Big Little Sister - The GeForce4 Ti4200

Specifications

Finally, all nay-sayers and doubters can be silenced: NVIDIA is definitely going to produce the Ti4200, and moreover, we can expect to see retail cards on the shelves by the end of April! The six-layer board of the Ti4200 looks very different from that of its siblings Ti4400 and Ti4600. Instead of using a long PCB with its impressive array of power supply components and transformers, the Ti4200 chip will reside on a shorter board with many fewer components. At a glance, one might even mistake it for a GeForce3 board.

The clock speeds quoted in our GeForce4 launch article (PC Graphics Beyond XBOX - NVIDIA Introduces GeForce4 ) are no longer up-to-date. NVIDIA will run the model we are testing here, the $199 128 MB version, which will sell for $199, at a core speed of 250 MHz and a memory speed of 222 MHz (444 MHz DDR). The 128Bit DDR SDRAM modules feature an access time of 4ns, which seems a bit low for the specified frequencies. Perhaps NVIDIA will change these specifications, though. The 64 MB versions will run at a higher memory speed (250 MHz, or 500MHZ DDR) and will cost only $179. At this point, no other details are available regarding this board, for example, whether the RAM will also use the new BGA format, like the other Ti models, or if there might also be an SDRAM version.

Aside from the lower clock speeds and the changed layout, there are no differences between the Ti4200 and the other Ti models. This makes the 4200 a full-fledged GeForce4 Ti, including full multi-monitor support (two integrated RAMDACs) and the trademark dual vertex shaders of the GeForce4 Ti. You can find more information on the technology behind the Ti chips here