Creative Labs 3D Blaster 4 Titanium 4400

The Titanium 4400 offers excellent performance at a reasonable price.

Things are getting a bit confusing with nVidia-based graphics cards these days, as demonstrated by Creative Labs' range of 3D Blaster cards.

The 3D Blasters are all based on nVidia chips. At the low end of the range are two GeForce4 MX cards at around £100. The next step up, rather confusingly, is the £200 GeForce3. And, at the top of the range, are the two Titanium models, the 3D Blaster 4 Titanium 4400 and 4600.

Our review unit was the Titanium 4400, which costs £279.99. That's a lot of money, but it's still cheaper than the hefty £350 for the 4600 model. We were pleasantly surprised, however, by the card's performance which suggests that it can give the 4600 a real run for its money.

The 4400 has 128Mb of DDR Ram that can handle a massive 8.8Gb of graphics data per second. That's about 20 per cent slower than the 10.4Gb/s speed offered by the 4600 but, in practice, we found that the 4400 was only about five per cent slower than some of the 4600 cards we've reviewed recently.

Running Quake III at a resolution of 1024 x 768 in 16-bit colour and without any anti-aliasing (a programming technique that smooths the jagged lines often produced by computer graphics), the 4400 produced an impressive rate of 183 frames per second (fps). That figure barely changed when we increased the colour depth to 32-bit, holding up at an equally impressive 181fps.

Performance dips as you increase the anti-aliasing settings, but the card still manages 98fps per second with maximum anti-aliasing and 32-bit colour.

Specifications:

• AGP graphics card based on GeForce4 Titanium 4400 processor
• 128Mb DDR Ram
• AccuView anti-aliasing technology
• nView software supports multiple monitor set up
• DVI and VGA interfaces
• Video output, with cables
• Bundled copy of Incoming Forces (£279.99 inc VAT).

Minimum requirements: 200MHz processor; AGP slot; Windows 98 or later.

Contact: Creative Labs
uk.europe.creative.com