRiva TNT 2 PRORiva TNT 2Riva TNT 2 M64Riva TNT 2 Vanta LTRiva TNT 2 VantaRiva TNTRiva 128 ZXRiva 128 9Fury XRadeon R9 FuryRadeon R9 NanoRadeon R9 390XRadeon R9 390Radeon R9 380XRadeon R9 380Radeon R7 370Radeon R7 360Radeon R9 295X2Radeon R9 290XRadeon R9 290Radeon R9 280XRadeon R9 285Radeon R9 280Radeon R9 270XRadeon R9 270Radeon R7 265Radeon R7 260XRadeon R7 260Radeon R7 250Radeon R7 240Radeon HD 7970Radeon HD 7950Radeon HD 7870 XTRadeon HD 7870Radeon HD 7850Radeon HD 7790Radeon HD 7770Radeon HD 7750Radeon HD 6990Radeon HD 6970Radeon HD 6950Radeon HD 6930Radeon HD 6870Radeon HD 6850Radeon HD 6790Radeon HD 6770Radeon HD 6750Radeon HD 6670 GDDR5Radeon HD 6670 GDDR3Radeon HD 6570 GDDR5Radeon HD 6570 GDDR3Radeon HD 6450 GDDR5Radeon HD 6450 GDDR3Radeon HD 5570 GDDR5Radeon HD 3750Radeon HD 3730Radeon HD 5970Radeon HD 5870Radeon HD 5850Radeon HD 5830Radeon HD 5770Radeon HD 5750Radeon HD 5670Radeon HD 5570Radeon HD 5550Radeon HD 5450Radeon HD 4890Radeon HD 4870 X2Radeon HD 4870Radeon HD 4860Radeon HD 4850 X2Radeon HD 4850Radeon HD 4830Radeon HD 4790Radeon HD 4770Radeon HD 4730Radeon HD 4670Radeon HD 4650Radeon HD 4550Radeon HD 4350Radeon HD 4350Radeon HD 43500 (IGP 890GX) Radeon HD 4200 (IGP)Radeon HD 3870 X2Radeon HD 3870Radeon HD 3850Radeon HD 3690Radeon HD 3650Radeon HD 3470Radeon HD 3450Radeon HD 3300 (IGP)Radeon HD 3200 (IGP)Radeon HD 3100 (IGP)Radeon HD 2900 XT 1Gb GDDR4Radeon HD 2900 XTRadeon HD 2900 PRORadeon HD 2900 GTRadeon HD 2600 XT DUALRadeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4Radeon HD 2600 XTRadeon HD 2600 PRORadeon HD 2400 XTRadeon HD 2400 PRORadeon HD 2350Radeon X1950 CrossFire EditionRadeon X1950 XTXRadeon X1950 XTRadeon X1950 PRO DUALRadeon X1950 PRORadeon X1950 GTRadeon X1900 CrossFire EditionRadeon X1900 XTXRadeon X1900 XTRadeon X1900 GT Rev2Radeon X1900 GTRadeon X1800 CrossFire EditionRadeon X1800 XT PE 512MBRadeon X1800 XTRadeon X1800 XLRadeon X1800 GTORadeon X1650 XTRadeon X1650 GTRadeon X1650 XL DDR3Radeon X1650 XL DDR2Radeon X1650 PRO on RV530XTRadeon X1650 PRO on RV535XTRadeon X1650Radeon X1600 XTRadeon X1600 PRORadeon X1550 PRORadeon X1550Radeon X1550 LERadeon X1300 XT on RV530ProRadeon X1300 XT on RV535ProRadeon X1300 CERadeon X1300 ProRadeon X1300Radeon X1300 LERadeon X1300 HMRadeon X1050Radeon X850 XT Platinum EditionRadeon X850 XT CrossFire EditionRadeon X850 XT Radeon X850 Pro Radeon X800 XT Platinum EditionRadeon X800 XTRadeon X800 CrossFire EditionRadeon X800 XLRadeon X800 GTO 256MBRadeon X800 GTO 128MBRadeon X800 GTO2 256MBRadeon X800Radeon X800 ProRadeon X800 GT 256MBRadeon X800 GT 128MBRadeon X800 SERadeon X700 XTRadeon X700 ProRadeon X700Radeon X600 XTRadeon X600 ProRadeon X550 XTRadeon X550Radeon X300 SE 128MB HM-256MBR adeon X300 SE 32MB HM-128MBRadeon X300Radeon X300 SERadeon 9800 XTRadeon 9800 PRO /DDR IIRadeon 9800 PRO /DDRRadeon 9800Radeon 9800 SE-256 bitRadeon 9800 SE-128 bitRadeon 9700 PRORadeon 9700Radeon 9600 XTRadeon 9600 PRORadeon 9600Radeon 9600 SERadeon 9600 TXRadeon 9550 XTRadeon 9550Radeon 9550 SERadeon 9500 PRORadeon 9500 /128 MBRadeon 9500 /64 MBRadeon 9250Radeon 9200 PRORadeon 9200Radeon 9200 SERadeon 9000 PRORadeon 9000Radeon 9000 XTRadeon 8500 LE / 9100Radeon 8500Radeon 7500Radeon 7200 Radeon LE Radeon DDR OEM Radeon DDR Radeon SDR Radeon VE / 7000Rage 128 GL Rage 128 VR Rage 128 PRO AFRRage 128 PRORage 1283D Rage ProIntelArc A770 16GBArc A770 8GBArc A750Arc A380Arc A310NVIDIAGeForce RTX 4090GeForce RTX 4080GeForce RTX 4080 12GBGeForce RTX 3090 TiGeForce RTX 3090GeForce RTX 3080 TiGeForce RTX 3080 12GBGeForce RTX 3080GeForce RTX 3070 TiGeForce RTX 3070GeForce RTX 3060 TiGeForce RTX 3060 rev.
2GeForce RTX 3060GeForce RTX 3050GeForce RTX 2080 TiGeForce RTX 2080 SuperGeForce RTX 2080GeForce RTX 2070 SuperGeForce RTX 2070GeForce RTX 2060 SuperGeForce RTX 2060GeForce GTX 1660 TiGeForce GTX 1660 SuperGeForce GTX 1660GeForce GTX 1650 SuperGeForce GTX 1650 GDDR6GeForce GTX 1650 rev.3GeForce GTX 1650 rev.2GeForce GTX 1650GeForce GTX 1630GeForce GTX 1080 TiGeForce GTX 1080GeForce GTX 1070 TiGeForce GTX 1070GeForce GTX 1060GeForce GTX 1060 3GBGeForce GTX 1050 TiGeForce GTX 1050 3GBGeForce GTX 1050GeForce GT 1030GeForce GTX Titan XGeForce GTX 980 TiGeForce GTX 980GeForce GTX 970GeForce GTX 960GeForce GTX 950GeForce GTX TitanGeForce GTX 780 TiGeForce GTX 780GeForce GTX 770GeForce GTX 760GeForce GTX 750 TiGeForce GTX 750GeForce GT 740GeForce GT 730GeForce GTX 690GeForce GTX 680GeForce GTX 670GeForce GTX 660 TiGeForce GTX 660GeForce GTX 650 Ti BoostGeForce GTX 650 TiGeForce GTX 650GeForce GT 640 rev.2GeForce GT 640GeForce GT 630 rev.2GeForce GT 630GeForce GTX 590GeForce GTX 580GeForce GTX 570GeForce GTX 560 TiGeForce GTX 560GeForce GTX 550 TiGeForce GT 520GeForce GTX 480GeForce GTX 470GeForce GTX 465GeForce GTX 460 SEGeForce GTX 460 1024MBGeForce GTX 460 768MBGeForce GTS 450GeForce GT 440 GDDR5GeForce GT 440 GDDR3GeForce GT 430GeForce GT 420GeForce GTX 295GeForce GTX 285GeForce GTX 280GeForce GTX 275GeForce GTX 260 rev.
2GeForce GTX 260GeForce GTS 250GeForce GTS 240GeForce GT 240GeForce GT 230GeForce GT 220GeForce 210Geforce 205GeForce GTS 150GeForce GT 130GeForce GT 120GeForce G100GeForce 9800 GTX+GeForce 9800 GTXGeForce 9800 GTSGeForce 9800 GTGeForce 9800 GX2GeForce 9600 GTGeForce 9600 GSO (G94)GeForce 9600 GSOGeForce 9500 GTGeForce 9500 GSGeForce 9400 GTGeForce 9400GeForce 9300GeForce 8800 ULTRAGeForce 8800 GTXGeForce 8800 GTS Rev2GeForce 8800 GTSGeForce 8800 GTGeForce 8800 GS 768MBGeForce 8800 GS 384MBGeForce 8600 GTSGeForce 8600 GTGeForce 8600 GSGeForce 8500 GT DDR3GeForce 8500 GT DDR2GeForce 8400 GSGeForce 8300GeForce 8200GeForce 8100GeForce 7950 GX2GeForce 7950 GTGeForce 7900 GTXGeForce 7900 GTOGeForce 7900 GTGeForce 7900 GSGeForce 7800 GTX 512MBGeForce 7800 GTXGeForce 7800 GTGeForce 7800 GS AGPGeForce 7800 GSGeForce 7600 GT Rev.2GeForce 7600 GTGeForce 7600 GS 256MBGeForce 7600 GS 512MBGeForce 7300 GT Ver2GeForce 7300 GTGeForce 7300 GSGeForce 7300 LEGeForce 7300 SEGeForce 7200 GSGeForce 7100 GS TC 128 (512)GeForce 6800 Ultra 512MBGeForce 6800 UltraGeForce 6800 GT 256MBGeForce 6800 GT 128MBGeForce 6800 GTOGeForce 6800 256MB PCI-EGeForce 6800 128MB PCI-EGeForce 6800 LE PCI-EGeForce 6800 256MB AGPGeForce 6800 128MB AGPGeForce 6800 LE AGPGeForce 6800 GS AGPGeForce 6800 GS PCI-EGeForce 6800 XTGeForce 6600 GT PCI-EGeForce 6600 GT AGPGeForce 6600 DDR2GeForce 6600 PCI-EGeForce 6600 AGPGeForce 6600 LEGeForce 6200 NV43VGeForce 6200GeForce 6200 NV43AGeForce 6500GeForce 6200 TC 64(256)GeForce 6200 TC 32(128)GeForce 6200 TC 16(128)GeForce PCX5950GeForce PCX 5900GeForce PCX 5750GeForce PCX 5550GeForce PCX 5300GeForce PCX 4300GeForce FX 5950 UltraGeForce FX 5900 UltraGeForce FX 5900GeForce FX 5900 ZTGeForce FX 5900 XTGeForce FX 5800 UltraGeForce FX 5800GeForce FX 5700 Ultra /DDR-3GeForce FX 5700 Ultra /DDR-2GeForce FX 5700GeForce FX 5700 LEGeForce FX 5600 Ultra (rev.
2)GeForce FX 5600 Ultra (rev.1)GeForce FX 5600 XTGeForce FX 5600GeForce FX 5500GeForce FX 5200 UltraGeForce FX 5200GeForce FX 5200 SEGeForce 4 Ti 4800GeForce 4 Ti 4800-SEGeForce 4 Ti 4200-8xGeForce 4 Ti 4600GeForce 4 Ti 4400GeForce 4 Ti 4200GeForce 4 MX 4000GeForce 4 MX 440-8x / 480GeForce 4 MX 460GeForce 4 MX 440GeForce 4 MX 440-SEGeForce 4 MX 420GeForce 3 Ti500GeForce 3 Ti200GeForce 3GeForce 2 Ti VXGeForce 2 TitaniumGeForce 2 UltraGeForce 2 PROGeForce 2 GTSGeForce 2 MX 400GeForce 2 MX 200GeForce 2 MXGeForce 256 DDRGeForce 256Riva TNT 2 UltraRiva TNT 2 PRORiva TNT 2Riva TNT 2 M64Riva TNT 2 Vanta LTRiva TNT 2 VantaRiva TNTRiva 128 ZXRiva 128
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MSI and Triplex on GeForce4 Ti4200-8x and Ti4800SE chips / Video cards
3DNews NVIDIA video cards Comparison of video cards: MSI and Triplex on…
The most interesting in the news
⇣ Contents
Author: Mikhail Degtyarev
Manufacturers: MSI & Triplex
Introduction
It’s been a while since nVidia announced their graphics chipsets based on the GeForce4 Titanium core with support for the AGP8x interface.
Video card manufacturers got an excellent opportunity to update their lineup, and ordinary users got an extra hassle when choosing video cards. Still, you must agree, it’s not easy to understand the Ti4200, Ti4200-8x, Ti4600, Ti4800SE and Ti4800. All these are different graphics chipsets, and different video cards with different frequencies and speed indicators. Unfortunately, video card manufacturers are forced to save as much as possible on production, but at the same time, sell the most attractive models of their boards, such that customers would like it. Someone saves literally on every element of the printed circuit board and packaging, someone relies on a well-known name, and someone — on promotions. Be that as it may, but when a user chooses one of ten video cards in a store, sometimes emotions play a greater role in the choice than information about the manufacturer, or even the price, if it differs slightly. And when it comes to external indicators, here the cooler is the best assistant, no matter how strange it may sound.
A video card with a large cooler in a beautiful package at the same price always has an advantage over its competitors.
In this review, we will consider three video cards based on GeForce4 Ti4200-8x and GeForce4 Ti4800SE graphics chips from manufacturers, Triplex and MSI. But before we start describing the video cards themselves, let’s make a table of GeForce4 Titanium graphics chips.
GeForce4 Titanium Comparison Video chip GeForce4 Ti4200 GeForce4 Ti4200-8x GeForce4 Ti4800SE Core frequency, MHz 250 250 275 Memory frequency, MHz 444 513 550 Memory bus bit 128 128 128 Number of conveyors 4 4 4 Texture modules 8 8 8 Memory Bandwidth, Gb/sec. 7.1 8.2 8.8 Fillrate 1000 Mpixels/sec
2000 Mtexels/sec1000 Mpixels/sec
2000 Mtexels/sec1100 Mpixels/sec
2200 Mtexels/secAPI DirectX 8.1 DirectX 8.1 DirectX 8.1 RAMDAC Two 350 MHz Two 350 MHz Two 350 MHz Max. memory size, Mb 128 128 128 So, what are the new video chips? Many of us remember that nVidia loudly announced the GeForce4 MX440-8x chip with AGP 8x support, after that, the GeForce4 Ti4200-8x was announced a little quieter, and when video cards based on the GeForce4 Ti4800SE began to appear on sale, which at that time was not not a word on the nVidia website, no one said anything here.
In fact, everything turned out to be quite simple: the GeForce4 Ti4800SE is the same GeForce4 Ti4400, but with AGP 8x support. In addition to this video chip, nVidia also releases the GeForce4 Ti4800 (without the abbreviation «SE») — this is AGP 8x — a version of the well-known GeForce4 Ti4600. Thus, it turns out that nVidia revived the GeForce4 Ti4400 chip, which was discontinued due to the fact that it interfered with sales of the GeForce4 Ti4200 and GeForce4 Ti4600. It would be naive to believe that the Ti4800SE, having large numbers in its name, will work much faster than the GeForce4 Ti4400 and even more so the GeForce4 Ti4600. Well, another pitfall here is that the «SE» version of the Ti4800 has lower frequencies, and as a result, it will work slower than the Ti4800 without the «SE».
Triplex
Triplex has entered the market of computer components relatively recently. The popularity of its video cards was brought by the original design of printed circuit boards coated with silver.
According to Triplex engineers, the PCB’s silver plating contributes to better heat dissipation from memory chips and GPUs, as well as protection from interference generated by numerous fields inside the computer. As a result, according to the manufacturer, their video cards work more stable and overclock better. This is what we will test in this review.
Triplex GeForce4 Ti4200-8x
The Triplex GeForce4 Ti4200-8x comes in a large cardboard box with a transparent film window through which the card itself is visible.
In addition to the video card itself, the box contains: a splitter for connecting video equipment to the VIVO port of the board, an RCA-RCA cable, a DVI-VGA adapter, a CD with drivers and utilities, a CyberLink PowerDirector CD and instructions for installing the video card in English . In general, the equipment can be called standard.
The supplied splitter has two S-Video ports and two composite connectors: video in and TV out.
All four connectors, as you can see in the photo, are combined into one housing, which reduces the number of wires connected to the video card itself.
Triplex GeForce4 Ti4200-8x video card looks very stylish: silver-white PCB color and a silver cooler plate that covers most of the video card from the front side. Undoubtedly, when choosing a video card based on the GeForce4 Ti4200-8x, it will be difficult to pass by the board from Triplex. But let’s put emotions aside and take a closer look at the board.
First of all, the cooling system. Indeed, here it is given a lot of attention. Our tests of the GeForce4 Ti4200-8x and my personal experience with these video cards show that neither the graphics core nor the memory need intensive cooling, and even an inexpensive simple cooler will do to remove heat from the GPU. Of course, the Triplex GeForce4 Ti4200-8x can’t be called a cheap cooling system, but it isn’t complicated either.
The cooler looks big only from the outside and because of the large plate mounted on top of it.
This plate serves mainly to direct the air flow from the fan mounted on it to the memory chips and, of course, to give the board a more menacing look. There are no heatsinks installed on the memory chips located on the front side of the video card, so the chips are cooled here only due to the air flow from the fan.
However, a heat spreader is installed on the back of the video card — an aluminum plate adjacent to the memory chips and the circuit board on the back of the GPU. Strange as it may seem, there is no thermal interface between the memory chips and the heat spreader — thermal paste, or a synthetic gasket (a thin layer of thermal paste is applied only to the surface of the GPU core). I believe that if Triplex used at least silicon thermal paste, then the memory would cool better, which could help with overclocking the video card.
The cooler is easily removed from the video card, and gives us the opportunity to see the type of video memory used and the version of the graphics core.
Here the core is marked as GeForce4 Ti4200-8x, core revision is A1. Please note that the printed circuit board does indeed have some kind of silver coating that is applied to the entire surface of the PCB, except for those places where there are contacts of the elements of the board. Here, the silver coating could cause a short circuit, so the places where there are current-carrying elements on the PCB surface look like just white spots. Let’s look at the video memory chips:
The Triplex GeForce4 Ti4200-8x uses DDR SDRAM with a cycle time of 4.0 ns. Just like in the reference video card from nVidia, and like in many other graphics cards with the GeForce4 Ti4200-8x chip, the memory is slightly overclocked here. The nominal frequency of these memory chips is 250(500DDR) MHz, but here they operate at 256(513DDR) MHz.
Silicon Image Sil64CT64 transmitter is used to output image to the second display via DVI-I output. The Philips SAA 7108AE chip is used to implement TV-out/video-in functions.
In other respects, the construction of the Triplex GeForce4 Ti4200-8x video card can be said to be standard. The location of the power supply elements here is the same as in most other video cards based on the Ti4200-8x.
Of the design features of the GeForce4 Ti4200-8x from Triplex, I can only highlight the heat spreader on the back of the video card and the silver coating of the printed circuit board. Otherwise, this is an ordinary video card, and only tests will show us what the silver coating and the cooling system do when overclocked. In the meantime, let’s take a look at the next, more advanced Triplex GeForce4 Ti4800SE video card.
Triplex GeForce4 Ti4800SE
The GeForce4 Ti4800SE graphics chip costs just one step higher than the Ti4200-8x, and the difference in approach to video cards based on these GPUs is already very strong. First of all, this is due to the cost (at the time of this writing, the Triplex Ti4800SE video card cost 1.
4 times more than the Triplex Ti4200-8x). First of all, the delivery of the Triplex Ti4800SE graphics card: the cards are sold in shiny aluminum cases with two locks and a transparent window in the side wall.
The video card itself lies on black foam rubber, below it there are two shiny heatsinks for memory chips… All this reminds of a gentleman’s kit of some secret agent. I will not argue, this is one of the best packages for graphics cards that I have come across.
Under a thick layer of foam in the case are the usual video card accessories — a couple of CDs, instructions for use, cables for connecting to video equipment, the already familiar VIVO splitter, an S-Video-Composite adapter and a DVI-VGA adapter.
Let’s look at the video card itself. Actually, the situation with boards based on the Ti4800SE is a little unclear. Some of them have the Ti4200-8x design and conventional DDR SDRAM memory, others have the Ti4600 design and, as a result, DDR SDRAM video memory in a BGA package.
The Triplex Ti4800SE video card belongs to the second type.
You can see from the photo that this is a full size AGP graphics card with a GeForce4 Ti4600 PCB. The same cooler as on the Triplex GeForce4 Ti4200-8x is installed on the GPU of the video card, but the Triplex engineers took the cooling of the memory very seriously here.
Each pair of memory chips has one dual heat sink. It consists of two aluminum radiators interconnected. Heatsinks mounted on the front panel of the video card are blown by air from the fan on the GPU cooler. Thus, the memory on the front side is intensively cooled. Well, what about the back of the video card? Four DDR SDRAM chips are installed on the back of the video card. By default, heatsinks are not installed on these memory chips, but they are supplied with the video card and you will have to install them yourself.
Please note that these are exactly the same tall heatsinks as installed on the front side of the video card.
Today, many video card manufacturers install thin heat spreader plates, or low heatsinks, on the back of the graphics card. For security reasons, this is the right decision — an expansion board installed above an AGP video card will not rest against the video card’s cooling system. But in modern motherboards, where there are no other expansion slots above the AGP port, this precaution becomes meaningless, and nothing prevents installing full-fledged heatsinks on the memory chips behind the video card, as Triplex suggests us to do.
Each heatsink has a thick adhesive pad of thermally conductive material. It is enough just to remove the protective film from it and press it against the memory chips so that the radiator sits on it like a glove. They stick so strongly that they themselves will not rebound, although you can remove them back if you wish.
The video card is equipped with Samsung DDR SDRAM marked K4D26323RA-GC2B in a BGA package with an access time of 2.
8 ns. This means that the nominal frequency of the memory is 7 14 MHz. If we take into account that by default the memory operates at a frequency of 550 MHz, then we can conclude that the video card is simply designed for overclocking and it is simply not profitable not to overclock it.
Having removed the cooler from the video card, we can see the GeForce4 Ti4800SE chip itself. Strange as it may seem, the exact marking is not indicated on the chip. That is, it is indicated that this is Ti-8x, but the number 4800 is not here.
To display the image on the second display via DVI-I output, a conventional Silicon Image Sil64CT64 transmitter is used. The Philips SAA 7108AE chip is used to implement TV-out/video-in functions.
In general, Triplex Ti4800SE features a design similar to Ti4600, BGA format memory and large heatsinks on all memory chips. And, of course, we must not forget about the memory, the nominal frequency of which is much higher than the one on which it works by default.
Let’s see what it will lead to during overclocking, but for now we have the third video card — MSI Ti4800SE.
MSI GeForce4 Ti4800SE
We got a MSI GeForce4 Ti4800SE video card for testing, or rather its VIVO modification (MS-8900). MSI has long been known for its graphics cards, and GeForce4 Ti4800SE graphics cards are designed to be the best choice for buyers. These video cards are supplied in large colorful cardboard boxes, which, in addition to the board itself, also contain a splitter (the same as for Triplex video cards) for connecting video equipment, connecting cables, a DVI-VGA adapter, and as many as 10 CDs.
But you can’t bribe us with a bundle, so it’s better to see what the video card itself is.
The video card is made on a printed circuit board covered with red lacquer. This video card also uses the design of boards from Ti4600, which means that video memory in BGA format is also installed here. A fairly large cooler is installed on the front side of the video card, which we will consider a little further.
In the meantime, let’s look at the reverse side of the video card.
As you can see, about half of the area of the video card at the back is covered with a heat spreader plate. This plate is adjacent to the four memory chips on the back of the video card and to the area located directly under the core of the video card. In general, the cooling system on the MSI Ti4800SE video card looks no less impressive than on the Triplex GeForce4 Ti4800SE video card. But let’s see how the video card cooling system works here.
In general, the cooling system is somewhat reminiscent of Abit OTES. On a reddish aluminum plate, a copper radiator is installed, bent like an accordion from a thin plate, the whole structure is closed from above with a transparent plastic casing. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the base of the heatsink — what it is attached to the GPU and memory chips — is made of aluminum and painted «copper-like». The copper fins here are just the fins, from which most of the heat is removed from the GPU.
Some of the airflow from the fan goes to these fins and some goes up so that the air can cool the part of the aluminum plate that comes into contact with the two memory chips at the top of the front of the video card.
As you can see, the memory installed on the front side is cooled by force, by air flow from the fan. The memory installed on the back of the video card is cooled only by the installed flat heat spreader plate. Of course, this memory cooling is not as effective as the heatsinks installed on Triplex video cards, but still better than nothing. But the overclockability of the video card, in the end, also determines the type of installed memory chips.
Unfortunately, very cheap HY5DU283222F-36 memory chips from Hynix are installed here. This video memory has a cycle time of 3.6 ns, that is, the nominal frequency of the memory is 550 MHz. This means that the memory is already operating at its nominal frequency by default, which means that there is no overclocking headroom, like in Triplex boards.
The video chip itself, GeForce4 Ti4800SE, is also not fully marked here. Unlike the Triplex GeForce4 Ti4800SE video card, the A2 chip is installed here, so we’ll see how better or worse it will overclock.
The MSI GeForce4 Ti4800SE video card also has a Silicon Image Sil64CT64 transmitter responsible for image output to the DVI output and a Philips SAA 7108AE, due to which the video input and TV output work.
Well, it’s time to test all three video cards and find out which one is faster and runs better…
Overclocking
First of all, let’s see how the video cards we test overclock. All video cards were tested in an open computer case to avoid the temperature influence of other heating elements (hard drive, processor, memory). No additional cooling was installed on the video cards. Overclocking results are summarized in the table:
Video card overclocking results Video card Triplex Ti4200-8x Triplex Ti4800SE MSI Ti4800SE Core Memory Core Memory Core Memory Ratings, MHz 250 513 275 550 275 550 Maximum stable values, MHz 305 585 305 710 300 675 Frequency gain % 22 14 22 29 9 22 As expected, the Triplex GeForce4 Ti4800SE overclocked best of all.
The memory on this video card was able to work at a frequency of 710 MHz, that is, at the nominal value for which it is designed. Interestingly, the core on all video cards barely accelerates above 300 MHz. The fact is that 305 MHz is the actual limit of the GeForce4 Titanium core. And even video cards based on Ti4600, whose nominal frequency is 300/650 MHz, for the most part cannot increase the core frequency by more than 5 MHz. Of course, there are exceptions, but they are rare.
Test configuration
Test configuration Processor AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Motherboard SOYO DRAGON KT400PE Memory 512MB DDR333 Drivers VIA Hyperion 4-in-1 4. 45
Detonator 42.86Operating system Windows XP Professional The main purpose of our testing was to compare the data speeds of the considered video cards in the nominal and overclocked modes. But before moving on to considering speeds, let’s talk about the quality of the 2D image. As you know, blurry fonts in 2D can spoil the whole impression of a video card, no matter how fast it works.
Both Triplex video cards pleased us with their high image quality. There were no «soaps» in high resolutions, and in fact the video cards really turned out to be as high-quality as Triplex claimed. But what about the video card from MSI? Here things are much worse. The video card has just disgusting 2D image quality. I haven’t seen such poor quality in a long time. Already at 1024×768 with a refresh rate of 100 Hz, screen fonts look very blurry and I want to go to a lower resolution. Considering the luxurious delivery package of this video card and the originality of the cooling system, it seems strange that MSI has stinted on high-quality L-C filters.
Well, let’s move on to testing. All tests were carried out at the «default» driver settings, at 32-bit color depth, at 1024×768, 1280×1024 and 1600×1200 resolutions.
Unreal Tournament 2003
The first test — Unreal Tournament 2003. This game, by far, can give us the most accurate picture of the performance of the video card in modern 3D games with a first-person view. Unreal Tournament 2003 runs through the Direct3D API using DirectX 7 instructions. The built-in Fly-by Antalus benchmark was used for testing. In the game, all graphics settings were set to maximum.
As you can see, in the nominal mode the MSI Ti4800SE video card shows a higher speed than the Triplex Ti4800SE. When overclocked Triplex Ti4800SE wins quite a bit, but still takes the first place. This is very strange, because the video card based on the Ti4800SE from Triplex was able to overclock better both in terms of the core frequency and the video memory frequency.
CodeCreatures
One of the most difficult tests for a video card.
Both the frequency of the core of the video card and the frequency of the memory play an important role here. Let’s see how the results of the tested video cards are distributed.
Once again, we see that the MSI Ti4800SE wins at nominal frequencies. In overclocked mode at 1024×768 resolution, Triplex Ti4800SE takes the first place. In general, CodeCreatures is too heavy a test for the CPU and GPU. Therefore, the difference in performance between these video cards is relatively small.
AquaMark v 2.0
The AquaMark 2.0 test package clearly demonstrates performance in the Aquanox game. The third version of this benchmark will soon appear, with support for pixel shaders, and today AquaMark 2.0 uses only DirectX 7 instructions. The volume of used textures was chosen to be 24 MB. In this test, the frequency of the core of the video card is more important than the frequency of the video memory.
And again, without overclocking, when running at nominal frequencies, MSI Ti4800SE wins.
When overclocked, MSI loses the position of the winner starting with a resolution of 1280×1024. Triplex Ti4200-8x in overclocked mode does not lag too far behind boards based on Ti4800SE, since the GPU frequency is very important in this test. The difference in memory frequency between 710 MHz (for Triplex Ti4800SE) and 585 MHz (for Triplex Ti4200-8x) is as much as 125 MHz, but the Aquanox speed difference is just over 3 frames per second. So for AquaNox there is no big difference between Ti4200-8x and Ti4800SE.
3DMark03
Despite all the scandals around 3DMark03, this test package is quite suitable for testing modern video cards. The first test — Game 1 Wings of Fury will show us the behavior of the tested video cards in a simple game scene under DirectX 7.
This is a fairly easy test. Light for the video card and for the processor, so we can see how increasing the frequency of the video memory and the video chip leads to a serious increase in speed.
In the nominal mode, as usual, the MSI Ti4800SE video card turns out to be faster, but when overclocked, the Triplex Ti4800SE still takes the lead, although again, the difference in speed here is very, very small.
Two tests — Game 2 and Game 3 are designed for more powerful video chips than GeForce4 Titanium, so all the video cards we tested here show very low results. So low that it is somehow not correct to compare them with each other.
Pins
We tested the video cards on a fairly fast computer with an Athlon XP 2600+ processor and 512 MB of DDR333 memory. And even on such a modern system, I don’t see any significant difference between video cards based on GeForce4 Ti4200-8x and GeForce4 Ti4800SE chips. And where does it come from, if the nominal frequencies of graphics chips on these video cards differ by only 25 MHz, and the memory frequencies — by 19(38 DDR) MHz.
Average prices in Moscow as of March 2002 Video card Triplex Ti4200-8x Triplex Ti4800SE MSI Ti4800SE Average retail price, c. u.
$190 $235 $220 The cost difference between the Ti4200-8x and Ti4800SE is noticeable, and unfortunately not as noticeable as the speed difference between these video cards. Therefore, regarding the comparison of video cards based on Ti4200-8x and Ti4800SE, based on the test results, I can make an unambiguous conclusion — Triplex GeForce4 Ti4200-8x is a better buy than Triplex GeForce4 Ti4800SE and MSI Ti4800SE.
Well, if we discard the mercantile question and look at video cards without taking into account their prices, then there is something to think about. In fact, the Triplex Ti4200-8x graphics card is distinguished only by the silver coating of the printed circuit board. This video card uses conventional TSOP memory and cannot achieve supernatural overclocking results. The delivery set can be called standard, although it does not matter much.
The MSI Ti4800SE graphics card gets mixed reactions.
On the one hand, this is a very fast board, which operates faster than the Triplex Ti4800SE at nominal frequencies. Perhaps this is due to the A2 revision of the graphics chip, or perhaps due to the settings of the memory timings. Due to the cheap installed memory, the video card does not overclock very much, but it still works quickly. The bundle is replete with CDs and cables… But the whole impression of the video card is spoiled by the terrible 2D image quality, so I don’t recommend buying the MSI Ti4800SE.
Triplex Ti4800SE is slower than MSI Ti4800SE. Triplex didn’t skimp on fast memory to make the graphics card more overclockable. However, as tests show, the gain from such overclocking compared to MSI Ti4800SE is not too great. On the other hand, the Triplex GeForce4 Ti4800SE has no problems with 2D image quality, the aluminum case in which the video card is packed is simply admirable. The Triplex GeForce4 Ti4800SE video card can be recommended for purchase to those who are looking for a board based on the Ti4800SE or to those who want to give a gift to a loved one, a computer enthusiast.