Gainward Golden Sample

[Intelman07]

I got a Ti4200 Golden Sample and i wanted to know how far i can overclock over the enhanced setting?

 

[Mem]

Go here for the 64mb Gainward GF4 Ti4200 Golden Sample,they had it up to 310 core,608mhz memory,remember no guarantee on what your card will do,so use website GF4 OC benchmarks as a guide only.

 

[AnAndAustin]

'Golden Sample' is a bit mis-leading for GF4TI cards, great in the GF3 days but the GF4TI varieties are no more o/c'able than any other GF4TI. Case in point is their 4200 cards. The 4200-64MB uses the VERY usual 3.6ns which almost all 4200-64 use which usually get to 600-630mhz, while their 4200-128MB use the VERY usual 4.0ns which almost all 4200-128 cards use and usually reach between 530-560. If you want a 4200 that is what the term 'Golden Sample' suggests then get an Asus 4200 Deluxe or a Suma 4200 Special Edition. These cards aren't truly 4200 but use almost everything from the 4400/4600 design and 3.3ns BGA RAM (faster than most 4400 IIRC). They are clocked higher by default (basicly v.near 4400 speed) and o/c to around 310/640 (Asus) and 310/700 (Suma). For me that is what a 'GOlden Sample' card should do and the Gainward 'Golden Sample' clearly don't.

 

[AnAndAustin]

So to put it short, expect the Gainward 'Golden Sample' 4200-64 to reach 300/620 and the 4200-128 to reach 300/550, basicly both the same as 98% of all 4200 cards. The extra 64MB of RAM is becoming ever more important and the 4200-128 at 250/444 is as fast as a 4200-64 at 285/600 whenever the 64MB limit is breached. To put these o/c's in perspective, standard clocks are 4200-128=250/444 4200-64=250/500 4400=275/550 4600=300/650 and a GF4TI4200 doesn't differ at all in technology to 4400 or 4600 and as such when the clocks are the same the perf is the same.

But that doesn't mean that Gainward's 4200 cards aren't good, they are, they simply aren't what most people expect. Gainward along with Leadtek are reknowned for the best GF display quality, although ALL GF4TI cards seem to have excellent IQ anyway. If you plan to use res above 1280x1024x32 for non-gaming and have a monitor which can do so at 72Hz+ then you should see the diff, otherwise don't pay any extra to get a Gainward.

 

[Mk1980]

OK, I have this 128 piece of card, quality is briliant, overclocking to 310\560 possible,and also one artifact in 5 minutes or nothing on 580mhz memory, when I get cooling close to it, no artifacts for sure in 600 , I don`t think that is bad , I like it.

 

[BFG10K]

'Golden Sample' is a bit mis-leading for GF4TI cards, great in the GF3 days but the GF4TI varieties are no more o/c'able than any other GF4TI.

Except that the overclock is manufacturer guaranteed on Golden Sample cards but it isn't on other cards.

 

[Sensor]

So what speed is "guaranteed" on Gainward GF4 Ti-4200 golden sample cards? 300/550?

Specifically, they guarantee "Enhanced mode", but using newer nVidia reference drivers doesn't grant acecss to "ExperTool", so I'd like to know what to set the overclock to manually.

 

[Mk1980]

Hey I`ve got air cooler under my 128mb gainward ti4200 and I can run now memory on 580 without artifacts, that`s 20mhz more, not too much but better then nothing, also 310mhz core got cool stability in hot days now. But I am here in Slovakia, if I have chance I rather would buy Asus 8420 ti4200 128mb or even better 128mb suma platinum, these cards are best overclockers as people said card is built like ti4600 ;-) , and all about ti4200 and ti 4600 is one funny thing, because soooooo many people run these cards overclocked and got different speeds, but in modern games around 35 and 40 fps on titanium serie cards GF4 will be performance nearly same in this heave GPU dependent games from overclocked ti4200 to 4600.

 

[Mk1980]

sorry I saw now that you have your card, I am little tired ;-) . 64mb peace is better overclocker, you can push it with air cooling to 640mhz memory I think for sure,

 

[AnAndAustin]

Mk1980 the 4200-64MB is the better o/c'er but even the higher clocks don't compensate when more than 64MB is req, something some current games do and most new games will certainly will do. 4200-64MB is a great card and even before it's o/c'ed it outperforms the GF3TI500 and Rad8500 but o/c'ed to VERY near 4600 speeds it totally whips their asses! As the price diffs are small I'd rec 4200-128MB over 4200-64MB even though the 4200-64MB o/c's higher.

The main beef I have with Gainward is not their 'Golden Sample' branding which in the GF3TI200 days meant a whole lot more. As I said their cards use the same speed RAM as almost every other GF4TI card and as such they don't o/c any better. Of course Gainward cards are great but their badging is certainly mis-leading, they use mis-leading names like 'GF4 PowerPack Ultra 650 TV GS' for their GF4MX440 (LOL), 'GF3 PowerPack TI 450 Golden Sample' for their GF3TI200 64MB and finally 'GF2 TI 450' for their GF2PRO ... now that's blatently mis-leading and must have caught out many people esp those with less technical knowledge or time to check.

As for the o/c certified by Gainward's ExperTool for their 'Golden' 4200 cards I'm pretty sure it is about that of standard 4400 cards at 275/550 at least on their 64MB version with 3.6ns, this would seem a bit high for their 128MB version which uses 4.0ns where 275/500 is more likely.