Chaintech Geforce4 4200 "GT21"

[homeboyfuzzyhead]

Hi

I want to buy a video card with VIVO (video in/video out) Is Chaintech a good name to buy? Has anyone heard anything about the Chaintech Geforce4 4200 "GT21"?

I heard ATI cards have driver problems but what does that mean?

Thanks

 

[AnAndAustin]

🙁 ATI get unfairly slated for poor drivers. The Rad8500 has been around a long time and offers GF3 level perf with VERY sturdy drivers. The Rad9000 cards are cheaper to produce slightly cut down Rad8500 cards and as such also possess the same great driver base. Rad9700 is the first DX9 card and has phenomenal perf, this 'newness' comes at a price and there are some issues ... but nothing any truly new technology won't bring. ATI didn't do themselves any favours by producing a driver which detected the QuakeIII engine (commonly used to compare cards) and sacrificed detail for speed, this was short-lived and quickly rectified but was another reason why people dislike ATI drivers.

😉 Chaintech are a well known and respected brand. Manu makes very little diff in GF4TI cards as speed, o/c, image quality, features etc are all pretty much identical. The exceptions are AOpen, EVGA and non-Golden Sample Gainward 4200 cards which all are known to cheap out on the RAM which not only kills any o/c but can also compromise std clock speeds and stability too. If you avoid these you should be more than fine.

😀 So I'd go with the cheapest VIVO TI4200 (with 128MB personally) so long as it wasn't the few brands which use cheap and nasty RAM. Here's some reviews of 4200 cards, maybe Chaintech is in there somewhere ...

HOW 4200 CARDS PERF AND O/C:
AnAndTech 4200 roundup
Tech-Report 4200 roundup
Tech-Report
TomsHW
AnAndTech
FiringSquad
HardOCP1
HardOCP2
HardOCP Abit OTES

 

[homeboyfuzzyhead]

Thanks!!