Deciding what Geforce 4 to buy. A tough decision.

[Pacinamac23]

I am gearing up for a big upgrade. My Duron and KT133 chipset with sdr ram are just not cutting it anymore with the new games. My first purchase though, will be a video card.

The Ti 4600 is out of the question, I am not going to spend that kind of money for amount of performance increase it gets. Really, I am wavering between the MSI Ti 4400 and the Gainward Ti 4200 with 64megs of ram. The price difference is about $70.

Looking at Newegg's website it shows that the Gainward Ti 4200 64meg has 3.5ns memory whereas the rest of the 4200s seem to have 4ns memory. This is definitely a big factor in my purchase. From what I know the 128meg versions of the ti4200 are clocked at 444mhz and the 64meg are at 500mhz. My question is, what would 3.5ns translate into?

Aside from the small performance gain the MSI has to offer it has a very very attractive bundle. Full VIVO capabilities, quite a few games and utilities and so on. My main concern is really the memory speed. I know the BGA ram is cooler and can be overclocked better and that is what makes me want to go for the MSI.

I am just looking for your personal opinions and perhaps experiences.

I am thinking that it may be a good idea to spend less and go with the Gainward 4200 because of a next-gen of cards coming out very soon, and from 3 manufacteurs at that. Certainly there may be some ground breaking technology around the corner and knowing that I spent less makes it much easier to upgrade sooner rather than later.

 

[Pacinamac23]

Looking at Anand's roundup it looks like the MSI 4400 has memory timed at 3.6ns. Is it possible that the ti4200 64meg from gainward actually has faster memory? Hmmmm

 

[Sk8ter]

You should check out a Leadtek Ti 4400 because i think they are a bit cheaper than the MSI card. This may help if your on a tight budget.

 

[Pacinamac23]

The MSI card is $229 and the only other 4400s I could find that were cheaper were for $225.

 

[acejj26]

i read the MSI card was really loud

i also read that the Abit card was the quietest 4400 out there....i'd go with that one. it only costs about $25 more than the 4200 but it has much higher headroom for o/c'ing

 

[salman327]

That loudness came from the extra speed on the fan, which keeps the card cooler. I think perhaps you'd have more ocing headroom w/ the msi 4400 card. However they're both good. At those prices, i'd go w/ a 4400 if you want 128 mb ram.

 

[murphy55d]

I went with the Gainward Ti4200- 128 MB version.

 

[Pacinamac23]

The main thing here is the ram speed. I don't mind having a 64meg card at all. The thing I really am wondering is if the Gainward ti4200 64meg really has 3.5NS ram, in that case the ram is actually faster than ram on most 4400s and would leave me with plenty of OCing headroom.

The loudness of the fan is not a big concern of mine.

 

[New2Computers]

I would put up the extra money now to get a 128mb card... it will save you money when it lasts you longer.

I think 64 meg cards are going to be struggling fairly soon as new games come out.

For the prices now I think the 4400s are a better value then the 4200s, but then again that is just my opinion I guess it depends if you are a serious gamer or not.

 

[Rayden]

Yes, the day has come where games REQUIRE 64mb of video card ram. thinking of Planetside. So i would go with the 128mb ti 4200, if you get the 4200. Only a few $ more, but will most likely last a bit longer.

 

[IcePhoenix]

Just to add my input. I bought a MSI 4400 GF4. I love it. Works GREAT. OCed to 4600 speeds and hasn't crashed yet. $230, 3 games (which all suck anyway), S-Video, and a DVI to VGA adaptor. As for sound, I can't hear it over my Dragon Orb

 

[Derango]

The Gainward 128MB Ti4200's memory is clocked at 540mhz out of the box, so I assume they use the same high quality memory in the 64MB card.

 

[Pacinamac23]

No one has really answered my question yet. It is really about memory speeds. So the gainword 4200 12 meg is clocked 540 out of box? That means then that the 64meg must be clocked higher simply because it uses 3.5ns memory rather than 4ns memory. Would I be correct in this assumption?