Our sources with knowledge of the matter told me that NVIDIA had stopped producing the GeForce4 Ti4600 graphics processors at TSMC fabs and the company’s closest partners confirmed the information. Moreover, some retailers indicated the tight supply of the GeForce4 Ti4600 based products in the channel.

A week ago we reported that NVIDIA cannot fulfil the demand on the GeForce4 Ti4600, Ti4200 and GeForce4 MX440 chips with AGP 4x support. Apparently, the Santa Clara, California-based fabless semiconductor developer started to produce the GeForce4 MX with AGP 8x support instead of the same GPUs but with AGP 4x. This caused temporary shortage of the graphics chips, but everything should be on track soon. The lack of the GeForce4 Titanim processors was caused by the shift of the GeForce4 Ti4200 to AGP 8x specifications and end-of-life (EOL) for the GeForce4 Ti4600 GPUs.

Currently GeForce4 Ti4600 based graphics cards cannot compete with the ATI’s RADEON 9700 PRO powered solutions in terms of performance and sometimes price-performance ratio. Moreover, in a couple of weeks NVIDIA announces the highly-anticipated NV30 VPU and the advanced users will wait for the newer graphics cards to come, as a result they will not buy the GeForce4 Ti4600 now. Unfortunately for enthusiasts, our sources now indicate that NVIDIA will not be able to supply the NV30 shortly after the announcement at the Comdex Fall and their closest and most loyal partners had been told about it before. As a result, for example, Medion AG from Germany purchased 400 thousands of the GeForce4 Titanium GPUs, causing the tight supply for the rest companies and the prices on the GeForce4 Ti4200 and Ti4600 chips rose up $11 and $19 respectively per one chip.

I should note that the GeForce4 Ti4600 based graphics cards will not cease to exist in a or two week. One will still be able to buy them in certain retail stores for about $299 or lower. Nevertheless, it seems that NVIDIA will not be able to provide $399 graphics cards in mass quantities this year.