Preview: Early GF4 Ti 4600 samples (2/12) |
By Lars Weinand - Editor In Chief RIVA Station / Editor Tomīs Hardware Guide 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:
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 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. |
Copyright: 11.03.2002 - RIVA Station 2002 - Lars Weinand URL of this Article: www.rivastation.com/gf4-prev_e.htm - If you want to link to it, please use this URL! :-) |
