Ti4200/128mb stable at 320/595.... 3dmarks inside!

[Leo V]

This is a Gainward "Golden Sample" Ti4200 that I bought from GamEVE.com for $162 shipped. The card has 128mb memory with Samsung 4ns chips. Having passed all crash and artifact tests under 3dmark2001se, I got the following overclocks (stock card, no mods! Same for my entire system!)

Core: 250-->320mhz (28%)
Mem: 444-->595mhz (34%)

3dmark2001se v330 results:

P4/2.26B @2.62ghz (1.5Vcore), 616fsb, 412ddr cas2 mem
WinXP SP1, Det40 drivers

1024x768x32 resolution:
3DMark Score 13392
Game 1 - Car Chase - Low Detail 197.8 fps
Game 1 - Car Chase - High Detail 67.0 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - Low Detail 236.6 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - High Detail 131.0 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - Low Detail 186.3 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - High Detail 84.4 fps
Game 4 - Nature 76.9 fps
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 1089.6 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 2424.8 MTexels/s
High Polygon Count (1 Light) 61.1 MTriangles/s
High Polygon Count (8 Lights) 13.4 MTriangles/s
Environment Bump Mapping 143.4 fps
DOT3 Bump Mapping 154.1 fps
Vertex Shader 104.8 fps
Pixel Shader 129.8 fps
Advanced Pixel Shader 98.1 fps
Point Sprites 31.1 MSprites/s

--------------------------------------------------------
640x480x16 resolution:
3DMark Score 16254
Game 1 - Car Chase - Low Detail 207.2 fps
Game 1 - Car Chase - High Detail 67.2 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - Low Detail 304.7 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - High Detail 156.8 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - Low Detail 197.0 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - High Detail 86.5 fps
Game 4 - Nature 147.8 fps
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 1259.8 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 2505.5 MTexels/s
High Polygon Count (1 Light) 65.5 MTriangles/s
High Polygon Count (8 Lights) 13.6 MTriangles/s
Environment Bump Mapping 193.3 fps
DOT3 Bump Mapping 360.8 fps
Vertex Shader 115.5 fps
Pixel Shader 205.7 fps
Advanced Pixel Shader 149.5 fps
Point Sprites 61.3 MSprites/s
---------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: For peace of mind, I have now reduced speed to have a safety margin. I reduced by around 3% everywhere, so my final setup is:
CPU--2.55ghz, 600fsb, 400mem
Vid--310mhz, 575mem

Test using my preferred settings:
Resolution: 800x600x32 @144Hz w/Quincunx FSAA, 2X Aniso, and texture sharpening

3DMark Score 10145--this is pretty bad!
Game 1 - Car Chase - Low Detail 163.1 fps
Game 1 - Car Chase - High Detail 62.9 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - Low Detail 151.6 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - High Detail 94.1 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - Low Detail 136.2 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - High Detail 69.0 fps
Game 4 - Nature 55.9 fps
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 533.2 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 633.1 MTexels/s
High Polygon Count (1 Light) 57.6 MTriangles/s
High Polygon Count (8 Lights) 12.9 MTriangles/s
Environment Bump Mapping 93.9 fps
DOT3 Bump Mapping 86.4 fps
Vertex Shader 87.1 fps
Pixel Shader 94.7 fps
Advanced Pixel Shader 50.8 fps
Point Sprites 25.2 MSprites/s
---------------------------------------------------------

Trying again, only this time with 1X Aniso:

3DMark Score 11250
Game 1 - Car Chase - Low Detail 180.8 fps
Game 1 - Car Chase - High Detail 62.9 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - Low Detail 172.3 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - High Detail 105.6 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - Low Detail 158.3 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - High Detail 75.7 fps
Game 4 - Nature 62.6 fps
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing) 532.7 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing) 633.7 MTexels/s
High Polygon Count (1 Light) 57.9 MTriangles/s
High Polygon Count (8 Lights) 12.9 MTriangles/s
Environment Bump Mapping 116.6 fps
DOT3 Bump Mapping 105.1 fps
Vertex Shader 94.0 fps
Pixel Shader 126.9 fps
Advanced Pixel Shader 71.2 fps
Point Sprites 25.2 MSprites/s

Much better now, eh?
---------------------------------------------------------


Remarks:
1) No performance loss from 1X Aniso, but does it even do anything?
2) Overclocking AGP made no difference in the scores (beyond statistical noise). Thus, AGP4X seems sufficient for current hardware.
3) Very good 2D image quality (1600x1200x32 @85hz on Sony G500), same observed on 2 other Gainward GF4 ti4200 cards that passed through my hands. I am starting to really like Gainward, they build decent quality cards.

 

[Mikki]

Nice oc, nice scores, nice info!

 

[Leo V]

added results with my actual preferred setup

 

[Imported]

Not bad at all. Very similar to my results..

I noticed in your other thread you could overclock the mem past 600.. How did you do that? I've tried various programs and haven't been able to. I ran it at 285/630 using the 30.xx Dets, but with 40.xx, I can't get that high..

 

[Leo V]

I simply used NVFLASH.EXE to extract my video BIOS, then loaded it into NVIDIA BIOS editor (I can't remember where I got them, you should be able to find them on NVIDIA fansites). I used the editor to set "native" core/mem speeds to something high, like 275/550. (I wanted to trick Windows into thinking it was a ti4400, but it's impossible because its ID is hardcoded.) Then I wrote the new BIOS onto the card. It's very easy.

NVIDIA's overclocking tab sees that the "native" speeds are 275/550 and correspondingly opens up a much higher range for core/memory speeds. Right now, my max options are 345/690.

Another plus of modifying the BIOS is that you can avoid using overclocking software altogether--just set it to the desired speed.

 

[SupermanCK]

nice....never tho of overwriting the cards bios...congrat and nice numbers...