Some PC version of the GeForce4 Ti (shown here) include a VGA connector. Others may include dual DVI connectors or other variants. Click to see a closeup of one such card.NVIDIA has, for the first time, announced both "enthusiast class" and value-oriented products based on its newest chip technology simultaneously. Carrying Ti and MX monikers similar to those associated with previous generation GeForce3 Ti and GeForce2 MX chipsets, the new products are expected to effectively replace both lines, as manufacturers offering cards currently based on GeForce3 and GeForce2 MX GPUs (graphics processing units) are expected to transition to the new NV25 and NV17 chips.
Both lines, says NVIDIA, will share some common features, such as the "vView" feature that provides dual-display support similar to that provided by Matrox's "Dual-head" or ATI's "HydraVision." Both series support hardware transformations and lighting features. (Graphics accelerators supporting hardware T&L are required by some games, such as the Spider-Mac title.)
However, there are substantial differences, too. The most notable differentiator is the MX line's lack of support for vertex shaders and pixel shaders. The former is typically used for GPU-based 3-D object transformations (morphing, etc.), lighting, reflections and so on, while the latter is used for handling bump maps and other advanced texture-rendering features.
The first official news of the GeForce4 Ti ("Titanium") came on Feb. 5, when Apple officially unveiled its GeForce4 lineup. Fortunately, PC users didn't have to wait long. The official NVIDIA announcement came in Feb. 6. Here's a rundown of notable details.
First, and possibly most interestingly, Apple on Feb. 6 retracted its announcement of the GeForce4 for Macintosh, citing "some erroneous information."
Originally, it had claimed it would offer a GeForce4 Titanium AGP card with 128MB of memory "next month."
Perhaps mist significantly, reports of widely varying quality have emerged at a number of hardware review sites looking at various GeForce4 offerings. Typically (and, hopefully, not surprisingly), lower-cost cards often suffer from poor quality control -- an issue that reportedly has led nVidia to ask graphics card manufacturers to adhere more closely to its reference designs in the followup to the GeForce4, now expected to be officially unveiled in early 2003. See our Timeline for 2003 for more information on these and other relevant graphics hardware announcements.
Tom's Hardware characterizes the GeForce4 MX as "a product that is a development of GeForce2 MX and missing the funky features of GeForce3 or GeForce4 Ti." As has been the case with previous NVIDIA offerings, there are different products based on the MX technology. At the low-end, a chip called the 420MX model will be offered to original equipment manufacturers for their cheapest Geforce4 products. Retail cards are expected to focus on two higher-performing models, dubbed the MX440 and MX 460.
Clearly, the Geforce4 MX included in Apple's high-end G4 towers announced in Jan. 2002 is nowhere near as fast as a top-of-the-line GeForce4 Ti. According to information published by Apple, the GF4Ti can pump out 4.9 billion textured pixels per second. For comparison, Apple claims "well over 1 billion textured pixels per second" for the GeForce4 MX.
Caveats The DVD playback performance of VVIDIA cards continues to lag behind that of ATI's offerings; however, it is certainly adequate for most users (provided, of of course, that a DVD player, which may or may not be bundled with the card, is installed on the system).
We've also found that NVIDIA cards tend to be slightly more troublesome to configure on some computers. On one of our test computers running an otherwise trouble-free version of Windows XP, for example, full-screen rendering of 3-D graphics tended to crash the computer with a "blue screen of death." Substituting an ATI Radeon 8500 eliminated the problem.
The least expensive products bearing the GeForce 4 moniker will likely be OEM "MX420" cards based on 166MHz SDRAM. These products, concludes Tom's Hardware, offer poor performance only slightly better than that of a US$50 GeForce2 MX card. (The GeForce2MX was the worst performer in a recent roundup of 15 graphics cards from several manufacturers at Anandtech. ATI, for the record, was the top performer, with its Radeon 8500.)
The GeForce4 MX440 (which, at about C$160, currently represents our choice for best mid-range accelerator) and 460 cards rank much better, outperforming ATI's mid-range Radeon 7500. The MX460, note reviewers Thomas Pabst and Lars Weinand, runs as fast as GeForce3 Ti200 or even Ti500-based cards. The MX lineup's lack of support for vertex and pixel shaders, however, continue to make the GeForce4 Ti (or closeout models of the GeForce3) a better choice for those seeking full DirectX 8.x support for the best 3-D gaming performance.
Of course, few things change as rapidly as "best of breed" solutions in the computer world. At this writing, ATI's Radeon 9700 is top dog in 3-D accelerators and the GeForce 4 4200Ti is considered to offer the best bang for the buck in the NVIDIA world. For those looking at a reasonable compromise between high end performance and good value, either of these cards makes a good choice. Benchmarks results at Tom's Hardware show that the GeForce4 Ti significantly outperforms the ATI Radeon 8500 in several areas, especially FSAA performance -- and, in terms of eye candy, NVIDIA's new 4X-S anti-aliasing mode simply can't be beat. As we noted in our own review of the Radeon 8500, we think FSAA is a key feature for 3-D cards going forward, and one in which that NVIDIA clearly holds the current advantage. See the article entitled GeForce 4 Ti- Which Version Delivers the Most Bang for Buck? at Extremetech for more recommendations.
Post new comment