Asus V8460 Ultra Deluxe Ti 4600

[Bing Fung]

Well, I was waiting for the Matrox Parhelia card before I plunged in to a new card for my PC. It seems the Matrox did not have the performance I had hoped so now I'm back on the Nivida band wagon.

My wait was not in vain as I was by all accounts going to purchase the Gainward Ti4600 card. The Gainward is still a top card in my books, however I though about getting an Asus, just because I'm running an Asus MB and Asus really know how to make boards.

Waiting does have it benefits as Asus has just released their Deluxe version of the Ti4600. The Deluxe versions of Asus cards have always made my mouth water for the feature set and this one does not seem to disappoint.

What I like about this card is it is based on the Nvidia reference design, unlike the Asus GF3 that was Asus's sole design. Not that Asus designing their own cards is a bad thing for we all know Asus knows how to make cards, and many of their previous offerings have been stellar if not top of the class. I like the reference design more so that it allows using reference Detonator XP drivers with out worrying that the Asus card may not work with them. This just makes my life simpler for I like using updated and beta drivers. Don't ask me why, I just do :P

Anyway enough bantering, I'm sure you want a look at the card. Well, sorry I don't have it yet, but I should have it sometime next week. Meanwhile you'll just have to settle for these links....

Video Card

Here is a Review of the V8460 Deluxe




Bing

[Jeff Kowerchuk]

Congrats Bing, great card! I've got the 'pure' version of the card, and it is just amazing.

/Jeff

[Bing Fung]

Thanks Jeff!

That's a nice card you have. It looks like the Asus Ti 4600 is a real screamer of GF4's.

I'm interested in the speed gains I'll be getting in games like Dungeon Seige. Right now everything on at the highest resolution with 8 characters, I average around 18-19 FPS.




Bing

[Jeff Kowerchuk]

Bing;

The funnest part about this card...you can MAX every graphic option, including resolution, and the card will SCREAM. I maxed everything out and ran Wolfenstein at 1600x1200 and the game was super fast. I can even get away with maxing all the options in Morrowind...which is an absolute hog.

You're gonna love it!!

/Jeff

[Bing Fung]

Hey Jeff, what is real funny is with my GF3 I have been able to max everything @1600x1200x32, with everything on in Max Payne, RtCW, Colin Mcrae...etc. It's when I play this Dungeon Seige that I get the slow frame rates. It's still very playable, however turning off detail or turning down resolution only gains about another 10-14 FPS. I think the 3D engine needs streamlining, but I was floored that it ran so slow. It's max resolution is 1024x768. With one character is runs in the 30-40 FPS average, however as you start to add more characters it starts to slow down




Bing

[Bing Fung]

Just got it today and installed it. I'm not totally happy with the image quality as there is a slight bit of ghosting that was not there with my Hercules GF3. I'll try it out for a while longer, but if I can't clear this up, I'm getting a different card.


Go here for more pictures




Bing

[Jeff Kowerchuk]

Bing;

I think the real test for video cards these days is Morrowind. Yeah, maxing out things like Wolfenstein etc.is very cool, until you stop to realize that 200fps means very little. The card is just WAY too powerful for that kind of game.

Morrowind is a lot more demanding. In fact, it is possible to bring a GeForce4 to its knees with this game, though it puts up an admirable fight.

Odd to hear about the image quality problem. I have not noticed any such issue with my card. Keep us posted on your findings.

/Jeff

[Bing Fung]

Jeff, do you see ringing or ghosting of text with your Asus?

I mean I really like this card and would try another one just in case I got a bad one.

Go to http://64.246.0.198/ and look at the medium blue blocks of the page (3 vertical columns). Do you see a white line running through the blue block at about 4mm from the left side of the blocks?

Another place where it is very apperant is when I open a windows dialog box such as "Save File As" The file name texts riings and ghosts with in the white text box.

This sort of looks like when you have a crappy video cord, which I changed just to be sure, it didn't help.




Bing

[Jeff Kowerchuk]

Bing;

I checked out that site and I did not see what you were describing. My image is rock solid, with no ghosting whatsoever.

I'm thinking you just got a bad card. The only other possibility is that it is a problem with the deluxe version of the card. Is the board quite different on this card vs. the 'pure' version?

/Jeff

[Bing Fung]

Thanks for checking that out Jeff.

The board is much the same, it just has a few extra chips for Image decoding/encoding.

I'm sending it back for another.




Bing

[Jeff Kowerchuk]

That's a bummer Bing.

Good luck with the replacement.

/Jeff

[Bing Fung]

Thanks Jeff, I'll keep you posted with how it turns out.




Bing