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If variety is
the "spice of life", then it is safe to say that NVIDIA is
cooking up some "Three Alarm Chili" these days and
it's guaaaaraaaanteed (insert thick Cajun Bayou accent
here), to make you thirsty for a cool drink of 3D
polygon pushing refreshment. There are so many
flavors of GeForce4 product in the retail channel, the
unsuspecting consumer could get down right befuddled at
the myriad of choices and performance levels, offered by
the various incarnations of NVIDIA's GeForce4. Mind
you, we're not complaining about this situation with
NVIDIA product. After all, that's what keeps on line
publications, like HotHardware.com, in business.
We're here to sort things out for you, tell it like it is
and hopefully, as a result, you'll be able to make a
somewhat informed decision on your next graphics card
purchase, or any new system upgrade for that matter.
On the flip side however, just think what it might be like
in our shoes, trying to sort out all the features,
specifications and target markets for each of these new
products. You think you're confused? Pass the
pitcher of Margaritas please. I just got singed by
some of life's spice, if you know what I mean.
Now let's
think of this from a manufacturing perspective. For
NVIDIA, as a chip supplier, speed bins and branding are as
simple as changing a silk screen on a part marking, before
boxing a part up for shipment. Perhaps that scenario
is a bit of over an simplification but with today's fully
automated assembly and test environments, it's not too far
off the mark. On the other hand, from a third party
OEM like
VisionTek's perspective, keeping track of all those
SKU codes in the channel and more importantly, finished
goods inventory levels, can be a bit of a juggling act,
one that will drive the corporate "Bean Counters" crazy.
Regardless, in today's competitive environment at the
retail level, if you can gain an edge by having a price
point that will catch the end user's eye, then it's "game,
set and match", you won.
That's what
this next product on the HotHardware.com test bench, is
all about. The VisionTek XTasy GeForce4 Ti4400 comes
in at a price point well below the average Ti4600 card,
yet utilizes the same GeForce4 graphics chip, with the
exception of a lower core clock speed and slower speed bin
DDR SDRAM chips. So, just where does this spicy
addition to NVIDIA's pot of Three Alarm Graphics Chili fit
in? We'll show you the detail and numbers and then
let you make the call.
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Specifications and Features of the XTasy
GeForce4 Ti 4400 |
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A card and some
drivers, nothing too exciting but the focus is
on value |
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VisionTek
XTasy GeForce4 Ti 4400
- 275MHz GeForce 4 Ti
GPU
- VGA, TV In/Out, DV
- 256-bit Graphics
Accelerator
Nvidia nfiniteFX II Engine:
- Dual programmable
Vertex Shaders, faster Pixel Shaders
Lightspeed Memory Architecture II:
- With 128-bit DDR
Lightspeed Memory Architecture II provides nearly
double the memory bandwidth of GeForce3.
Accuview Antialiasing Engine:
- High-performance and
stunning visual quality at high frame rates.
TV
Out Jack:
- On-board TV-out
supports both RCA and S-video up to 1024x768
resolution.
Cooling solution:
- on-board active
heat-sink cooling fan
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Specifications:
- Controller: NVIDIA
GeForce4 Ti 4600
- Bus Type AGP
- Memory 128MB DDR
- Core Clock 275MHz
- Memory Clock 550MHz
DDR memory
- RAMDAC 350MHz
- API Support
Direct-X, Open GL ICD for Windows
- Connectors VGA, DVI,
TV In/Out
- 1.12 Trillion
operations/sec.
- 125 Million
triangles/sec
- 8.8GB/sec memory
bandwidth
Features at a Glance:
- AGP 4x compatible
with fast writes
- 256-bit 3D and 2D
graphics accelerator
- NVIDIA nView display
technologies
- Lightspeed Memory
Architecture II
- Accuview
Antialiasing
- High Definition
Video Processing Engine
- TV Out connector
- DVI connector
Package Contains:
- XTasy GeForce4 Ti
4400 Graphics Card
- Quick Start Guide
- Installation CD and
NVIDIA Drivers
- Cyberlink Power DVD
- Cyberlink
PowerDirector
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In a word, "spartan".
This would best describe the bundle that comes with the
VisionTek XTasy GeForce4 Ti 4400. There are two CDs
in the box, one for the drivers and manuals and another
for Cyberlink's Power DVD and Power Director. Power
DVD, as you may already be aware, is one of the best
Software DVD Player packages for the PC on the market.
Power Director is Cyberlink's video desktop editing
software bundle. It too is very adept at what it
does and is very easy to use. Other than that, the
XTasy Ti4400 is all by itself in the box. However,
that is plenty in our opinion. The hardware is where
it is at with this package.
NVIDIA's
reference design was utilized in almost every facet of
this product. Even the Heat Sink and Fan assembly is
the NVIDIA design that we've seen on GeForce4 MX products.
This cooler does an excellent job at keeping the GPU cool
as well as blowing air across the RAM chips, keeping them
cool in the process, without the need for individual sinks
on the RAM components. Speaking of the RAM chips,
the Samsung DDR SDRAM chips that VisionTek used on this
board, are rated at 3.6ns or 550MHz. However, they
could be capable of a little better than that and we'll
show you more in our overclocking section, as well as what
the GPU can handle.
Finally, the
Conexant
line of Video Encoders have also been in production with
NVIDIA boards for quite a while. These chips provide
all of the TV-Out interface logic that the GeForce4 needs
to support this function. A standard TV display,
driven off this card, works fairly well. However,
the quality is best suited for gaming versus business
work, like Power Point presentations and such.
Let's fire
things up.
Setup,
Overclocking and Screen Shots
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