MSI GeForce4 Ti 4800-SE

Conclusion

It's a little disappointing to realise that the Ti 4800-SE offers nothing over the present Ti 4400 except for the added 8x AGP support. Various benchmarks here at Hexus have shown that the faster AGP speed is simply a gimmick when considered in relation to today's games - it offers little or no speed increase over 4x cards. If the Ti 4800-SE was a recipient of a speed boost, one might be inclined to look upon it favourably. The fact that it has the identical 275/553 clocks as any Ti 4400 will ensure that present owners won't rush out and sell their older Ti-based cards in a hurry.

The change from 4x to 8x AGP speed was easy enough for nVidia to implement. This simple change has manifested itself in almost every major manufacturer 'updating' their nVidia range. The troubling aspect is that the Radeon 9700, smaller brother to the Radeon 9700 Pro, is aggressively priced at under £200 from most decent online retailers. The powerful Radeon 9500/Pro is in direct competition with this very card and even the full-blown Radeon 9700 Pro can be purchased for around £230 from Crucial. The MSI GeForce4 Ti 4800-SE is priced not much lower at £185 or so. Given the Radeon's far superior performance, better 2D, and stable drivers, it's hard to recommend the Ti series of GPUs now. The GeForce FX may end up being a Radeon 97xx-beater, but the GeForce Ti 4xxx certainly isn't.

With that out of the way I'd like to commend MSI on producing another excellent package. The massive software bundle, the latest Philips 7108AE TIVO chip, splitter, DVI-to-VGA converter, and a massive heatsink help to ensure that it will undoubtedly be one of the better Ti 4800-SE cards available. I'd like to recommend this card, but with a similarly priced competing product that is faster in almost every respect (and we are at the performance end of the market here), it is extremely hard to do so. In summary, a nice card based upon a comparatively limited GPU.

Highs