Asus V8420 Deluxe GeForce 4 Ti 4200 Review
A Ti 4200 For Gamers & Video Aficionados...

By - Robert Maloney
October 16, 2002

TEST PREPARATIONS:

Due to the fact that we have seen significant variations in benchmark scores from one site to the next, we feel it is necessary to explain exactly how we configure each test system before running any benchmarks. We chose to test these video boards on the i845E based IWILL P4ES, with a 2.26GHz Pentium 4 (533MHz FSB). The first thing we did when configuring this system was enter the BIOS and optimize the settings for maximum performance. The hard drive was then formatted, and Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1 was installed. After the Windows installation was complete, we installed the Intel Chipset drivers and used the latest download for the Intel Application Accelerator. Then we installed all of the necessary drivers for the rest of our components, then disabled and removed Windows Messenger.  Auto-Updating and System Restore were also disabled.  We also set up a 512MB permanent page file, and set the Visual Effects to "best performance".  We then installed all of the benchmarking software, defragged the hard drive and ran all of the tests at the CPU's default clock speed.

Hot Hardware's Test System Intel Inside?  Sure, but none of that damn blue man group...

Common Hardware:
IWILL P4ES (i845) S478 Pentium 4 Motherboard

Intel Pentium 4 2.26GHz CPU 533MHz FSB

256MB of Corsair PC3000 DDR

Western Digital 20GB ATA100 7200rpm Hard Drive

Creative Labs 52x CD-ROM

Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live!

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1

Intel Chipset Drivers v4.00.1013
Intel Application Accelerator 2.3.2144

Video Cards:
Asus V8420 GeForce 4 Ti 4200 (128MB DDR)

Chaintech GeForce 4 Ti 4600 (128MB DDR)

Best Data GeForce 4 Ti 4200 (64MB DDR)

Visiontek GeForce 3 Ti 500 (64MB DDR)

ATi Radeon 8500LE (128MB DDR)

Drivers:
NVIDIA Reference Drivers, version 40.41

ATI Catalyst 2.3 drivers

Head-to-Head / Performance Progression Versus The Competition Quake 3 Arena

 
First up on the test bench is the venerable Quake 3 Arena, version 1.17. While the framerates in this test continue to climb as faster CPUs and video cards are released, it is still a good way to compare the relative performance of these cards.

These three graphs all tell the same tale. It's a straight progression from the Ti 4600 all the way down the GeForce line, ending with the Radeon 8500. In each test, the Asus V8420 is only around 20 frames off of the Ti4600 mark, and holds a slight lead over the Best Data Ti 4200 with only 64MB of memory, that widens at the higher resolutions. Even with the Catalyst 2.3 drivers, the Radeon 8500 LE brings up the rear.

Anti-Aliasing Tests:

Applying Anti-Aliasing helps remove "jaggies", but at the cost of some performance. At lower resolutions, said cost is minimal, but really shows up at the higher resolutions, cutting framerates by more than half. Once again, however, we see the same progression in the charts that we saw without AA applied. The GeForce 4 Ti 4600 dominates the scene, but the Asus card tries to keep pace, actually bridging the gap slightly at 1600x1200.

More Quake 3 Numbers...