Topic: New Video Card - Opinions Welcome

[Iceman]

Indeed, that's pretty much the setup I used for a long time before I built this machine to bring to school. Still very solid, I use it all the time actually.

[Dracho]

I traded that chip in for a PIV.  Had nothing but trouble with that particular AMD (my TBird was the best chip I've ever owned) as it was VERY particular about the brand of memory modules I put on my motherboard.  That board and chip corrupted more data than anything I've seen since a Banyan Vines server.

Aw, I already bought and installed the 128 Mb version in my kid's PC, but the CPU is the AMD Athlon XP 2500+ with the Barton core, the one running at 1.833 GHz withe 333 MHz FSB.  That, I think is a pretty good chip, so the load will probably shared better between CPU, GPU, and any RAM anywhere.

[Just plain old Punisher]

It will be obsolete in 6 mo no matter which card you buy!!

MUAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

[E_Look]

Really?!

All I stuck in the first system based on that chip were two sticks of 512 Mb regular vanilla PC-2700 Kingston RAM, no fancy schmancy latencies.  In the second system, which really hasn't been truly used yet, I used one such stick of Kingston and one Kingmax.  We'll see how that does.

How could a mobo and/or CPU corrupt data??  It must mangle the calculations, in which case, the core design and architecture is truly faulty or the pointyheads got dulled when they programmed in the instruction set... both scenarios which are more unlikely than one in SFC where a Fed frigate beats three Klink D7Ds.

Could it be possible you got either one faulty processor and/or one motherboard with some bad chips on it?

I'm not challenging you, Drac, just totally confused... and nosy.

EDIT:  In both systems, the motherboard is a DFI nForce 2 based one.

I traded that chip in for a PIV.  Had nothing but trouble with that particular AMD (my TBird was the best chip I've ever owned) as it was VERY particular about the brand of memory modules I put on my motherboard.  That board and chip corrupted more data than anything I've seen since a Banyan Vines server.

Aw, I already bought and installed the 128 Mb version in my kid's PC, but the CPU is the AMD Athlon XP 2500+ with the Barton core, the one running at 1.833 GHz withe 333 MHz FSB.  That, I think is a pretty good chip, so the load will probably shared better between CPU, GPU, and any RAM anywhere.

[Dracho]

It was a Soyo board with is rather infamous for being picky about using less than premium memory sticks.  I think it was an AN7QVN

[E_Look]

Yeah, but I've heard about as much, but do know at least one fellow who says good things about them, though some of my Internet readings would disagree.  There is a MicroCenter near me; once in a while they do have killer deals on CPUs, mobos, etc (I can't forget that I got a super vid card there, the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128 Mb for less than $170, over two years ago!).  But I kind of avoided the Soyo ones.  I am also leery of Biostar, and Abit, now that they were snagged using inferior or defective components on what was sold as one of their leading boards.  I think I pay a slight premium for the MSI or DFI brands, but they have a fairly sterling rep backed in my eyes by my own experiences.  I don't like extra trouble down the line once it's built, kinda like not wanting to get up once my shoes are off and my heiney is on the couch (all right, to tell the truth, once my heiney is on my chair in front of my PC).

But if this rig for my younger one goes crosseyed because of RAM sticks from different manufacturers, I may have no choice but to make a matched set; i.e., get rid of one (boo hoo) and match the remaining one.  But I've heard that these days, most of the "name brand" makers make RAM technically so good that there *should* be no mismatch problem.

In case any of these outfits have reps here, this is, of course, my "private" opinion.

[Dracho]

This last time, when I went back to Intel's PIV, I went with an Intel MB and have not been disappointed.

[Iceman]

I'm using a Soyo with no trouble right now.

I will however point out that when I was putting this rig together, everything worked for about 20 minutes and then the northbridge fan died, toasting the Mobo. Newegg replaced it, and not a problem since.

[E_Look]

Well, you guys did hear that Abit was caught using bad parts their products.  I'm sure they're not alone, even some other "big name" manufacturers, too, I'll bet.

I'm sure THEY've stopped the practice, but the ones still under the radar may still be doing such.  I'm not pointing fingers, but we all hear the occasional horror story with a well known brand... and there's always the occasional bad one item or bad lot.  I guess it happens.

[Javora]

My friends and I have always had good luck with Asus motherboards, but as always your milage may very.

[Elvis]

Are the "bad parts" descibed here in reference to leaky capacitors? Just curious because I think nearly every Tawainese motherboard manufacturer had problems with leaky capacitors. Abit has a pretty good reputation among the enthusiast/overclocking crowd. Everybody has there favorite or most used and then everybody has a horror story.

My first build I used an Iwill socket A board, I will probably not use an Iwill board again; poor documentation, drivers and bios updates. My second build I used a Chaintech board and I could never get it stable. I switched that board with an MSI and havn't had any problems. 

[E_Look]

You may be right, as I forget because I read the article some time ago.  I do think it had to do with the caps, though I can't be sure.

Pfaghh!  I have THREE Taiwanese mobos running in my house right now.  Should I invest in a mop yet?

[Elvis]

You know its two weeks late but here goes at Newegg, an eVGA 6800 for $189.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130202

[Jack Morris]

GeoForce 6800 looks to be the best out there so far.

http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzgwLDM=

[E_Look]

Yeah, technically, I agree with you, Jack, but in my opinion of the bang for buck ratio, I think a slightly less capable card but much cheaper is of the best value to most PC owners/users, something like maybe the nVidia 6600 series or ATI Radeon 9600 series, especially if you need a new, decent system, but must watch your pennies.

[Kenjar]

I personally don't see any real reason to go about a FX 5700 card (don't get the Light version it's just a revamped 5200) at the moment, there's nothing it won't run, and it's dirt cheap in compairsion to the 6xxx series cards. The 5500 is a waste of space though, you might as well install a 5200 because there's very little benefit from it. The graphics card has got to be the easiest device to install in a PC so make a point of upgrading to a mid range card once every couple of years, or an entery level card every year, these are usually about £20 - £40 and still run any game that comes out. The only real difference I can see at the moment is weather or not OpenGL 1.4 or 1.5 is supported.

[E_Look]

You're right!  The price of the GeForce 5700 is reasonable and it is a good card... only, it seems to be getting somewhat harder and harder to find.

[Jack Morris]

I agree E_Look, is part of the reason why I bought an AMD chip this time instead of P4, with 2 cooling fans on the case (one is a monster located on the side near the CPU) plus the one directly on the CPU, it is a perfect candidate for a darn good tech to overclock for me!  

Prices on CPUs have come way down in the last few years, as have graphics cards. Thank the Lord above for little things like that as I'm no millionaire either.

[Javora]

You're right!  The price of the GeForce 5700 is reasonable and it is a good card... only, it seems to be getting somewhat harder and harder to find.

IMHO you would be better off with the ATI 9600/XT.

[E_Look]

Well, that's what I decided for my kids; one got a Radeon 9500 (very good card at the time; still works well) and the other is getting the 9600 XT.  Why?  Solely on their specs with respect to their prices at the time of purchase.  In case anyone is interested as far as I remember, both Newegg and Monarch should have a Radeon 9600XT for about $100 (actually $98!) still on their sites.

I must say, and Monarch had the low price first, it blew me away!!