GeForce4 Ti 4200 Overclocking April 11, 2002 Brandon "Sandman" Bell

Introduction

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The need for speed

Now that we know that NVIDIA’s GeForce4 Ti 4200 is the fastest graphics core in the sub-$200 market, we figured it was time to try our hand at overclocking this little gem. After all, who can turn down a free performance improvement? With this in mind we cranked the core clock speed up first, followed by the memory -- early on we were shooting for Ti 4400 levels, but held out hope for Ti 4600 results. Boy were we pumped when we were able to overclock our core to 285MHz, that’s just 15MHz shy of the Ti 4600!

Fortunately, the four nanosecond Hynix RAM on our 64MB Ti 4200 board was just as eager to overclock. We were able to get 600MHz out of our memory with no problems. Any settings higher would either result in visual tearing (in 3DMark 2001 SE) or instability (in Quake 3 while running with AA enabled). Our Hercules 3D Prophet FDX 8500LE utilizes the same RAM as our Ti 4200 reference board, however the lot number on our GeForce4 board was higher, therefore it’s possible that the newer batches of Hynix memory overclock better. This is often the case with semiconductor manufacturing, as time goes on the manufacturing process improves. As a result, yields increase, lowering production costs for the manufacturer and often gamers like us benefit from more substantial overclocking gains.

In any case, we were more than happy with our results. We’d just overclocked our $179 Ti 4200 board to higher levels than a stock GeForce4 Ti 4400!

System Setup

Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz

ABIT TH7II-RAID

256MB PC800 RDRAM

ATI RADEON 7500
ATI RADEON 8500 64MB
Driver version 7.67

Hercules 3D FDX Prophet 8500LE
Driver version 7.65

VisionTek Xtasy Ti 4600
VisionTek Xtasy Ti 4400
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 reference board -- 64MB
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 reference board -- (285 core/600MHz memory)
NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200 reference board
NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500 reference board
GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB -- (250 core/444MHz memory)
Driver version Detonator 28.32

30GB IBM Deskstar DTLA 307030 ATA/100 Hard Drive
AFREEY 12X DVD-ROM

Windows XP Professional

DirectX 8.1

Desktop Resolution: 1024x768x32

Benchmarks

3DMark 2001 Second Edition - 32-bit color, 32-bit textures
Quake 3 Retail - High Quality
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter - Normal (32-bit) The Elephant Atrium demo
Castle Wolfenstein MP Test - no compressed textures, (32-bit)
Comanche benchmark demo – High quality, 32-bit



SIDEBAR: Board manufacturers will begin shipping GeForce4 Ti 4200 boards at the end of this month.

3DMark 2001

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3DMark 2001 - DirectX 8

Notes

At stock speeds, the Ti 4200 falls nicely in place behind the Ti 4600 and Ti 4400, but once overclocked our Ti 4200 board finishes right between both boards. That equated to a 10% performance gain for us at 1280x1024x32 with 3DMark 2001 SE.




SIDEBAR: The Ti 4400 and Ti 4600 reference boards utilize memory manufactured by Samsung.

3DMark2001 Framerates

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3DMark 2001 - Car Chase

3DMark 2001 - Dragothic

3DMark 2001 - Lobby

3DMark 2001 - Nature

SIDEBAR: 3DMark was first released in 1998.

Serious Sam 2

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Serious Sam 2 - OpenGL

Notes

We see another nice performance gain in Serious Sam 2, for the most part our Ti 4200 offers the same level of performance as a stock GeForce4 Ti 4600!


SIDEBAR: Many of you have asked how nView will work with two CRT monitors if your GeForce4 card ships with VGA and DVI outputs. Most card manufacturers also provide a DVI-to-VGA adapter, but if not they can be found online for usually less than $20.

Quake III

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Quake III - High Quality

Notes

The overclocked Ti 4200 falls nicely in place between the Ti 4600 and Ti 4400 in Quake 3. At 1600x1200, overclocking our Ti 4200 board yielded a 15% performance improvement.


SIDEBAR: NVIDIA has put together a video collage of tech demos they’ve run in the past. Check it out here

Wolfenstein

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Return To Castle Wolfenstein MP Test

Notes

Since its more CPU-limited than our other tests, we have a harder time seeing the performance gains brought from overclocking the Ti 4200 core. Even at 1600x1200, we only see a six percent performance improvement.


SIDEBAR: NVIDIA also provides their entire collection of tech demos for download here

Comanche 4

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Comanche 4

Notes

As we discovered last week in our initial Ti 4200 preview, Comanche 4 is one of those applications that really takes advantage of the added memory present on the 128MB GeForce4 Titanium boards at 1600x1200. Even when overclocked, our 64MB Ti 4200 isn’t able to outperform a stock 128MB Ti 4200 board, much less a Ti 4400. Comanche 4 is extremely CPU-dependant, so in low-resolution situations the GeForce4 Titanium family performs roughly the same.

At 1600x1200, we did net a nine percent performance improvement.



SIDEBAR: NVIDIA recently ran a feature on Comanche 4 on their website. Including in the article is an interview with Mark Davis, Chief Scientist at Novalogic.

Quake 3 2xAA

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Quake III - High Quality

Notes

At 1280x1024 and up, we witnessed a 17% performance boost from overclocking our Ti 4200 board, bringing it ahead of the Ti 4400, but just a bit short of the Ti 4600.


SIDEBAR: Whatever happened to 3D glasses? That was a fad that sure died quick!

Quake 3 Quincunx AA

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Quake III - High Quality

Notes

Since Quincunx AA essentially comes “free” on the GeForce4 boards, we see the margin between the overclocked Ti 4200 board and the Ti 4600 remains roughly the same.


SIDEBAR: NVIDIA was founded in 1993.

Quake 3 4x AA

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Quake III - High Quality

SIDEBAR: As of this article’s writing, GF3 Ti 500s have only dropped to $215 on Price Watch. We have a feeling that price will fall through the floor once the Ti 4200 debuts!

Final Thoughts

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At stock clock speeds, it’s pretty hard not to get excited about the GeForce4 Ti 4200. NVIDIA has essentially brought four fifths of the performance of the GeForce4 Titanium series to the mainstream market. Once the Ti 4200 is overclocked, the entire gap is nearly overcome, at least in the case of our Ti 4200 card. That’s pretty incredible performance for a $179 graphics card, just a few months ago this kind of performance wasn’t even possible, and would have cost you two times the asking price of the Ti 4200 -- it’s pretty remarkable what NVIDIA has accomplished with the GeForce4 Titanium launch.

Once these boards become available, we have a feeling these cards are going to be extremely popular among the gaming community. Never before has NVIDIA packed this much performance for such a small price tag. With its incredible performance, nView built-in, and (depending on the card manufacturer) built-in video-in and video-out capabilities, we just don’t feel there’s a better value in the market than the GeForce4 Ti 4200. ATI’s RADEON 8500 LE is a good performer (roughly the equivalent of a GeForce3 Ti 200), but with its $199 retail price tag, it’s a bit too rich for our blood.

In our opinion, the hardest part will be choosing which Ti 4200 board to go with, one that follows NVIDIA’s basic reference design, or a card with a bit more panache. We certainly understand how difficult a decision it will be for many of you!

Now it’s time to wait for the retail boards to hit store shelves. It’s a shame none of the major retailers have started taking pre-orders for the Ti 4200 boards. We have a feeling there are quite a few gamers that would be more than happy to lay down their hard-earned cash for a Ti 4200 board sight unseen! Expect all of the major card manufacturers to have their best on display with the Ti 4200. It’s no secret that this is the card that’s priced to move quickly this spring and well into the summer.


SIDEBAR: Is the Ti 4200 too tempting for you to pass up, or do you plan on holding out for something else? Voice your thoughts in the news comments!