by Anna Filatova
05/20/2002 | 03:43 PM
ASUS announced its GeForce4 Ti4600 based graphics card aka V8460Ultra together with the launching of the entire NVIDIA GeForce4 family. This made ASUS one of the first companies to start shipping GeForce4 based graphics cards in mass quantities. However, this rush appeared to have some negative consequences as well.
V8460Ultra was built according to the reference design, which made it absolutely identical to the products by other manufacturers. At the same time it implied that ASUS will not be able to design a Deluxe version of its graphics card on GeForce4 Ti4600, which required special design. But all the previous Deluxe solutions supporting stereoscopic glasses, Video-In and hardware monitoring functions used to be very popular among hardware enthusiasts. Therefore, ASUS has finally made up its mind to develop a new design for its GeForce4 Ti4600 based graphics cards and to launch a Deluxe version of its high-performance gaming graphics card.<%BANNER[article]%>
Beginning this week, ASUS will start shipping new GeForce4 Ti4600 based graphics cards aka V8460Ultra Deluxe. They will be equipped with 128MB graphics DDR memory and will work at 300MHz core and 650MHz memory frequencies. However, unlike regular GeForce4 Ti4600 based cards, including V8640Ultra, the new Deluxe version will feature a TV-Out, a Video-In, will support stereoscopic glasses, use "Immersion Gold Coating" for higher stability, feature VGA and DVI Outs for monitors. Of course, this card is based on a new PCB:
I would like to note that the card is equipped with a copper very originally looking cooler. Also V8460Ultra Deluxe supports hardware monitoring via a well-known Smart Doctor utility. Together with the card, ASUS ships the stereoscopic glasses and three games:
And here is a sheet from the booklet giving a very illustrative idea of what this V8640Ultra Deluxe actually is:
