Albatron Medusa

[Mortis]

Greetings... I just picked up an Albatron Ti4200P Turbo (Medusa Series). It boasts Ti4600 performance at a considerably lower pricetag. The specs are listed as:

Features: Performing up to Ti 4600 specifications but remaining at Ti 4200 prices, providing the end user with the best performance
Used an 8-layer PCB that is also used in the Ti 4600 chipset, which helps to improve voltage stability
3.3ns BGA DDR RAM is used to allow VRAM clock cycles to exceed 550MHz.
128 MB DDR Memory
nVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200 GPU
Accuview Antialiasing
Lightspeed Memory ArchitectureT II
nVIDIA nifinteFX II Engine enable a virtually infinite number of special effects that deliver the next leap in realism to 3D graphics
Dual programmable Vertex Shaders
Advanced programmable Pixel Shaders
3D Textures
Shadow Buffers
4 dual-rendering pipelines
8 texels per clock cycle
Dual cube environment mapping
High-Definition Video Processor (HDVP)
AGP 4X/2X Support
High-quality HDTV/DVD playback
32-bit color with 32-bit Z/stencil buffer
Z-correct true, reflective bump mapping
High performance 2D rendering engine
Hardware accelerated real-time shadows
True color hardware cursor
Integrated hardware transform engine and lighting engine
Nvidia Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
MicrosoftR DirectXR 8.X and OpenGLR 1.3 Optimizations and Support

Should be a Rocker! I have been waiting to UpGrade my VidCard and have had my eye on this Card for a while. I finally took the plunge and bought it. I just sold a PC that I recently built so I am using the profits to fund this splurging. I am feeling a little guilty, but sure that will pass when I get it and start OC'ing and benching.

:D

[BBA]

It's true. A OC'd 4200 performs just like the 4600. I have my 4200 running at 315/600 with no problems, and the benchmarks are pretty much inline with the 4600...even better in some.

The difference here is that most 4600's can clock higher in both core and mem speed. My core/mem speed slider is maxxed out at 315/600... I would go higher if this were not the case, yet the people with 4600's can clock up to 335/700.

[Mortis]

Thanks BBA... check out these Articles on the card: http://www.the-ctrl-alt-del.com/modules.php?name=Reviews (on first link, click on #2, ti4200P Turbo) http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1226 .

I am hoping to get an OC of 305/690 to 320/700. I have read that this is what people are getting with this card- stable and no visual deterioration. I also shouldnt have to mess with the HeatSinks or Fan- the copper based components can suppossedly handle it.

At stock speeds, Review's Benchmarks only show around a 5% "number" difference between this Ti4200 card and the 4600's.

This card's architecture varies from the "standard" 4200's in that it uses a 4600's design and shares some of the components/architecture. This article and others do a much better job of explaining than I could, so I wont try :). I should get it Monday, after installation, tweaking and benching... I will write up a little laymen summary of the "toy" for here.

Mortis

[Mortis]

Received the VidCard. I installed it in the Machine that I want to run it in and got rather poor Statistical performance, however, it visually looked great... here is the Rig I want to run it in:

P4 1.5
Asus P4b-LX
1024 pc133

I received a score of around 8000 at default speeds and settings. I took it out of that box and put it in another to test and got the speeds I expected- 10,043 at stock settings:

XP1800
Gigabyte Titan (cant remember the exact board- took the liberty of trying it in the work server :) . It is also a relatively clean install)
1024 Crucial PC2100

So, I need to tweak and play with it (drivers and settings) in the box I would like to have it run in- may need to reinstall the OS. It has been so long and I have had many Nvidia drivers installed and deinstalled on that box that I am not sure what is going on. If I dont get the performance that I want, I may run it in a better box that I own... but like that current setup- so not sure. I have a 4 day weekend coming up, so I plan to mess with it then. Will post a review and screenshots after I have had time to get it worked out- if wanted.

Mortis

[jadison]

Congrats on the video card upgrade! :)

I'd make the same choice if I had the $$.

Anyway, the difference in score between the 2 rigs is obvious: ur PC hardware. 1st of all the P4 1.5 is the low-end v. of the P4's and the system bus is slower as well, along with lower quality memory these factors will give u a definate lower 3dMark score along with noticeable difference in performance.

I look forward to ur screens, btw! :)

[Mortis]

Screenies will be posted soon... I seem to be having some config issues. I had this card in a temp rig for about two weeks and was getting anywhere from 10,000 to high 11's depending on how far I OC'd the Card, Mem and CPU.

Here is what I got going now- P4 1.5 @ 1.755 (going to try and take it higher, just stopped here cause I got bored :)), 512 ddr266 soon to be swapped out to ddr333, Seagate IX 7200 and MSI 648 Max-L. I have the AGP/PCI Bus Clocked to 80/4?, and the Mem overclocked to 4/5... whatever that means- hehe. I am currently only getting scores of around 9000 at default card settings and it only goes up to 9300 when I OC it to 305/695. This is strange. I previously had the card running in the above mentioned rig (previous post) and when I tweaked and OC'd the system and card- it blew away these scores. Thanks Jadison for your input- does the Williamette make that much of a difference- I am running it at 117x4? My next purchase is going to be the Northwood 2.4... I have ddr333 being shipped right now. This score cap has really frustrated me.

Is there any settings in the BIOS or somewhere that I might be missing? Here is a pic of my OverAll PCMark02 rating- I dont think these look too bad.

Thoughts on any settings or tweaks I might be missing appreciated... I still think I must be missing something. I think the card should run better in this rig :(.

Thanks,
Mortis