Review: Creative 3D Blaster Geforce4 Ti 4600

First Look

It's of no surprise to us that the Creative Blaster Ti 4600 was one of the very first retail Geforce4 Ti 4600 cards to be available in the UK. Let's have a little closer look at our particular card.

The first thing that strikes us is the disarming similarity between this card and the reference Geforce4 Ti 4600 we reviewed just over two months ago. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it keeps manufacturing costs down, and allows Creative to get the card out to mass-market quickly. The one notable exception is the GPU cooler, it seems to have been slightly modified by Creative. Let's take a closer look.

The Geforce4 Ti 4600 GPU is still based on the 0.15u manufacturing process, effectively the same one used for the Geforce3 since its inception over a year ago. At that time, the Geforce3 was clocked at a relatively lowly 200MHz core. Today we see the Ti 4600 boasting a 300MHz core. The extra speed obviously generates a great deal more heat. A revised, more powerful cooler was needed to dissipate the extra heat effectively. Creative's approach has been laudable. The cooler is covered by some kind of plastic that allows us to see the fins underneath. Their job is funnel away the heat to surrounding areas. Even after extended use, our Creative Ti 4600 never became more than warm to the touch, it seems as if the cooling is up to the required standard.

The fan pictured above seems rather small and tame on first appearance. Unfortunately, on this review sample at least, the fan emitted a whiney, high-pitched sound during operation. The sound wasn't as harsh as say a Delta fan, but was disconcerting when compared to the Ti 500 that the card replaced in the test system. It was definitely a few notches louder than the MSI and Visiontek Ti 4400 offerings we reviewed recently. On further consultation with various owners of Creative Ti 4400 / 4600 cards, it appears as if our sample is not unique in this respect. There's nothing wholly annoying about it, it's just a shade or two louder than we are accustomed to.

Another new additional to the Geforce4 lineup is the use of tiny BGA (ball grid array) memory. The frequencies that the card is required to run at (650 MHz DDR) almost preclude the use of standard memory. Not only is Tiny BGA memory smaller, it also runs substantially cooler. As you can perhaps see from the above picture, our Creative Ti 4600 is equipped with 128MB of Samsung 2.8ns Tiny BGA memory in the form of 8 x 16MB chips. Some may question the exclusion of RAM heatsinks, Creative's answer would probably be that the relative coolness of Tiny BGA memory requires no additional cooling. Even in full use, the memory only become warm and not hot to the touch. 2.8ns memory is rated to effectively run at 714MHz. However, at such high frequencies, other factors such as trace length and overall PCB design can come into play. nVidia, perhaps wisely, restricted the rated frequency to a modest 650 MHz.

Here we see the back of our card. We see the standard analogue connector that can feed either a D-SUB or BNC lead. We also see the inclusion of DVI connector. Rather disappointingly, Creative has not sought to include a DVI-to-VGA connector in the overall package, an omission that really should not have been overlooked. TV-Out is handled by the rather capable Conexant CX25871 chip, one that has a maximum resolution of 1024x768. We connected the Creative Geforce4 Ti 4600 up to a 28" Mitsubishi TV, the ensuing results were more than acceptable.

The Creative Ti 4600 arrived in a pleasingly illustrated box. Bundled with the card itself was a reasonable quickstart guide. An installation CD with various drivers was naturally included. The CD also featured a collection of demos highlighting the technical prowess of the Geforce4 Ti 4600. Also included was the Codecreatures benchmark from Codecult, another extremely impressive showcase for nVidia's current flagship card. The games CD featured two games, E-Racer and Incoming Forces.

The overall bundle is decidedly average in content, especially considering that the included E-Racer wasn't even the full game version. The bundle simply pales when compared to the gargantuan 10 CD offering accompanying the recently reviewed MSI Ti 4400. We also have to comment on the lack of any DVD software. Now, this is not a great omission, but really one that should have been included in a video card of this expense.

The Creative Ti 4600 is aimed squarely at those who want a no-frills card, from a respected manufacturer, at the best possible price. The actual card is extremely well-built. One thing our pictures so far don't illustrate is the physical size of the card itself. You may get an inkling of its size by the relative size of the AGP slots. Here it is sitting above a Kyro II card, a card that is of average size.

It simply dwarfs the Kyro II in all respects. It's an imposing card right from the outset.