ABit Siluro GF4 Ti4200
By: Dmitry Zinovyev
| Abit Siluro GF4 Ti4200 |
| Chipset |
GF4 Ti4200 |
| GPU Speed |
275 MHz |
| Memory |
550 MHz DDR; 64 Mb;
3.6 ns Hyundai-Hynix |
| Overclocking |
315MHz/600MHz DDR |
| Features |
OTES cooling system |
| Price: |
150$ (Pricewatch.com) |
The modern computer is in a way a vacuum cleaner that passes through innumerable cubic meters of air and dust. In those times when trees and mainframes were large and the CPU clock speeds measured in few megahertz, desktop equipment used to run fine without active cooling. For the modern PC user, those quiet times have gone for good - fans inside the computer made their homes on the CPU, on the motherboard chips, in the power supply, on the accelerator and even on the hard disks. Some overclocking enthusiasts make a liking for that stuff, but those who see the PC as merely a task tool and have to leave the computer running round the clock are not so excited about the high decibel whizz generated by modern cooling systems. Try falling asleep and relaxing in the immense roar coming from the turbine-like cooler placed on the Pentium 4 2.8 GHz while the processor is running SysMark. If you succeeded in that, then your nervous system is extremely robust and adaptive. Most of us can't boast such extreme abilities.
Meanwhile, the modern system can't run without effective cooling. The CPU clock speeds have overstepped the threshold of three thousand megahertz, the graphics chips clock speeds have turned 300 MHz, disks in HDDs rotate at speeds over 7000 RPM. All this hardware emits kilowatts of heat which needs to be dissipated. Unlike the hype and scoop accompanying the evolution of processors and accelerators, cooling systems evolve almost inconspicuously. The news that a processor has got past the point of a further gigahertz is perceived as a national celebration. But who on earth will jump with joy on hearing about the release of a new cooler or more effective cooling system? You never know ...
Abit Siluro GF4 Ti4200
By complexity, the modern graphics chip is identical to the CPU. The emitted heat is warming up not the accelerator alone, but the system on the whole, thus worsening its stability. The conventional means of cooling the powerful graphics chips implies using an active cooler made up of a small radiator with the fan blowing about it placed on top of the chip. The used air warmed up by the radiator fins is thrown into the system, then dragged over to the CPU where it is warmed up more by its own radiator, run through the power supply and released off the system. Maybe it makes sense inventing a way to release the air consumed by the accelerator off the PC case?
Today we'll be looking into a not quite conventional solution, the OTES cooling system, presented by Abit for video cards mostly based on the nVidia GeForce 4 chips.
The GeForce 4 Ti4200 chipThe core was announced later than their higher-end brothers Ti4600 and Ti4400. By the way, the latter was laid off for various reasons. In fact, all the video cards in the GeForce Ti line differ in the memory and core speeds only. It means if we install faster memory and overclock the chip a bit, we can get a board of the Ti4400 class or even 4600 at much lower price.
Let's take a quick look at the specifications:
| GeForce 4 |
Ti4200 |
Ti4400 |
Ti4600 |
| Code name |
NV25 |
NV25 |
NV25 |
| Process technology, (mk) |
0.15 |
0.15 |
0.15 |
| Core speed, MHz |
250 |
275 |
300 |
| Memory speed, (MHz, DDR) |
500 |
550 |
650 |
| Fill rate (MPix/MTex) |
1000/2000 |
1100/2200 |
1200/2400 |
| Triangles handled (MTriangles/s) |
63 |
69 |
75 |
As you can see, the GeForce 4 Ti 4200 was originally created for filling in the price niche between the top-end Ti4600 accelerators and the low-end line based on the NV17 (GeForce mx420440460). In reality, it turned out that the card is second to Ti4600, at almost half the price.
At this we are finishing with the introductory theoretical part and turning to the board itself, which we received for tests.
Recommended design vs. tuning
If we face the sad truth, the current sector of Hi-End 3D accelerators is shared between nVidia and ATi, while sure outsiders like Matrox or alternative manufacturers like 3DLabs have minimum weight on the market. As a result, the choice or really good chipsets is not that great. It's not our goal to describe ATi policies, since the review is focused on nVidia-based video card. nVidia offers manufacturers the reference board design which is then altered by the manufacturer in a whatever way. Various ways lead to high performance: the vast majority of manufacturers start tampering with the BIOS settings to squeeze out increased speeds in the chips thus running the risk of degraded stability; others concentrate their efforts on developing an alternative design or use more wired multilayered PCBs. dig the recommendations throughout and inside out and will achieve a stable functioning of specially selected chips; some might try building their own cooling system. Abit followed the latter path and after difficult confinement gave birth to OTES.
The nVidia GeForce 4 Ti4200 chip is taking a special niche on the market. On the one hand, it is the weakest in the GeForce 4 Ti line, on the other, its overclocking potentials are good and the witchcraft of squeezing out performance is worth the efforts. As a result, you can get a product having increased performance at the same low price, which the press will receive with outstretched arms. Most important in this tuning is not to kill the line of top-end products, because it is not easy a task to explain to the buyer why he should buy Ti4600 rather than overclocked Ti4200. Here alternative approach applies - for example, with the 'tuning' option the memory capacity is reduced by half, which entails less headaches for the marketing department.
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