The specs
Let's pull out the ol' chip chart once again to see how the Ti 4200 fits into the picture. You'll notice that NVIDIA has done something kind of odd with the Ti 4200: cards with 64MB of RAM have the memory clocked at 500MHz, while 128MB cards run the memory at 444MHz. NVIDIA's reasons for this arrangement aren't entirely clear to me, but I expect the decision has to do with balancing the cost of RAM against the desire to keep these cards priced substantially lower than the Ti 4400. Whatever the case, the Ti 4200 cards with 128MB of RAM will have less memory bandwidth available. In some cases, the 64MB cards will be faster.

Now generally, we don't take kindly to manufacturers offering cards whose names are potentially misleading. However, NVIDIA is being entirely upfront about its clock speed recommendations to card makers, unlike some of its competitors have been in the past. Also, NVIDIA is doing The Right Thing here by allowing the Ti 4200 to cannibalize the ill-conceived GeForce4 MX 460. Finally, as you'll see, the performance differences between 64MB of 500MHz memory and 128MB of 444MHz memory are mixed. Add it all up, and we'll let this one slide. Remember, though: the two cards do carry different specs.

Here are those specs laid out, so you can see just how they compare:

The Ti 4200 64MB clocks in at exactly the same speeds as the Radeon 8500LE, which should come as no surprise. That also puts the Ti 4200 64MB card's spec at nearly the exact same speeds at the GeForce3 Ti 500—only 10MHz separates them.

The Ti 4200 128MB cards, meanwhile, will actually use slower memory than the Radeon 7500. As always, though, specs aren't everything. Let's see how they perform.

Our testing methods
As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. All tests were run at least twice, and the results were averaged.

The test system was built using:

Processor	Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz
Front-side bus	100MHz (400MHz quad-pumped)
Motherboard	Abit BD7-RAID
Chipset	Intel 845
North bridge	82845 MCH
South bridge	82801BA ICH2
Memory size	512MB (2 DIMMs)
Memory type	Micron PC2100 DDR SDRAM (CAS 2)
Sound	Creative SoundBlaster Live!
Storage	Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X 40GB 7200RPM hard drive
OS	Microsoft Windows XP Professional

For comparative purposes, we used the following video cards and drivers:

• ATI Radeon 7500 64MB AGP with 6.13.10.6037 drivers
• ATI Radeon 8500 64MB AGP with 6.13.10.6037 drivers
• ATI Radeon 8500LE 128MB AGP with 6.13.10.6037 drivers
• VisionTek Xtasy 6964 (NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500) with Detonator XP 28.32 drivers
• Abit Siluro GF4 MX 440 64MB AGP with Detonator XP 28.32 drivers
• NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 64MB with Detonator XP 28.32 drivers
• VisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti 4600 with Detonator XP 28.32 drivers

We also included a "simulated" GeForce3 Ti 200, because we could. We underclocked our GeForce3 Ti 500 card to Ti 200 speeds and ran the tests. The performance of the card at this speed should be identical to a "real" GeForce3 Ti 200. Likewise, we underclocked the GF4 Ti 4600 card to test it at GF4 Ti 4400 and GF4 Ti 4200 128MB speeds. And we overclocked the Radeon 8500LE 128MB card in order to simulate a Radeon 8500 128MB. (The card showed no signs of problems at the 8500's 275MHz clock speed—perfectly stable.) If you can't handle the concept of a simulated graphics card, pretend those results aren't included.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

• 3DMark 2001 SE
• Giants: Citizen Kabuto 1.4
• Quake III Arena 1.30
• Serious Sam 1.05
• Comanche 4 demo benchmark
• SPECviewperf 6.1.2

The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1024x768 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.