I'd like to preface this review by stating its primary goal which is to inform you, as a consumer, with as much relevant information as possible. Hopefully, after reading this review you'll have learned a few things that will help you to make a more informed purchasing decision. With that said, I should add that the target audience for this review is to the majority of you. Exactly what defines the "majority of you" is not going to be perfect but I'll do the best I can based on my gut feeling from your e-mails, reading nV News forum posts, etc.

Realizing the fact that this card is targeted for a niche market, all benchmarking was done at overclocked settings of 320/700. I opted not to include default clock settings to keep this review tidier and also because most of you have a good idea of default settings already.

If there's one thing a review of today's Gainward video cards must include, it's the obligatory clarification of their product naming conventions. I won't pretend to know anything about marketing or branding so I'll just give you the facts for those of you that aren't quite clear on this subject. If you're already intimately familiar with all of this then feel free to jump here.

Now, some further clarification should be made about the "Ti4800" and "Ti4800SE" naming that nVidia came up with. Both are actually just Ti4600 and Ti4400 cards, respectively, with only the addition of AGP-8X support. Yes, the Ti4800SE is actually a Ti4400 and not a Ti4600 like most would assume. nVidia also deemed it necessary to name the chipset "NV28" which is what all of these cards are built on and is essentially the NV25 with AGP-8X support.

Furthermore, (yes there's a bit more) there are a few small--but important--details about the Gainward GeForce4 PowerPack! Ultra/750-8X XP Golden Sample that all the reviews I've read to date have neglected to mention. This little nugget of information is that of the difference between the retail and OEM (whitebox) products. From a product naming standpoint there is no difference (with the only exception being the bar code), both are named exactly the same: Gainward GeForce4 PowerPack! Ultra/750-8X XP Golden Sample. However, there is a difference with:

• default core clock
• memory
• bandwidth (result of two items above)

Source: Gainward Product Guide: February/March 2003, Release 5.1 (PDF)

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