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In our final
two tests, we enabled Anisotropic settings to see how well
the various cards could perform, however, there is a caveat. Marco noted in his recent
8500LE review, that nVidia and
ATi both handle Anisotropic filtering somewhat differently.
What NVIDIA calls 32-Tap Anisotropic filtering is 4X in their
drivers yet what ATi calls 32-Tap Anisotropic
filtering is 8X in their drivers. On top of that, the Radeon 8500 is not capable of true trilinear filtering with
Anisotropic filtering turned on, so with this test we set
Quake 3 to bilinear to keep things equal.
Ahhh...here we see the Radeon
card give the Ti4600 a lesson in Anisotropic performance,
posting a solid triple digit score while the Ti4600 maxed in
the low 80's. So ATi has the advantage in Anisotropic
Filtering and nVidia has an even greater edge when it comes
to FSAA. So what do you say we run the same test
again, but this time tack on 2X FSAA?
When it comes to a balance
between the two features, it looks like the Ti4600 is a more
well rounded card, capable of pumping out a good amount of
frames
any way you slice it.
As we bring this review to a
close, I find myself in a bit of a "rating" quandary.
From a performance stand point, the eVGA e-GeForce4 Ti4600
with ACS² is a solid card that demonstrated superior
performance on our test bench. In each test we saw the
pure might of the GeForce4 GPU as the video card continually
posted great scores in virtually every test. While
the card did struggle a bit with Anisotropic filtering in
comparison to the ATi All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500, it still
proved to be a more well-rounded card when enabling both
FSAA and Anisotropic filtering. As we saw
with the in-game screenshots, the picture quality of the
Ti4600 is fantastic, showing extreme detail and realism.
On the other hand, we have the Asymmetric Cooling
System² performance issues.
On the surface, the
Asymmetric Cooling System²
looked like nothing we've ever seen before. With its
innovative "heat-pipe" system and two piece sandwich-like
construction, the ACS² looked to be a marvelous cooling
package. However, as we began to look closer at the
way the ACS² was implemented, as well as comparing its
performance to a reference cooling package, we soon
discovered it was not the superior cooling unit we hoped
it would be. As we, and
other websites have begun to question the effectiveness of the
ACS², we hope that eVGA will take the steps necessary to
improve upon its design, making it the advanced cooler that we
expected.
From a consumers standpoint, there is another solution to this problem, don't upgrade
your purchase to the ACS²
ready model, but instead opt for the stock cooling model and
spend the $50 you saved on a game like Jedi Knight II, you'll be glad
you did.
Not only did the eVGA e-GeForce4
Ti4600 with ACS² demonstrate excellent over all performance and
picture quality, the retail package was complete, with good
documentation and installation software.
Unfortunately, we have to take into account the lackluster
performance of the
Asymmetric Cooling
System²,
which weighed
heavily on this reviewer since it is an upgrade feature.
With that said, we give the eVGA e-GeForce4 Ti4600 w/ACS² a
Hot Hardware Heat Meter Rating of a 7.
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