nVidia GeForce 4 TI4600

The most ludicrously, unbelievably speedy graphics processing unit in all creation.

Price: £350

Manufacturer: nVidia

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There's now no reason to turn FSAA off, so your games will look better. Dual-monitor support has been improved too. Inevitably, however, it will be sold at an enthusiasts-only price.

Stuart Andrews, Personal Computer World 07 Feb 2002

Pity those who, five months ago, shelled out for a GeForce3 TI500. Having faced tougher than expected competition from ATI's Radeon 8500, it's already yesterday's chip.

With almost indecent haste, nVidia has a new flagship product, and one that's destined to stop ATI crowing. The GeForce4 TI4600 is, without any doubt, the most ludicrously, unbelievably speedy Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in all creation.

In fact, if big numbers are all that matter you can save yourself some time right now - just look at the graphs and prepare to extend your overdraft. Our Geforce4 reference board produced staggering results on our test system.

At any resolution, with or without Full-Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA), where jagged edges in games are smoothed, making scenes look more realistic, the Geforce4 TI4600 whips any other card going. In fact, if you want 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x FSAA switched on, it's the only board that can handle the job. That's just one benefit of having a whacking 128Mb of DDR memory onboard.

Some of this performance increase can be put down to clock and memory speed increases, with the former now set at 300MHz and the memory clocked at 325MHz. Because it's DDR memory, this effectively runs at 650MHz. However, the Geforce architecture hasn't been left untouched.

First, the NfiniteFX 3D engine has been overhauled, with a new dual Vertex Shader pipeline and an enhanced Pixel Shader, resulting in a theoretical three times increase in Geometry performance and a 50 per cent speed increase in Pixel Shader operations.

In most current 3D applications you won't see quite that much difference but, in future applications that make heavy use of Pixel and Vertex Shaders, you should see NfiniteFX II pulling the TI4600 even further away from the competition.

Meanwhile, an improved version of the GeForce3's Lightning Memory Architecture, means that bandwidth between the 300MHz GPU and the 650MHz DDR memory chips reach a staggering 10.4Gbps - a significant move up from the TI500's 8Gbps.

Not only is the pipeline fatter, but it's also running more efficiently thanks to improved Z-Culling techniques (where the card doesn't bother drawing what you can't see) and a system of independent caches managing the flow of the 3D data.

Now, all of this isn't too exciting if it just means a jump from 70fps (frames per second) to 100fps when Unreal 2 is launched, but nVidia is stressing that the sheer amount of power on offer makes previously unavailable effects - realistic fur, for example - very possible. Whether furry varmints actually start making an appearance on our desktops next year is, of course, a matter for developers of 3D games.

Luckily, there is one improvement that will make a tangible difference now: Accuview Anti-Aliasing. Previously, if you turned anti-aliasing on at high resolutions, your game slowed to a crawl.

With the TI4600, you still suffer a performance hit when switching FSAA on - Quake III Team Arena drops 30fps at 1,280 x 1,024 with 2x FSAA - but it's a manageable one, and pushing it up to 4x FSAA still keeps you within playable levels.

In fact, you can run Return to Castle Wolfenstein at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x FSAA switched on and still play at 50fps. And yes, it looks gorgeous! Sadly, we were unable to test the new, high-quality 4sx mode, which promises to sharpen the image further with finer colour graduations combined with high-detail anisotropic filtering, but the final drivers should make that possible.

Dual-monitor technology is also improved and nVidia is now finally up to Matrox's high standards in this department. The desktop manager is now smart enough to pop up dialogue boxes where it's told, rather than in the centre of the two monitors. Our preview card arrived with three connectors on it: the standard D-Sub, an S-Video TV-out, and a digital DVI connector.

So, one to rush out and buy? Well, if you're putting together the ultimate games machine, then yes. Otherwise, be patient. Even a year after the release of the GeForce3 there are very few titles that really demand that level of performance, while Pixel and Vertex Shaders still have to make any serious impact on games.

All this good stuff is coming, but at the moment you'll be paying around £350 to watch some spectacular demos run. For now, waiting seems the sensible option.

Contact: Nvidia www.nvidia.com

This article will appear in the April issue of Personal Computer World, along with a review of nVidia's new £100 graphics card, the Geforce 4 MX. The April issue is available from newsagents on 28 February.

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