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Introduction
Gone
were the days when each card manufacturer trid
to outdo one another with their own version of
NVIDIA's chip. NVIDIA would set some speeds but
it was during the time of the TNT and TNT2 that
cards that ran faster than NVIDIA's rated speed
were seen. When the GeForce line came, everyone
followed the reference design and stuck to the
base clock speeds. Different brands of cards came
out quickly and with the diverse market, it would
be hard for a single card to stand out from the
rest. There were a few things that could make
a card stand out from the rest; people usually
looked at the price of the card, the features
it had like Video in and Video out, TV-out/DVI-out,
the software bundle, and the performance. All
in all, it was the whole package that people normally
looked at but for some, although some people didn't
really care about the other stuff but simply want
a card that could be overclocked well to gain
performance.
Gainward's
GeForce4 Ti 4200
One
of the famous names when it comes to high performance
cards is Gainward. They are at the level of Asus,
Hercules, LeadTek and VisionTek. Gainward
cards started to get a lot of attention with the
introduction of their "Golden Sample"
line of products and these cards basically had
extra features, usually in form of ViVo (Video-in/Video-out)
and/or DVI-Out and these cards were known to be
very good overclockers.
Gainward
now brings their cards in a fiery-red PCB which
would be perfect to match with an MSI board that
also comes in a red PCB. Gainward, like the other
card makers follow closely NVIDIA's reference
design for their cards although there could be
minor differences like the components used in
their cards. The full name of the top-of-the-line
GeForce4 Ti 4200 of Gainward is Gainward GeForce4
PowerPack! Ultra/650XP "Golden Sample"
but to make it short, it could simply be called
Gainward GeForce4 Ti 4200 "Golden Sample."
The
card however does not use the same heatsink used
in most GeForce4's like the Inno3D
and Palit.
Gainward chose to go with a circular heatsink
and a fan with more fins for more airflow. No
memory heatsinks were on the card and the card
used Samsung chips, with a 4ns rating.
Being
the "Golden Sample" of their GeForce4
Ti 4200's, this card could be overclocked better
than their normal GeForce4's. Gainward includes
a utility with their card called EXPERTool which
is their own overclocking utility as well as video
card utility. EXPERTool offers two settings for
the core and memory speeds of the card: default
and enhanced setting. Selecting the enhanced setting
would set the speeds of the card higher than the
default speed. In the case of the GeForce4 Ti
4200 128MB, the default would be 250/444 but selecting
the enhanecd setting would set the card to run
at 260/520. While it may not be a very high overclock,
this setting is guaranteed as stable as it is
when it is at default speed. It is a fact that
every other card could be overclocked but the
enhanced setting can be treated as the default
speed of the card compared to it being an overclocked
speed of other cards already. They can be pretty
much be said to be "overclocked out of the
box" or it's similar to buying a pre-tested
overclocked CPU.
Gainward
is also pretty generous when it comes to their
software bundle. They threw in a copy of WinDVD,
WinProducer and WinCoder, an OEM copy of Serious
Sam, Gainward's Driver CD and Gainward's Utility
CD. Aside Being the ViVo model, Gainward also
included the necessary connector/spliter to make
use of the ViVo functionalities of the card. The
card also comes with DVI-Out and so a DVI converter
also was included.
Since
this card is also based on the GeForce4 Ti 4200
chip, it also shares the same things that all
GeForce4 Ti's have in terms of features and technology
the only difference is the clock speed setting.
For a more detailed discussion on the GeForce4
Ti 4200 and its features, head over to the Inno3D
Tornado GeForce4 Ti 4200 Review and and Palit
Daytona GeForce4 Ti 4200 Review.
Overclocking
and Test System |
