nVidia's Geforce 4 Ti4200: A New Kind Of Budget?

Author : Martyn Date : 24th April '02

...Product	Geforce 4 Ti4200
...Manufacturer	nVidia
...Supplier	nVidia / Bastion
...Price	$200 TBC

 

 

Using Rivatuner I was very excited indeed about overclocking this card. It would be more than interesting to see just what levels of performance we could gain from this sub $200 solution. The defaults were reported as 250 / 500 DDR, so we started focusing on the core at first. The card was able to run all benchmarks at a settings of 280MHz which was my first surprise, we had a notion that this was going to be the maximum, overclock on this card but how wrong we were! The core managed to stay stable all the way up until 307MHz, a great result from this card when we consider the top of the range Ti4600 is clocked at 300MHz.

The ram was, as anticipated, less tolerant to our speed increases. Its final stable setting was 612, which considering it's default clock, wasn't a terrible result either. In fact the 4ns memory was a tad more tolerant than the Radeon's 3.6ns version. Our test Radeon overclocks to 303/600 which is a fair result. These figures are of course only our experiences, it goes without saying now that overclocking also involves a huge slice of luck and our figures are almost certainly unlikely to match your own experiences.

Part Fourteen: Final Thoughts

To say we are impressed is somewhat of an understatement. The main factor we have to tried to consider throughout this review is the one of pricing. This card is set to retail at under $200 (£160) and for this price, it's hard to suggest you spend your money on any other card. The Radeon is still proving to be an excellent card but with the lower clocked Ti4200 constantly beating it across the board it's hard to see anyone opting for the Radeon over this solution. The Geforce 4 architecture is helping the Ti4200 to achieve performance previously only dreamed of at this price point.

We are certainly very excited indeed to see just what the many nV partners can make of this board. Imagine VIVO included or eVGA's ACSII, this card can only get better and better once it reaches the retail shelves.

We've included a percentage rating below but this score is only indicative of the value and performance on show here. It isn't a complete rating as this card will obviously not be available to buy, if this was a retail card from an nV manufacturer we would have no hesitation in giving this our 'Value & Performance' award but that's for the full retail cards. For now, just be assured that the value presented by this card is going to be very hard to match by any card manufacturer. Another winner for nVidia, be on the look out for this card, it's an award grabber without any doubt.

Pros: -

1. Price: There is some serious value on offer here.
2. It's a Geforce 4 Ti
3. AA performance
4. An excellent overclocker
5. Smaller board design

Cons: -

1. Not as fast as a Ti4400 or 4600
2. Non standard HSF mounting holes.
3. Not much else...

-- Geforce 4 Ti4200 Reference Card --

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