NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

The NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 is an end-of-life graphics card from the GeForce 4 Ti generation, built around the NV25 chip on the Kelvin architecture. TSMC fabricates the chip on a 150 nm process, packing 63 million transistors into a 142 mm² die for a density of 443.7K transistors per square millimeter. The card is a single-slot design that carries 64 MB of DDR memory on a 64-bit bus, connects through AGP 4x, and requires no auxiliary power connectors, with a suggested 200 W power supply. Display outputs comprise one DVI, one VGA, and one S-Video. It launched on February 5, 2002, positioned between the GeForce 4 MX as its predecessor and the GeForce FX as its successor, and the database marks it as end-of-life, meaning it is no longer in production.

Memory Subsystem

The GeForce4 Ti 4200 ships with 64 MB of DDR memory, a capacity that reflects its early-2002 positioning. The memory interface is 64 bits wide, which is narrow for a desktop graphics card, and it operates at 250 MHz with a 500 Mbps effective data rate. Total memory bandwidth is 4.000 GB/s. That figure is the product of the 64-bit bus and the DDR data rate, and it is the single most important constraint on the card's high-resolution behavior.

At lower resolutions, the 4.000 GB/s of bandwidth and 64 MB of frame buffer are sufficient for many titles of the era. As resolution climbs, two pressures mount. First, the frame buffer fills with larger color and depth buffers; 64 MB becomes a hard ceiling, forcing lower detail or reduced color depth. Second, the narrow 64-bit bus limits the rate at which textures and geometry data can stream from memory to the chip. The result is that the memory figures point to a card that is comfortable at lower resolutions but increasingly strained at higher ones. The DDR memory type doubles the data rate per pin compared to single-data-rate memory, which is why 250 MHz yields 500 Mbps effective, but the narrow bus still caps total throughput at 4.000 GB/s.

The card's 8 TMUs and 4 ROPs produce a texture rate of 2.000 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 1.000 GPixel/s. These rates are modest and scale with the memory bandwidth; a wider bus would have lifted the pixel rate ceiling, but the 64-bit interface keeps the whole subsystem in balance — or, viewed critically, in check. For bandwidth-sensitive workloads, the 4.000 GB/s figure is the defining limit, and it directly shapes what the card can do at higher detail settings and larger frame buffers.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The GeForce4 Ti 4200 has no RT cores and no tensor cores; both fields in the FACT PACK are null. This means there is no hardware-accelerated ray tracing and no tensor-based AI acceleration for features like deep learning super sampling or ray reconstruction. The card's feature set is defined entirely by its API support: DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.5. There is no Vulkan support listed.

DirectX 8.1 was the first DirectX revision to bring programmable vertex and pixel shaders to mainstream hardware, and the Kelvin architecture implements that shader model. The FACT PACK does not list shading unit counts, so the exact shader throughput is not specified, but the API support indicates the card can run shader-based content from that era. OpenGL 1.5 adds features like vertex buffer objects and occlusion queries, which the card supports at the driver level. The absence of Vulkan is expected for a 2002 part, as that API did not exist at the time.

The absence of tensor cores is significant for any modern workload: AI-based upscaling, denoising, and frame generation are all off the table. Similarly, the lack of RT cores means any ray-traced effects — reflections, shadows, global illumination — would have to be computed on the traditional pixel and texture pipelines, which at 1.000 GPixel/s and 2.000 GTexel/s is impractical. The feature set is a snapshot of 2002-era graphics: fixed-function and early programmable shading, with no compute, no ray tracing, and no AI acceleration.

Benchmark Performance

Benchmark data for the GeForce4 Ti 4200 is effectively absent from the FACT PACK. The benchmarks array is empty, and the average benchmark score is recorded as 0. This is best interpreted as a missing-data marker rather than a performance result; the card has no recorded runs in the database. The percentileVsAllGpus field, however, places the card at the 50th percentile of all GPUs. That is a positional statement: the card sits at the midpoint of the database's GPU population, with roughly half of all parts ranked below it and half above.

Because the nearestRivals array is empty, no direct percentage deltas against specific competing cards can be computed from the available data. The 50th percentile is therefore the only quantitative performance anchor. It tells a consistent story with the card's hardware: a 64-bit DDR memory interface yielding 4.000 GB/s of bandwidth, 8 TMUs, 4 ROPs, a 1.000 GPixel/s pixel rate, and a 2.000 GTexel/s texture rate. These are mid-pack figures for 2002, and the 50th percentile ranking reflects that.

It is worth noting that the percentile is a relative measure across all GPUs in the database, which spans many generations. A 50th percentile placement does not mean the card is average for its own generation; it means that, across the full historical range of GPUs, it lands exactly in the middle. The absence of benchmark scores means the percentile cannot be cross-checked against raw performance numbers, but the hardware specifications provide a plausible basis for the ranking. The zero average score should not be read as a performance floor; it is simply an artifact of there being no recorded data.

How It Compares

The FACT PACK lists no nearest rivals for the GeForce4 Ti 4200, so a rival-by-rival comparison with named competitors and exact delta percentages is not possible from the available data. The card's position must instead be established through its database percentile and its place in NVIDIA's own product timeline.

Against its predecessor, the GeForce 4 MX, the Ti 4200 is a different class of part. The MX line was NVIDIA's value-oriented family, while the Ti line carried the Kelvin architecture with programmable shader support via DirectX 8.1. The Ti 4200's 8 TMUs and 4 ROPs, with a 4.000 GB/s memory bandwidth, place it above the MX's fixed-function capabilities, though the FACT PACK does not provide MX specifications for direct comparison.

Against its successor, the GeForce FX, the Ti 4200 is the older generation. The GeForce FX would bring a newer architecture and broader API support, but the FACT PACK lists no FX specifications, so any comparison is limited to generational positioning. The Ti 4200's DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.5 support define its software envelope; the FX line would move beyond that, though no numbers are available to quantify the difference.

In the broader database, the 50th percentile placement is the key comparative figure. It indicates that the card outperforms roughly half of all GPUs ever recorded in the database and underperforms the other half. That is a notable longevity statement for a 2002 part — it suggests that, even against much newer hardware, the Ti 4200's modest specifications keep it in the middle of the pack rather than at the bottom. Without rival scores, no further precision is possible.

FAQ

Q: How much video memory does the GeForce4 Ti 4200 have?

A: The card ships with 64 MB of DDR memory.

Q: What is the memory bus width and bandwidth?

A: The memory interface is 64 bits wide, and total bandwidth is 4.000 GB/s, achieved with a 250 MHz memory clock delivering 500 Mbps effective.

Q: Which graphics APIs does the card support?

A: It supports DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.5. No Vulkan support is listed in the FACT PACK.

Q: Does the GeForce4 Ti 4200 support ray tracing or tensor cores?

A: No. The FACT PACK lists no RT cores and no tensor cores, so there is no hardware ray tracing or tensor-based AI acceleration.

Q: What is the process node and transistor count?

A: The chip is manufactured on a 150 nm process at TSMC, with 63 million transistors on a 142 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 443.7K per square millimeter.

Q: When was the card released, and what power supply is recommended?

A: It was released on February 5, 2002. A 200 W power supply is suggested, and the card has no auxiliary power connectors.

Q: What display outputs and bus interface does the card use?

A: It provides one DVI, one VGA, and one S-Video output, and connects via AGP 4x.