Difference between Gainward Geforce3's and other Geforce3's?

[Kraid2xd]

Okay, I recently bought two geforce3 ti200 cards, a visiontek xtasy ti200 and a gainward ti200(although it says ti-450 on the box for some reason)

I tested them both on my system and did some overclocking trials with each card.

To my surprise, when overclocking the Gainward card using nvmax 4.0 alpha, the defualt clock speed read as 200mhz core/450mhz memory. I had read that NVmax had issues with clock speed readings so I pushed the card up to 240/510 no problem, (crashes when core exceeds 250mhz) Knowing that the defualt of normal geforce3 ti200's is 175mhz/400mhz, I assumed that the actual speeds I got the gainward up to is 215/460 (which is weak)

Now I plug in my visiontek and load up NVmax, and to my surprise, the defualt clockspeed was set at 175/400... I was able to push the card to 225/500 before I start to get graphical glitches...

In light of all this, I'm really confused as to what's up with these gainward "powerpacks!!!" and "golden samples" as they are called... Are they geforce 3's that have been tweaked/modified to run at higher clock speeds, or is it just advertising fluff?

(The gainward shows up as a "geforce 3 ti200" while the visiontek shows up as "Nvidia Geforce3 Ti200" in hardware settings...)

 

[Rand]

Gainward's "Golden Sample" cards come overclocked from the factory, as long as you use Gainward's own drivers. If you use the nvidia reference drivers it defaults back to the stock setting for the card.

 

[n18mets]

I think they use memory with lower latency and/or better memory chips.

 

[DaejangNim]

they've used higher quality mem in a lot of their cards, even their gf2pro was 4.5ns ram when every other company's was 5-5.5ns ram

 

[Kraid2xd]

Well, all this time I was using nvidia reference drivers..... and the card still shows up as 200/450... could this be due to some extra code in the bios of the vid card? I notice that the gainward has it's own custom bios that loads up whenever I turn on my computer.....

 

[jimmygates]

"Gainward's "Golden Sample" cards come overclocked from the factory, as long as you use Gainward's own drivers. If you use the nvidia reference drivers it defaults back to the stock setting for the card. "



I believe the card comes from Gainward with the core/mem overclocked in the video BIOS. I got the 128MB Gainward Ti200 and it defaulted to 200/450 even when I used the reference Nvidia drivers. Since Golden Samples are guaranteed to work at 200/450, i don't doubt Gainward would mod the core/mem in the BIOS.




-Jimbo

 

[Kraid2xd]

Well, since I don't need two geforces lying around... I might sell one.... so which one do you suggest I keep?

 

[Mike99C5]

Go over to the video forum and you'll find a TON of posts on various GF3 Ti200 cards. The Gainward Golden Sample cards use 4.0ns RAM (as advertised) but some people have taken the heat sinks off and have found that there is actually 3.8ns RAM in there! I have a Gainward GF3 Ti200 GS myself and run at 235core/535mem with no artifacts. I believe there are a number of people running at 240core/560mem without any problems but I backed off a little to be safe. I've heard that the Gainward GF3 Ti200 cards start life as a Ti500 card but for whatever reason couldn't quite pass the quality test. In effect, you're getting a "hand picked" Ti200 card. For $170 I couldn't be happier...fast and reliable. I'd say keep the Gainward...plus it's red and looks cool

 

[Goose77]

 

[Goose77]

gainward sounds like a nice company.. could u give me the place where i can get one of these cards?

 

[Mike99C5]

www.newegg.com

Great company...good customer service and they ship fast.

 

[Rand]

<< "Gainward's "Golden Sample" cards come overclocked from the factory, as long as you use Gainward's own drivers. If you use the nvidia reference drivers it defaults back to the stock setting for the card. "



I believe the card comes from Gainward with the core/mem overclocked in the video BIOS. I got the 128MB Gainward Ti200 and it defaulted to 200/450 even when I used the reference Nvidia drivers. Since Golden Samples are guaranteed to work at 200/450, i don't doubt Gainward would mod the core/mem in the BIOS.
>>



Perhaps they've changed it lately then, as previously it has defaulted back to the regular core/mem clocks unless you used Gainwards drivers.

One thing to watch out for with Gainward though... their tech support is virtually non-existent, and their RMA practices are the worst I've ever seen.

 

[Kraid2xd]

okay, then it's settled, selling my visiontek geforce3 ti200, in original oem whitebox packaging with driver CD

asking $140 shipping included

PM me if interested