First Sightings: Three Early Samples of the GeForce4 Ti4600 – THG.RU

Left to right: ASUS, Creative, Leadtek

Introduction

It’s been three weeks since NVIDIA unveiled its new GeForce4 Series, and now the first retail boards are starting to find their way into the market. So far, the vast majority of these boards are still based on the less expensive GeForce4 MX, though. This makes sense, since the GeForce4 MX is basically only a GeForce2 chip with its simple T&L engine, a second RAMDAC for DualDisplay functionality (nView), a watered-down version of the ‘LightSpeed Memory Architecture II’ and an AccuView FSAA unit added onto it. However, it does not have the DirectX 8 capable pixel and vertex shaders of the GeForce4 Ti and the GeForce3 families.

Actually, the GeForce4 Ti isn’t really a new design either, technologically speaking. It builds on the strengths of the GeForce3 design (code name NV20), adding a second vertex shader and implementing numerous design tweaks. The largest part of its performance gain over the GeForce3 stems from higher memory and chip clock speeds. You can read up on the technology behind the GeForce4 MX (NV 17) and the GeForce4 Ti (NV25) in the article PC Graphics Beyond XBOX – NVIDIA Introduces GeForce4.

Now the card manufacturers are busily preparing their GeForce4 Ti boards. ASUS, Creative, and Leadtek were kind enough to send us their early GeForce4 Ti4600 boards for review. These cards are still prototype boards, so some details may still change before the retail versions are released. Of the three companies, only Leadtek was able to send us customized drivers. Also, as of this article’s press time, no final decisions have been made as to the software bundles that will be shipping with these boards. One (unnamed) company even wanted to send us an NVIDIA reference board. Obviously, the time is not yet right for a full-blown review with final ratings. But we should be able to get our bearings and gather some first impressions.

ASUS

As usual, the Taiwanese company ASUS will offer a vast selection of boards featuring GeForce4 Ti chips. Aside from the regular ‘Pure’ versions, which feature TV-Out and/ or DVI output, there will also be ‘Deluxe’ versions with TV-In functionality and a larger software bundle. ASUS was unable to give us any more specific information pertaining to these cards and the 3D shutter glasses that will most likely ship with them. At this point, the only cards that have been finalized are the ‘Pure’ versions:

• ASUS AGP-V8460 Ultra/TD/128M – GeForce4 Ti4600
• ASUS AGP-V8460 Ultra/DVI/128M – GeForce4 Ti4600
• ASUS AGP-V8440 TD/128M – GeForce4 Ti4400
• ASUS AGP-V8440 DVI/128M – GeForce4 Ti4400

These cards will come bundled with the games Aquanox and Midnight GT, as well as the software DVD player Power DVD 4.0 XP. As a side note, we were told that boards of the GeForce4 MX family would be named V8170. So far, we know of the V8170 SE (MX 420) and the V8170 DDR (MX440).

ASUS AGP-V8460 Ultra/TD/128M

Unlike the ‘Deluxe’ versions, the ‘Pure’ models strictly follow NVIDIA’s reference board design. ASUS also chooses to stick to NVIDIA’s specifications where clock speeds are concerned: 300MHz core speed and 650MHz memory speed. The 128MB RAM consists of 4Mx32 DDR SGRAM chips rated at 2.8ns in a BGA package. The benefit of BGA packaging is its better signal quality, a must at these high clock speeds. According to ASUS, the BGA chips even use gold contacts to connect to the PCB, a technique that is common practice with HiFi components. We’ll just have to believe these claims, as there is no way of finding out without destroying the card. Either way, the pre-production sample showed no improved stability when overclocked.

The heatsink only has a small heat dissipation area.

The heatsink/ fan combination does a good job, offering satisfactory cooling performance at bearable noise levels. But despite its size, the heatsink is not very effective. Its large and flat surface offers little potential for heat dissipation. The memory chips receive no cooling at all.

2,8 ns BGA SGRAM memory chips

ASUS was unable to furnish customized drivers for the test. Judging from the past, it’s safe to assume that the drivers will be a mix of NVIDIA’s reference release and some additional ASUS tools. The software bundle consists of two current games, Aquanox and Midnight GT, as well as a software DVD player, Power DVD 4.0 XP.

The new ASUS SmartDoctor HW monitoring software (for Deluxe models)

Whether or not a DVI -> CRT adapter for use with a second VGA monitor on the DVI port will be included has yet to be decided. According to early reports, these adapters may only ship with the Deluxe models. ASUS uses the Conexant CX25871-14 chip for the TV-Output.

Creative

With the GeForce4 series, Creative plans to end its hiatus in the retail market and become a big player again.

For now, Creative will offer four boards, two featuring the GeForce4 Ti, and two using the MX:

• Creative 3D Blaster 4 Titanium 4600
• Creative 3D Blaster 4 Titanium 4400
• Creative 3D Blaster 4 MX 440
• Creative 3D Blaster 4 MX 420

Creative 3D Blaster 4 Titanium 4600

3D Blaster 4 Titanium 4600 – Made by MSI

Creative sent us a GeForce4 Ti4600 board for this test. The company no longer manufactures its own cards, by the way, having outsourced this task to MSI. That explains why these cards look almost identical to MSI’s, aside from the logo on the heatsink’s fan. In addition to the TV-output (Conexant CX25871-13), the card also features a DVI connector, which is standard fare for GeForce4 Ti boards. Like ASUS, Creative has yet to decide whether it will ship a DVI -> CRT adapter with its card.

Transparent HSF cover

Creative is also adhering to NVIDIA’s specifications, setting the card to run at 300MHz core and 650MHz memory speed. As on the ASUS board, the eight 2.8ns BGA memory chips receive no additional cooling. The GPU’s heatsink/ fan is somewhat of a mixed bag. While it is quite a visual treat and does an excellent job, it is very loud and its sound bears resemblance to that of a blow-drier for your hair. Not exactly something you’d want around you when you’re trying to work. Creative/ MSI should rethink their choice of components here and find an alternative. After all, the large heatsink wouldn’t even require such a high-speed fan to be effective.

Creative couldn’t send us its own set of drivers yet, either. In the past, the company has taken great pains with their display tools and utilities, though, and there is no reason to fear that this should change with the 3D Blaster 3 series.

Leadtek

The Taiwanese company is out for blood and is mounting a frontal attack on the competition. In this vein, Leadtek claims to have been the first to ship GeForce4 MX boards in reasonable quantities. Once again, Leadtek is striving to set itself apart from the competition, both visually and technologically. The boards come with a wealth of features, such as hardware monitoring and an extravagant cooling solution. Here’s a quick overview of the company’s planned product line as of the time of publication:

GeForce4 Ti:

• Leadtek WinFast A250 TD – GeForce4 Ti4400 (Early March)
• Leadtek WinFast A250 TDH – GeForce4 Ti4400
• Leadtek WinFast A250 Ultra TD – GeForce4 Ti4600 (Early March)
• Leadtek WinFast A250 Ultra TDH – GeForce4 Ti4600

GeForce4 MX:

• Leadtek WinFast A170 T SDR – GeForce4 MX440 (CeBIT 2002)
• Leadtek WinFast A170 T DDR – GeForce4 MX440 (already available)
• Leadtek WinFast A170 V DDR TH – GeForce4 MX440
• Leadtek WinFast A170 PRO – GeForce4 MX460

Key: V = TV-In, T = TV-Out, D = DVI, H = HW Monitoring

The cards’ software bundles will consist of the following: the WinFox II suite; two DirectX 8 games (Gunlok, DroneZ); WinFast DVD; Cult3D; and, the tool suites Colorific/3Deep/True Internet Color.

Leadtek WinFast A250 Ultra TD

Massive Presence: Leadtek A250 TD

Leadtek’s A250 Ultra series features a most impressive cooling solution. The top of the card is covered almost completely by an enormous heatsink, which is cooled by two fans, each of which has its own dust filter. The heatsink thus cools not only the GPU, but the memory, as well. The bottom of the card also sports a heatsink, this one passive, however. A thermal pad below the GPU ensures the contact between the PCB and the heatsink. Thankfully, this massive cooling solution isn’t overly noisy, although it is far from quiet. Still, it makes a lot less noise than Creative’s ‘blow-drier.’

The rest of the feature list is pretty much standard fare: TV-Out (Conexant CX25871-13) and DVI. Hardware monitoring is only included on the TDH models. The GPU runs at the specified 300MHz, and the 128MB of 2.8ns memory is also right on target, at 650MHz.

A second heatsink on the back

Leadtek was the only company that sent us its own drivers with its card. This revision still had a small bug under Windows XP, so, instead, we used NVIDIA’s reference driver v27.42 for performance testing. The new WinFoxII suite already ran flawlessly, though. The WinFox suite is an extensive collection of tools, some more useful than others. It includes everything from overclocking tools and detailed system information to simple Windows games а la Minesweeper.

A well-made heatsink

The software bundle consists of the games DroneZ and Gunlok, as well as WinFast DVD, Cult3D and the tool collection Colorific/3Deep/True Internet Color by E-Color.

Test Setup

All tests were run on the same platform as the initial tests from the article PC Graphics Beyond XBOX – NVIDIA Introduces GeForce4:

Aquanox

In Aquanox, the GeForce4 Ti benefits from the power of its dual vertex shaders. Even the ATi 8500 and the GeForce3 Ti500 follow at a respectful distance.

Quake 3

As we already saw in Aquanox, the three cards offer incredible performance and score nearly identically to one another.

3DMark 2001

3DMark 2001 shows only minimal performance differences between the individual GeForce4 Ti’s, which can be attributed to the normal spread within a benchmark run.

Overclocking

Overclocking tests with pre-production samples are always somewhat problematic, since very often in this early phase both the chips and the boards demonstrate a range from good to bad, even within the same batch. Nonetheless, the overclocking tests yielded some interesting results. The ASUS card could not be pushed further than 310MHz core and 710MHz memory speed. Creative’s memory was able to reach an additional 10MHz. Overclocking a GeForce4 Ti chip seems to be quite tricky. We weren’t able to eke out much more than those extra 10MHz on the cards, except on the Leadtek A250…

Benchmarks OC

The extravagantly cooled Leadtek card was able to run more or less stably at 320/750MHz. After mounting an additional fan on the card’s second heatsink, we even hit a very impressive 335/775 MHz! Using these settings, we achieved a 3DMark score of 12867 (and much more) on a Pentium 4 system – in the benchmark’s default setting of 1024×768-32, of course. You’ll find the proof in MadOnion’s Fastest Webmasters list (Borsti – RIVA Station). Naturally, these settings were achieved only through extreme tweaking of the driver, and the testing system was constantly on the verge of crashing. Not exactly what you would call “recommended for everyday use.”

Whether the A250 TD’s excellent overclocking capabilities are due to the superb cooling or were simply a fluke owing to an especially potent sample chip remains to be seen. Only future tests can really answer that question.

Conclusion

GeForce4 Ti boards will only become available in larger quantities around CeBIT. As usual, early adopters should be aware that they will definitely be paying a premium for a Ti 4600 card now, since it is currently, quite literally, a class of its own. The only real competition, ATi’s R300, is, as yet, only a speck on the roadmap – er, horizon. So, of course the manufacturers will try to capitalize on the Ti performance bonus while they can.

The cards of the Ti 4400 series, with their slightly lower clock speeds, are quite a bit less expensive. Right now, NVIDIA is still holding back the 4200 series, as it would compete with the former flagship GeForce3 Ti500, making that card unsalable. Despite all rumors to the contrary, the 4200 will also be available on retail boards, and not just from OEMs. NVIDIA is targeting mid-April as an introduction date. While some are still skeptical, let me assure you, we will see these boards.

These pre-production samples from ASUS, Creative and Leadtek offer a good first impression of what awaits us in the next few weeks. We will follow up this article with a full review of retail GeForce4 boards when they become available. Of course, a real evaluation of the individual products and bundles is impossible until the companies make final decisions on the contents of their shipping boxes. We should also see some customized drivers from each of the companies by then.

We were a bit disappointed by the absence of a DVI -> CRT adapter for a second VGA monitor from all of the (preliminary) bundles. At the launch event in Brussels, NVIDIA had promised that each and every GeForce4 Ti board, regardless of the manufacturer, would ship with a DVI port or a second VGA connector. After all, one of the company’s goals is making multi-monitor environments the norm and encouraging their adoption. While the physical connectors are on the boards, it seems the manufacturers are having trouble shipping the corresponding VGA adapter with their products. It remains to be seen if these adapters will be available separately, as an accessory or extra. If so, it would put an unnecessary financial burden on the consumer. Anyone planning on buying a GeForce4 Ti card should therefore check out the individual cards’ bundles beforehand.