Contents

1. Peculiarities of the Sparkle Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4600 and ASUS V9280S (Super Fast Series) 
2. Testbeds, test tools, 2D quality
3. Information on performance of GeForce4 Ti video cards 
4. Conclusion

Although there are not many girls who can consider themselves experts in video cards, the video card from Sparkle is designed exactly for them! :-) 

This Taiwanese company whose production facilities are located in China is well known in the world. Unfortunately, its cards are often named in price-lists as simply "NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 VIVO" and sell at very low prices. We understand that it's Sparkle, because it produces all such cards with VIVO and noname companies hardly deal with such cards. But why don't they indicate the company's name? Its name is anyway written on the boxes. Besides, Sparkle produces cards for eVGA which is so popular in the USA. 

The second product is from so famous ASUSTeK. The video card department has changed a lot regarding variety of lines and the price policy. 

Once overpriced cards now have their prices much down, the company develop new families based on the same chipset within which cards differ in features, accessories etc. Just take a look at the GeForce4 Ti 4200 family which includes 4 or 5 cards including solutions based on the Ti 4600" PCB - V8420S. Contrary to a similar card from Albatron, the V8420S has frequencies of both memory and chip increased, and this card can easily compete against the Albatron's product. 

However, we wrote about all that stuff in the reviews listed below. 

  Theoretical and analytical videocard reviews, containing functional analysis of NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti GPU: NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti

• NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti review
• MSI GF4Ti4600 on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti - concerns anisotropic filtering in the 3DMark2001 SE, and new Advanced Pixel Shader Test from this packet.
• Leadtek WinFast GeForce4 Ti 4600 on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 - tests based on the Vulpine GLMark with anisotropy enabled.
• Gainward PowerPack GeForce4 Ultra/700XP and Ultra/750XP Golden Sample on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400/4600 - Codecult Code Creatures and Novalogic Comanche4 Benchmark.
• Chaintech A-GF61 SE on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 - dependence of the performance on a CPU speed (AMD Athlon 750, 1000 MHz, Athlon XP 1250, 1666 MHz; in Serious Sam II, Return to Castle Wolfenstein).
• Creative 3D Blaster GeForce4 Ti 4400 on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 - dependence of the performance on a CPU speed (Intel Pentium III 1000, Pentium 4 2000, 2200 MHz; in Serious Sam II, Return to Castle Wolfenstein).
• ASUS V8440 and V8460 on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 and 4600 - dependence of the performance on a CPU speed (Intel Pentium III 1000, Pentium 4 2000, 2200 MHz, AMD Athlon 750, 1000 MHz, Athlon XP 1250, 1666 MHz; in 3DMark2001 SE).
• ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 - AA operation in the 3DMark2001 SE.
• Palit Daytona GeForce4 Ti 4600 - operation of anisotropy on different platforms based on the 3DMark2001 SE (Game1, Game2).
• Joytech Apollo Bloody Monster II GeForce4 Ti 4600 - examination of anisotropy on different platforms on the 3DMark2001 SE (Game3, Game4).
• S/U/M/A/ Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4400 DVI and GeForce4 Ti 4600 SE - examination of anti-aliasing on different platforms in 3DMark2001 SE (Game1, Game2).
• Triplex Millennium Silver GeForce Ti 4600 - examination of anti-aliasing on different platforms in 3DMark2001 SE (Game3, Game4).
• Leadtek WinFast A250LE 64 MBytes and Gainward Powerpack Ultra/650XP 128 MBytes on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200
• S/U/M/A/ Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4200 64 MBytes, GeForce4 Ti 4200 SE 64 MBytes, GeForce4 Ti 4200 SE 128 MBytes - examination of anisotropy in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Serious Sam: The Second Encounter.
• S/U/M/A/ Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4200 64 MBytes, 4200SE 64 MBytes and 4200SE 128 MBytes - examination of anisotropy in 3DMark2001 SE, RtCW, Serious Sam: TSE.
• Sparkle GeForce4 Ti 4400 and GeForce4 Ti 4600 cards
• Albatron GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB, Sparkle GeForce4 Ti 4200 128MB and Gainward Powerpack Ultra/650XP GS 64MB on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 - analyses of the Nvidia's quick anisotropy under the 30.* drivers in 3DMark2001SE. 
• Galaxy 3G Graphic GeForce4 Ti 4200 64MB, MSI GF4Ti4200 VIVO 64MB, Triplex Millennium Silver GeForce4 Ti 4200 64MB on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 - operation of VIVO on such cards of the GeForce4 family, and performance in Unreal Tournament 2003 DEMO final release 
• NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 With AGP8x (NV28) 
• ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES and ASUS V8420S on NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 

As the name of the Sparkle Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4600 card indicates, it uses the Ti 4600 but with some improvements implied by the word Platinum. Today we will also study the ASUS's solution which is based on the GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8x (NV28) - V9280S from the SuperFast series. But this is also more than just Ti 4200-8x: this is a card on the same Ti4600's PCB. 

Cards

Sparkle Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4600
ASUS V9280S (Super Fast Series) 128MB

Sparkle Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4600
The card has AGP x2/x4 interface, 128 MB DDR SDRAM located in 8 chips on both PCB sides.  It comes with Samsung memory marked as K4D26323RA-GC2B of the maximum frequency of 350 (700) MHz which corresponds to 2.8ns. The memory works not at 325 (650) MHz which is typical of Ti 4600, but at 340 (680) MHz. And the GPU runs at standard 300 MHz. This is thus a bit improved version of the Ti 4600. Since the Gainward Golden Sample this is the second card on such GPU with lifted up frequencies.
ASUS V9280S (Super Fast Series) 128MB
The card has AGP x2/x4 interface, 128 MB DDR SDRAM located in 8 chips on both PCB sides.  It comes with Samsung memory marked as K4D26323RA-GC2B of the maximum frequency of 350 (700) MHz which corresponds to 2.8ns. It's the first time when a Ti 4200 card comes complete with the memory of Ti 4600. But the card works at 300 (600) MHz. Although it's much higher than a speed of usual Ti 4200 cards, it's still far from the level of Ti 4600 - 325 (650) MHz. Nevertheless, it is a good present for overclockers! The GPU runs at 275 MHz, which is also an increased frequency for the Ti 4200. In fact, this is an advanced Ti 4400! Plus AGP 8x. I think at expected $200-210 this card will sell like hot cakes.

Comparison with the reference design, front view
Sparkle Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4600	Reference card NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600
ASUS V9280S (Super Fast Series) 128MB	Reference card NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8x

Comparison with the reference design, back view
Sparkle Platinum GeForce4 Ti 4600	Reference card NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600
ASUS V9280S (Super Fast Series) 128MB	Reference card NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8x

Now the most tasty thing - an unusual design of the Sparkle's card, and first of all, the design of its cooling system. 

The cooler consists of two heatsinks (like on a similar card from Leadtek) meant for the chip and memory. Such approach is not ideal as heavy heatsinks can move in course of operation breaking the contact between the heatsinks and the chips, and the chip can be like in a hothouse. It causes overheating and failures. 

Although these heatsinks have heat-conducting pads which make the contact with the chips tighter, I still think that separate heatsinks for a core and memory would be a more reliable and effective solution. One of the advantages is the shape of the turn of the big heatsink over the card in the form of a cylinder with a large hole. If they mounted an additional fan blowing air along the card the air would pass through this hole cooling down the heatsink. 

The whole cooler will be shown below. 

The card supports hardware monitoring of the card's state which is based on the daughter card on the left on top. Don't worry: this is not shifting of the d-Sub onto a daughter card but mounting of respective elements on a small plate: 

The large heatsink has a copper base which is well polished. The other heatsink made in the form of a plate which is mounted on the back of the card for cooling memory, but it's not that good as it should be: 

On the front side there are separate heatsinks for the memory chips (one for a pair). 

The cooler hides the GPU itself: