Leadtek GF4ti 4400 & ti4600 Review
.......MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

                                

Leadtek WinFast GF4 ti4400 & ti4600

This review was kindly made possible by :

April 10-2002

SPONSORS

 

First Look

You cant but help notice the actual  physical  size and weight of these cards , compared to my GF2titanium , these two cards are big . And check out the wrap around heatsink , its trick to say the least , but I cant help feel that it adds a lot of weight to this card . Both cards  look the same , and are the same size , the only difference being the components used to make a ti4400 or ti4600 . A quick word on image quality , the GF4 ti cards rock , pic quality is sharp , and In games you can see so much more when it comes to fine detail , its almost distracting . 

 

WinFast A250 TD

WinFast A250 Ultra TD

  •  
  • NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 GPU
  • nfiniteFX™ II Engine for programmability
  • Accuview Antialiasing™
  • nViewTM Display Technology
  • Lightspeed Memory Architecture™ II
  • nViewTM Display Technology
  • Lightspeed Memory Architecture™ II
  • 4.4 Billion AA samples per second fill rate
  • 125 Million vertices/sec
  • 1.12 trillion operations/sec
  • Default Clock speed 275/275(Core/Memory)
  • 128MB high-speed DDR Memory
  • 8.8 GB/sec Memory Bandwidth
  • Microsoft® DirectX® 8.X and OpenGL® 1.3 Optimizations and Support
  • 4 dual-rending pilelines
  • 8 texels per clock cycle
  • Dual cube environment mapping
  • High-Definition Video Processor(HDTV)
  • AGP 4X/2X and AGP Texturing Support
  • On-board TV-out support up to 1024x768 resolution
  • On-board DVI support up to 1280x1024 resolution
  • High-quality HDTV/DVD playback

 

  •  
  • NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 GPU
  • nfiniteFX™ II Engine for programmability
  • Accuview Antialiasing™
  • nViewTM Display Technology
  • Lightspeed Memory Architecture™ II
  • nViewTM Display Technology
  • Lightspeed Memory Architecture™ II
  • 4.8 Billion AA samples per second fill rate
  • 136 Million vertices/sec
  • 1.23 trillion operations/sec
  • Default Clock speed 300/330(Core/Memory)
  • 128MB world's fastest DDR Memory
  • 10.4 GB/sec Memory Bandwidth
  • Microsoft® DirectX® 8.X and OpenGL® 1.3 Optimizations and Support
  • 4 dual-rending pilelines
  • 8 texels per clock cycle
  • Dual cube environment mapping
  • High-Definition Video Processor(HDTV)
  • AGP 4X/2X and AGP Texturing Support
  • On-board TV-out support up to 1024x768 resolution
  • On-board DVI support up to 1280x1024 resolution
  • High-quality HDTV/DVD playback

 

Installing the Cards

As I mentioned before these cards are big , and they take up a lot of real-estate inside my case .

 

Here you can see just how close the Winfast GF4 cards come to my HDD , there is just enough room for my HDD and Floppy cables to pass through.

Here you can see just how close the card comes to the ram , its a snug fit to say the least . If your case is anything like mine , you will find these GF4 cards a snug fit .

Performance

System specs : Epox 8K3A kt333 mb , AMD xp1700 @ 9.5x166 = 1.58 ghz , 256mb PC2700 DDR ram , Seagate 20gig ATA 100  7200rpm HDD.  Win98SE , Direct X 8.a , Nvidia 28.32 drivers.

 

GF4 ti4400

Im starting with the Winfast Gf4 ti4400 , and the first test is going to be 3Dmark2001. So lets see what this card can do :

3Dmark2001 = 10360 3Dmarks

For the second test 3Dmark 2000 :

3Dmark2000 = 13618 3Dmarks

Now it wouldnt be a performance test if we didnt benchmark this card with Quake .

Graphics Detail

Normal

High

Max

800x600

233fps

228fps

224fps

1280x1024

192fps

171fps

169fps

Overclocking the card , I pushed the core to 320mhz and the memory to 630mhz returning a 3Dmark2001 score of 10,763 3Dmarks . Thats an increase of 400 Marks over stock , not a huge improvement considering the overall score . 

 

GF4 ti4600

So its time to see just how much faster the ti4600 is over the ti4400 . So lets see what the stock 3Dmark2001 sore is :

3Dmark2001 = 10870 3Dmarks

Time to try 3Dmark2000 :

3Dmark2000 = 13922 3Dmarks

Quake results:

Graphics Detail

Normal

High

Max

800x600

235fps

230fps

224fps

1280x1024

202fps

186fps

182fps

Overclocking this card to 325mhz core and 670mhz memory gave a 3Dmark2001 score of  11,037 3Dmarks .

 

Conclusion :

ti4400

3Dmark2001 = 10,360 3Dmarks

ti4600

3Dmark2001 = 10,870 3Dmarks

ti4400

3Dmark2000 = 13,618 3Dmarks

ti4600

3Dmark2000 = 13,922 3Dmarks

ti4400

Quake 800x600 Max detail = 224fps

ti4600

Quake 800x600 Max detail = 224fps

ti4400

Quake 1280x1024 Max detail = 169fps

ti4600

Quake 1280x1024 Max detail = 182fps

The performance between these two cards is reasonably close , especially when you take price into consideration . In Quake , the GF4 ti4600 takes a clear lead as Screen resolution is increased along with graphics detail , but with only 500 3Dmarks ( 3Dmark2001 ) separating these cards , that = only a 5% performance difference , and overclocking both cards brings an even smaller performance gap , justifying the purchase of the more expensive ti4600 could be difficult . Talking of overclocking , the Winfast GF4 ti4400 is the better overclocker of the two cards I tested , with neither card being better than average with its overall overclock ability . In all fairness , overclocking these cards is a little like pushing a Formula 1 car past its limits , these cards are blistering fast to start with , and I dont personally see the point in even bothering to overclock either card . If you have to have the best , the fastest , then its the GF4 ti4600 , if you need value for money , then the GF4 ti4400 is the card to try , either way , its hard to go wrong .

Both Winfast cards performed flawlessly , neither card giving a single problem , the only problem I had was with Direct X 8.1 , crashing my system . The only negative thing I have to say about these cards is there size , so be mindful of this  esp if your system is lacking in internal space .

I can recommend either card to anyone who is looking for a GF4 titanium card , both come well packaged with good supporting software  like WinFox ,  2 Games , and the  instruction Manual , and are competitively priced in todays marketplace , but I personally cant go past value for money , and the GF4 ti4400 would have to be the card for me .

Leadtek , Winfast GF4 ti4400 = $620 @ MSY

Winfast GF4 ti4600 = $840 @ MSY

PH-9572 4411 if you want to buy one .

I would like to thank Andrew from MSY for making this review possible .