As with every fresh release of products such as 3D cards there is a will for having our enthusiasm fueled by the new value they bring into play. Should Geforce3 owners feel much worse off not owning the latest and greatest? Well that really depends how much you treasure speed and wish to pride yourself with being up to date. We'll split this conclusion into three parts, the first which will talk about the Geforce 4 Ti's, the second that will address the values of the Geforce 4 MX and last but not least an overall short general opinion covering all.

Not a revolution but certainly an evolution, that is how one may look upon the Geforce Ti architecture. One thing that has to be said without any hesitation is no Geforce3 handles Quicunx FSSA as well as a Geforce4 Ti. It is easily visible in benchmarks showing how this aspect has improved over its predecessor, a very important one at that. In our minds this can be attributed to LMA II that permits more fluent memory access which of course is crucial in any FSSA mode. It is no natural surprise that the overall performance has also been granted a healthy boost largely due to the increased core/memory speeds over the NV20 (Geforce3).

Every Visiontek Geforce4 Ti sample we tests carried its own individual comment, however all lacked one common element, bundled software. Whereas other manufactures manage to include their own overclocking utility, system utilities and even games it is somewhat disappointing to see Visiontek failing to score on this. This is more so has the potential of steering buyers away by the fact that the price of each card is very much in line with the what is the general average on the market. For cards costing hundreds of dollars each we expected to see a little more than the well known Cyberlink PowerDVD XP. The Ti4600 does make an attempt to improve on this (albeit in a small way) by shipping with Cyberlink PowerDirector in its box.

If software isn't in your list of needs then the following may please you. We liked how each fan/heatsink unit was attached, in other words firmly. Some may say this is a pretty low rated aspect to address, however it is still possible to find cards on the market that do not offer what is commonly known as good build quality. Because of this amongst others we understand why Visiontek feels safe offering a lifetime guarantee, yet another most appreciative feature. All cards overclocked well if not wonderfully well adding some free performance into the deal, the BlueOrb fan which you should see on all Visiontek Geforce 4 Ti's recently made even adds that little bit more. Our Ti4200 with this fan proved this allowing the core to overclock higher than even the Ti4600 which used the standard Nvidia designed fan. what we would of liked to of seen are some RAM sinks, despite what the general opinion says about them not getting hot our own tests concluded they can still get hot, and this voids their full overclocking potential.

If you do not like green because it brings back memories of the lettuce your mom used to keep feeding you back in your youth then the same can be said about each PCB. Being all green makes them the industry standard, a color next to beige that has lived a long life in PC components and looks to continue doing so, after all green is associated with good health. A less personal opinion steered item is the installation guide included in every box. This is a multi-language clearly compiled paper featurette that shouldn't make it hard for even the novice PC user to follow. The driver CD is logically generated with various files assorted into appropriate folders. In the case of the Ti4600 is also a well made VIVO cable which we cannot find any reason to fault.

Overall the three Visiontek Geforce 4 Ti cards are all very good and only really seem to lack a proper software bundle. The price of the Ti4600 model makes it out of reach for most people leaving the Ti4400 to make a good impression in its place. And indeed this is the card we think should earn the value for money award. Picking up a recently produced Ti4400 with a BlueOrb and A3 stepping of the actual chipset will result in a card that should offer Ti4600 pixel for pixel performance. This is the model you should concentrate on most unless of course you feel wealthy and may afford to spend a larger amount for somewhere in the region of 10% more performance over the Ti4400. The Ti4200 manages to do well as a budget Ti card but ultimately is held back by its slower RAM. This prevents it from taking the best buy tag from the Ti4400 which features RAM modules capable of much faster speeds. It remains however a great card with all the gadgets of its bigger brothers (including 128MB RAM) at only a fraction of the cost. Should you be comfortable playing at lower resolutions it remains a card worth buying, if higher resolution gaming is on your wish list it makes sense to spend more for the Ti4400. It is worth ending this conclusion by saying all of the Geforce 4 Ti cards outperform the previous generation Geforce 3 Ti500, because of this there is a speed to be had whichever product you end up choosing.

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