Video cards roundup: MSI versus Triplex (GeForce4 Ti4200-8x & Ti4800SE) Review
Triplex GeForce4 Ti4800SE
The GeForce4 Ti4800SE graphics chip costs a step higher than the Ti4200-8x, and the difference in approach to video cards based on these GPUs is already significant. Primarily because of the cost (on the date of writing this article the Triplex Ti4800SE card cost 1.4 times higher than Triplex Ti4200-8x). First of all, the shipment of the Triplex Ti4800SE card: these video cards sell in gleamy aluminum cases with a pair of locks and a transparent window in the lateral wall.
The video card itself rests on black foam-rubber, with two gleamy radiators on the memory chips below... All this resembles a James Bond's kit. I won't argue, this is one of the best packages for video cards I have ever seen.
Under the thick layer of foam-rubber inside the case there are usual accessories of the video card - a couple of CDs, a User's manual, cables for plugging in video equipment, the already familiar VIVO splitter, a S-Video-composite adapter and a DVI-VGA adapter.
Take a look at the video card itself. In fact, the situation with Ti4800SE-based boards is a bit unclear. Some of them feature the design of Ti4200-8x's and regular DDR SDRAM memory, others have the design of Ti4600's and therefore the DDR SDRAM memory in the BGA case. The Triplex Ti4800SE video card falls within just the latter type.
As you can see from the photo, it is a full-sized AGP video card with the PCB inherited from the GeForce4 Ti4600. The video card's GPU has the same cooler as it is on Triplex GeForce4 Ti4200-8x cards, but the memory cooling was given most focus by Triplex engineers.
On each pair of chips there is a double radiator. It is made up of two aluminum radiators connected with one another. Radiators installed on the video card's front panel are blown by the air coming from the fan on the GPU cooler. So the memory on the front side is intensely cooled. But what about the reverse side of the video card? On the reverse side of the video card, there are four DDR SDRAM chips. By default, no radiators are installed on these memory chips, but they are shipped as bundled items to the video cards, so the user will have to fit them on his own.
 Note that equally high radiators are installed on the front side of the video card. Today many video card manufacturers are installing thin heat distributor plates or low radiators on the reverse side of graphics cards. Due to safety reasons, this is the right solution - an expansion card installed above the AGP video card won't rest against the video card's cooling system. But in modern motherboards featuring no other expansion ports above the AGP port this precaution does not make sense, and nothing prevents the user from installing full-featured radiators on the chips behind the video card, the way Triplex suggests that we should do.
On each of the radiators there is a thick adhesive pad made of thermal-transfer material. It suffices to remove the protective film and press it to the memory chips to make the radiator sit firmly in place. They glue so strongly that will never fall off, although you can remove them if necessary.
On the video card there is Samsung DDR SDRAM memory marked as K4D26323RA-GC2B and placed into a BGA case featuring 2.8 access time. That means the rated memory frequency is 7 14 MHz. Since the default operation speed of the memory is 550 MHz, we arrive at the conclusion that the video card is simply designed for overclocking and it is unfavorable to ignore its overclocking.
Having removed the cooler from the video card, we can see the GeForce4 Ti4800SE chip itself. However strange that may be, but the chip does not show its precise marking. That is, its says Ti-8x, but there is no the 4800 marking here.
To display image on the second display through a DVI-I-out, a regular Silicon Image Sil64CT64 transmitter is used. To perform the TV-out/Video-in functions, the Philips SAA 7108AE chip is used.
All in all, of the Triplex Ti4800SE's specific features noteworthy are the Ti4600's design, BGA-format memory and big radiators on all the memory chips. And of course we can't ignore the memory whose minimum frequency is a bit higher than that at which it runs by default. Let's see what it will result in during overclocking, but for now let's turn to the third video card, MSI Ti4800SE.
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