At least according to x-bit sources; this would sound more logical if the NV30 would be nearing widespread release however we won't see it selling everywhere until the beginning of next year. Obviously Ti4600s won't dissapear right away but will be fading away eventually as we approach year's end:

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.

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.

Does that mean Ti4200 will be better than Ti4600?

Well nVIDIA has given the green light to many company to release SE or Ultra version of their ti 4200 cards. A lot of them reach TI 4600 speeds or even more (although with some serious cooling like the ABIT OTES).

Here's one : http://www.guru3d.com/review/albatron/ti4200p-turbo/

I don't think many people are still willing to buy a TI4600 when they can get a Radeon 9700 for better performance or a TI 4200 for a better price.

The TI4200 & the MX440 are the only nVIDIA cards to make the transition to AGP 8x because they're the ones selling the most.

I think Nvidia is trying to concentrate on the NV30. If they only produce 4200 cards, they don't have to worry about having good enough chip yields for 4600 speeds.

When's the NV30 announcement due again ?

"When's the NV30 announcement due again ? "

I read 2-3 weeks.

truth imo is that nvidia is lunning low on cash due to nv30 testing and all, and if it kept producing more nv25 chips it'd loose more money, so they only build nv27 (or whatever the 8x is for that chip)
they are focusing on nv30 for sure, and i bet the final version is being made already, so that there are no shortages when it's released

the 8x cards will be backwards compatable with 4x mobos? will there be any performance gain witht he 4x or 8x version on a 4x mobo?

TechReport tested 8x cards a couple of weeks ago, you can take a look to the article though don't expect big performance gains if any.

Hey Julio, u think 8x... or maybe even 4x... will ever show a performance increase?? how about year 2025?