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Overclocking
Overclocking such a fast card may seem like overkill, and unless you plan to play at high resolution, it is. As we've stated a dozen times before, low resolution is more CPU taxing, and higher resolution is more video card intensive.
Despite owning a fast system, I still play most of my online games at 1024x768. The reason I do that, is because high framerates are an absolute must for me. Yes, as you'll see later on, the GeForce 4 allows for fast, high resolution gaming, but in multiplayer games, there will be times when a video card might get overwhelmed, and drops in framerates can be a killer. Although a card may benchmark 130 FPS at 1600x1200, that is only an average. Even on a high end card, you can expect framerates to drop by half in a 32 player Wolfenstein fragfest. At 1024x768, I'll always maintain over 125 FPS, which is why I play at that resolution. Single player games are different, as I'll play at 1280x1024 or higher. Since the system is only concentrating on your experience, I'll sacrifice some of the framerates for eye candy.
That being said, for single player games, I turn on all the eye candy, and play at high resolution. It can get choppy, and this is where overclocking might come in handy.
  
Stock (left), Overclocked high (middle), Overclocked low (right_
I was actually disappointed that we seemed to fall within the "below average". The ram overclock was a little lower than what I expected, as the ram is rated for that speed anyways. Anything higher than our 305/710 led to 3D Mark crashing. Now, anyone can fiddle around with the overclocking, and snap a screenshot, but for me, a successful video overclock means 3D Mark can be run, and completed, 5 times.
The above is at 1600x1200 with 32 bit colour enabled. Everything was at default. Depending on how much more we overclocked, we'd get random errors. We did manage a 315/710 overclock, and run 3D Mark twice, but we still got lockups by the third try. We even managed an overclock of 314/716, and it ran Windows alright, but whenever we started 3D Mark, it would continually lock up on the Game 1 test. So, instead of outrageous 3D Mark scores, we got this instead...
Since our Visiontek Xtasy Ti4600 is one of the first revisions, as well as being the top end part, I guess I shouldn't have expected any spectacular overclocking results. I did not modify the card with additional cooling, as I wanted to give results that would be possible to attain by anyone. Bear in mind that every setup is different, and you may score lower, or higher than we did.
Benchmark Setup
I'm not sure how many of you have read Maximum PC's GeForce 4 article, but they had a set of benchmarks using an older Pentium 4 where the results were less than special. Before some of you trash the Pentium 4 architecture, a friend with an Athlon 1.2 GHz suffered a similar fate. Make no mistake, unless you have a high end CPU, you'll be wasting a lot of potential power with the GeForce 4. Keep in mind that this does not mean it's a bad purchase. Given the design of the GeForce 4, as you upgrade the CPU, the video card can be migrated to the new machine.
Anyhow, we prepped our rig up for maximum performance, so here we go...
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67GHz)
Asus A7V266-E
512MB Kingston DDR PC2100
2 x 80GB Maxtor 7200rpm ATA100, RAID-0
Soundblaster Live! Audigy
Windows XP Pro
VIA 4-in-1 v4.38
nVidia Detonators 28.32
3D Mark 2001 SE
Quake 3 Arena
Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Villagemark
Comparison Hardware:
Visiontek Xtasy 6964 GeForce 3 Ti500
ATi Radeon 8500 LE
PNY GeForce 4 Ti4600
We actually tested the PNY GeForce 4 solution earlier, but since we're still finishing up the review, we can still provide numbers for an apples to apples comparison. Realizing the Radeon 8500 and Ti500 may be outclassed for these tests, both are still fine cards for todays gamers. They were king of the hill a mere 2 months ago, and I'm including them simply for the sake of showing how far graphics speed has come. Because of the power of the modern video card, we're dropping all tests of below 1024x768 for the top end cards. I figure, if you paid 400$ for a video card, you better already have at least a 17" monitor and play at high resolutions. With the faster processors available, high resolution will shift the onus of the work on the video.
Prev Page - GeForce 4 Debrief
Next Page - Benchmarks - Quake 3 Engine
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