Performance:
The testbed was as follows:
Hardware:
Software:
As usual, I used MadOnion's 3DMark2001SE to test DirectX performance:
id Software's Quake3Arena (using our in-house Slayer demo) is a more "real world" benchmark, and used to test OpenGL. Defaults were used for the Fastest and 800x600 High Quality tests, but for the 1600x1200 test the Geometric Detail was set to High and the Texture Detail slider was dragged all the way to the right.
No great surprises there. The difference between the two Ti4600 cards is insignificant and can be ignored, while they both pull cleanly ahead of the older GF3 and GF4 MX440 "value" card. As noted in the Asus review, you will only see a big difference once your gaming resolution goes up. However, the GF4 has a few new features which enable higher-quality and more lifelike images to be rendered in games and as these features are implemented in newer games, or older games are updated to use them, the GF4 Ti4600 will continue to impress. I covered those features in more detail on page 2 of the Asus review.
Overclocking:
For overclocking nVidia-based
video cards our preferred tool is CoolBits - we have a guide to
using Coolbits here
for those unfamiliar with this free tool. First I tried the RAM
and core speeds in isolation, then tried for the highest possible
combination. This was with KingMax DDR333 set to CAS2, 4X interleave,
but otherwise the same testbed as above:
The RAMsinks may look nice, but they don't seem to be doing a great deal in terms of performance. They're hardly getting warm to the touch - quite the opposite of the GPU core, which is heating the back of the PCB to the point where it is literally too hot to touch. Overall this card could not be overclocked quite as high as the Asus, but as I said in the earlier review there's not a lot of point to it anyway. If you own either of these cards they are extremely unlikely to be the bottleneck in your system for quite some time. The small amount of extra speed available by overclocking them seems hardly worth the risk to the card from heat and the risk of it having a flaky moment at an important time mid-game.
Conclusions:
Well, after all that, what's the verdict? Speedwise there's essentially
zero between this card and Asus's offering. The Asus overclocks
slightly better but as much as I'll get flamed for this, I reckon
you should just leave them both at defaults anyway. The bundles
are pretty similar, apart from the Asus including a DVI-SVGA adapter
which lets them boast of dual-monitor capability - but I imagine
you can grab one of those fairly cheaply at an electronics shop.
The bundled software I can personally take or leave. I've been
using this card from X-Micro for testing a range of motherboards
and other components over the last month and it hasn't skipped
a beat. Following the reference design so closely means you're
unlikely to get any compatability problems. The final factor is,
of course, price. At the time of writing, Altech list the Asus RRP at $899 and the X-Micro
at $750. That's $149 to spend on RAM, beer or new games - and
you get a card that performs identically AND has some pretty impressive
video-capture abilities. I know where I'd be spending my money..
Many thanks to Altech Computers, a distributor with offices in Sydney and Brisbane, for providing the review unit.