Does it realyu matter? Choosing the same chipset but diff. maker?

[NurseRN]

I know of this company JATON which is in the video card business; their products are way cheaper than any other major company.

I was looking at a nVidia based chipset and since all major driver updates come from nVidia direct, I wondered if it's really a better deal buying a more expensive card from a more established company.

What do yo think?

Nurse

 

[Lord Evermore]

With cheaper or less well known companies, you usually don't get all the fancy driver stuff like Diamond or S3 provide (like the special Desktop Properties tabs which let you adjust various settings or tweak things; if they use the straight nVidia drivers, you're unlikely to get anything like that). You also run the risk of getting bad support, since they're not a big name company. Plus the product could just suck. Just because it uses the same chipset as others doesn't mean it's the same card. They may buy the not-perfect chips from nVidia, which couldn't make the higher clock speeds, and therefore your board would both be a slower version and be non-overclockable. Or they could have designed the board badly, it is totally possible to make a board which is flaky despite being the same chipset as better boards, plus, a small company isn't as likely to have the 'best of the best' designers.

On the other hand, you also might get really good support, because being a less well known company, they can't depend on their name to make sales, so great support and word of mouth might be the only way to make a name for themselves. And if they're using straight reference drivers, you don't have to worry about weirdness if you download new ones from nVidia. And a small company is more likely to either go out of business, or stop providing support for a product line if it doesn't sell well.

Of course, someone always has to be the first to use stuff from the lesser known companies, so it might as well be you. Then come back and tell everyone what it was like, and maybe the company will start making huge sales.

 

[jinsonxu]

Ahh, my nVidia TNT2 Vanta 16MB was from a company called Tornado. I had never heard of them before.

The card came with only a thin piece of heatsink, covered with the company's logo! Lousy heat dissipation, i've got a lemon! That was what i thought at first.

Then i played with TNTCLK. I slid the core speed from 100Mhz to 150Mhz. The memory speed from 110Mhz to 180Mhz. Worked perfectly for a week already. Gave my 3DMark score a 100% boost. How's that?

 

[PowerJoe]

Regarding drivers: don't lose any sleep over it. I got a Creative TNT2, and after having seen all the crap they put on their CDs, I chose to stick with the straight nVidia driver.

Oh, avoid Diamond drivers at all costs.

-PJ

 

[Doomsday]

Yes, it is especially if you're a hardcore gamer. I used to own an eVGA Geforce2 MX. That card sucks. I couldn't overclock it at all. The whole point of buying the MX is that it overclocks good. Needless to say, I returned it for the Guillemont. That card runs 5x better, plus I can overclock it to the max without any extra cooling devices added to the card. Also, do not buy Jaton, they are a semi-generic company. Those are like what the buisnesses buy from, so they can get them for cheap.