I have been told by a couple of sources that the only difference between 4200 and 4600 boards is the HSF and the Mhz..

just wondering if anyone can confirm this for me?

im about to buy a Geforce 4 Ti card and im unsure as to which to get..


if the only differences are HSF and mhz then im going to get a HSF for a 4200 and overclock it..

if not then i may have to buy a 4400 or 4600..

thanks guys.

Nope that is wrong, NVIDIA has (given its partners) specs for building ti 4200, 4400 and 4600 boards, 4600 have to have 10 layers, for example (or were it 8?) dunno exactly, but the 4600 have to have more layers than the 4200 does. but for example asus didnt wanted to pay for a redesign of its 4600 board and so it uses the same board with the same quality for its 4200 (deluxe) boards.
another important difference (the most important i think) is the used RAM. more exactly, the latencies those rams got. so 4600 cards (gotta) use 3.8ns (i think) rams, while the 4200 can use slower and cheeper rams. but asus again uses faster than needed rams on its 4200 deluxe boards, although not the most expensive ones used in its 4600 boards.
hope that helps a bit.
Cheers,
-Merlin

Most 4200's use normal ram, as opposed to BGA ram found on hte Ti4400's and the Ti4600. Look @ the pics, the BGA ram are squares as opposed to the Rectangles on the Ti4200. The PCB I'm not too sure of, but it wouldn't suprise me.

That's absolutely right about the number of layers on the boards...Not that the 4200's a bad card...but the quality of construction isn't usually as good as the 4400-4600's except in the odd case, as with the Asus mentioned above.

Board design and memory options/quality depend entirely on the manufacturer, but if we are talking about the actual GPU that powers these cards there is little difference apart from Mhz rating. All GF4 Ti cards use the same NV25 GPU that comes in 3 speed varieties. Though the chips are 250Mhz, 275Mhz & 300Mhz respectively the actual design of the chips is identical and all support the same features. It is true that some Ti4200's can run at 300Mhz depending on cooling solution but memory speed will always be less than a Ti4400 or Ti4600. They way I hear it, we've all been wasting our money on Nvidia cards when the ATI Radeon is gonna be the definitive card for DOOM III. :-(

Board design and memory configuration AREN'T entirely up to the manufacturer...There are minimum standards that Nvidia requires and the 4200 minimum board layer requirement is less then that of a 4400-4600 board. AND the Nvidia boards haven't been a waste of money since they have been the fastest options available until last week...and in a few months they WILL be the fastest game in town again. I'm not anti ATI...I may even buy a 9700 and own sereval other ATI cards...but I believe that competition has kept this race going strong...Nvidia has done a great job...

You obviously didn't understand what I meant. I meant: Board design and memory options eg. quality. In other words, the QUALITY of board design and memory depend entirely on the manufacturer. That should be obvious. Nvidia can't tell anyone what PCB or memory chips to use. It is up to the manufacturer to decide which make/speed RAM to include in their cards. If they want to use Hynix 4.0ns on a Ti4200 they may, or they can use 3.8ns Etrontech, or Samsung. It is entirely up to them, Nvidia has no say in this. If they wish to use cheap crap PCB instead of the quality stuff that is their business, which affects us when it comes to buying a card. I think you'll find in the real world those minimum standards mean nothing. You can't tell me that Powercolor complied with any Nvidia requirement. Once the Nvidia chips are sold they no longer belong to Nvidia. They belong to the manufacturer. Then when you buy the card, it belongs to you. Simple?

I think Nvidia would be pissed if one of their manufacturers was selling crappy cards performing well under every1's cards with the same label.