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Gainward creates 128MB GF3...will the others follow (no doubt about it)!

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<< What sounded fishy to me was how this one nVidia card was given "special enhancements to improve performance". If they're not referring to overclocking, they have some kind of special drivers that do something to either actually enhance performance or degrade quality for sake of speed. (We've been there before.)
In either case, you'd be stuck with their drivers if you want this "special enhancement technique." >>



The performance enhancement is an overclock. But since Gainward guarantees it to run at that speed it's not really an overclock, but the core/ram are set to run at a higher speed by Gainward's drivers in their enhanced performance mode. I used to own a Gainward GF2 Pro/450 Golden Sample card and the Gainward drivers for that card allowed it it run at it's stock speed of 200/400, or in Gainward's enhanced performance mode at 220/444.
 
lol @ halogen, first of all. his post = joke. then also lol @ Adul. must still be buying oem comps..

too many ppl have some kind of strange misconception of judging a video card soley by the size of its memory. blah! im quite surprised to find anyone here that does so

i think i remember reading an anandtech review or two on the gf3 and if you turned on max supersampling aa and put the resolution pretty high, it couldnt even run quake3 all that fast. with some extra memory, yeah, you wont see a huge performance increase.. in the sims at 1024x768. but it does allow for ppl all about image quality to have their cake and eat it too. personally, id like a card that could run max payne at 1600x1200x32 with supersampling aa at 60-70 fps. but, sadly, i wouldnt buy one cuz im poor. itd make it easier to buy my gf3 64mb, tho 🙂

more memory just allows more options. it may not show a big performance increase in most situations (definitely not 25%, i wouldnt think), but it does raise the bar a little bit for what can be done in games. there are still games around that dont NEEED 64mb, but then again, there are some that really do benefit from it. think about if manufacturers held of on making 64mb cards just cuz 'most' games didnt need it. lol, its the industry moving forward. it happens all the time.

plus, maybe theyre trying to catch up to the production of auqanox, lol. hopefully by the time it comes out, we'll be able to run it faster than 50 fps.


and whats all this about "the gainward ti/500 based on the ti200 CHIP"?? all gf3's are the same chip. thats what makes them gf3's. ti200/500 are just memory clock options... maybe im being noneuclidian, heh
 
Gainward is the best manufacture (very overclockable). But I think you need 128MB only for video editing. 64MB is enogh for normal users.
 


<<

<< Even at 1600x1200x32bpp most games don't see much of a gain from going to 32MB to 64MB of graphics memory >>



Run Quaver demo @ 1600 1200 32bit without TC, you might be surprised....

Also, 128Mb will allow Anti-Aliasing (at least to run!) with very high resolutions. >>



As I originally said "albeit there are a few select gaming applications that do see gains of a much as 10-15% under the right conditions". The Quaver demo, a demo originally made specifically to stress the graphics card more then the regular demos, and disabling TC would fall under the heading of "applications that do see gains of a much as 10-15% under the right conditions". Even then the Quaver demo isnt representative of the average game of Q3, it's specifically intended to stress the video card and you still need to disable texture compression to see the benefit of going to 32MB to 64MB... the benefits of going to 128MB will be even smaller still.

Unless one is intent upon gaining every last frame at 1600x1200x32bpp or running 2X FSAA at 1600x1200x32bpp I really can't see it helping much at all.
4X FSAA at 1600x1200x32bpp one might as well forget as even a Ti500 doesnt really have the power to pull that off in any case.

 
I have a Gainward Geforce 2 Ti XP/500 Golden Sample which comes equipped with 4.0 ns ram. According to anything I can find on the Geforce2 Pro/Ultra is that the Pro used 5.0 or 4.5 ns ram with only the ultras using 4.0. Gainward has done right with it's GF2 Ti cards as they basically give you the memory of the Ultra, the GPU of the PRO (just a slower clocked ultra) and open it up via their own tweak tool (expert tool) and let you do what you want, add VIVO and for about $20 more than a Pro and $20 less than an Ultra you get Ultra performance (when set in Gainward's OC or higher) with VIVO. Plus the card comes with a big GPU cooler and ramsinks, no add-ons necessary. I easily get my card to 300/500, so yeah Gainwards cards do come with some extra perks, and I doubt this card will be that much more expensive, prolly $40 or so, but who cares? it's only money right 😉
 
Frankly I'm inclined to believe it's damn near a waste.

I'm not. Most games will benefit tremendously because they'll have fewer texture swaps.

For many games, 16MB is still enough. There are few games that truly need more then 32MB.

16 MB is nowhere near enough for any game. Even Quake2 runs better on 32 MB boards at 1600 x 1200 x 32 with high res textures. Also any game like UT, NOLF or Quake3 will easily chew up 32 MB boards (even with texture compression) and requires 64 MB boards to run well. Then there are the newer games like RTCW which chew up even 64 MB boards, even with texture compression enabled.

Even at 1600x1200x32bpp most games don't see much of a gain from going to 32MB to 64MB of graphics memory,

That depends on what you mean by "gain". Performance-wise in certain timedemos - perhaps not. But during normal gameplay 64 MB boards are smoother and provide more consistent framerates.

Wouldn't the design of the software have to take advantage of that?

Not at all. The and the OS drivers take care of that.

Total waste of money. Especially since most games have TC. You'll see a couple percent performance increase at most.

No, it isn't. And most games don't have texture compression.
 
New Info:

From gainward's Euro site:



<< Gainward GeForce3 PowerPack!!! Ti/500 ?JUMBO? ?Golden Sample? TM

Featuring NVIDIA?s GeForce3 TI-200 and 128MB of super-fast DDR memory

Gainward Co., Ltd, a leading manufacturer of high performance 3D graphics and home entertainment accelerators, announces the world?s first 128MB 3D graphics accelerator, the Gainward GeForce3 PowerPack!!! Ti/500 ?JUMBO? ?Golden Sample?TM >>



Newegg already has it on sale and for UNDER $200! A fairly good deal if you ask me. Even if it offers only limited performance gains (5-10%) over the Ti 200, it still slides in over $100 under a Ti500, and after overclocking, this could be the fastest board around. As always, i would wait for reviews, but this seems like quite the board for the price.

Gainward Euro's press release
Newegg's Gainward Listing

-Cyg
 


<< jeez dont you people ever stop, the most important thing about video speed is actually the CPU not the video card
i bet if you lined up an Athlon XP 1900+ with a 8mb ATI Xpert gamer or whatever against a P3 800mhz with a GeForce3 Ti500 i bet the XP would blow it away

and about this hard core fps thing everybody rides on, if you have an Athlon XP 1900+ (about the price of a GeForce3 TI500 really) and a GeForce3 Ti500 you get like 1000 FPS in any game goin right now or in the next like year so why blow big bucks on some new thing with more memory, big deal i dont think im really gonna notice a difference between 500 FPS and 1000FPS, as long as the graphics actualy flow them im pretty good, its just when it starts to jerk like my 500 Celery did that i get concerned >>



the more you post the more I you convince me you have no clue about PC hardware. They are both dependent on each others. A cpu can only push a card so much until it becomes the bottle neck. There will always be a bottle neck somewhere. You just have to pick your point of where you want your performance to be and build to that level. For some that means have 300 FPS. For others it just means decently smooth game play.
 
munki
I am sure has am not buying oem crap. Click on my sig next time and maybe you can see I have built ever single PC in that line up. I dor egular upgrades, but I rarely by the bleeding edge. I put my money to good use when I can. 128 MB of ram will not be worth the cost vs perfomance gains to me. For some money is no option so they will buy it.
 
Newegg just put them on sale for $196. Not that bad a price actually. I think I'll go with the 128mb Ti200 then since I'm building my new box real soon 🙂

 
Got mine from Newegg also. I'm willing to spend an extra $30 for extra 64mb of ram. It might come in handy in the future or if not, at least I have bragging rights on my block 🙂


-Jimbo
 
Wow...I ordered from Newegg Monday morning and my Gainward shows up on my door step the next day 😛.



I can't wait to test it out...comes with TV-Out also. I wonder how far I can overclock 128MB 😛




-Jimbo
 
my apologies to adul. i didnt even check on you before making the oem comment. but its been a while since ive heard any one say 128mb of ram is enough for me, heh. especially around here, ya know? so, you just build money-efficient, i guess. personally, i want at least 512 🙂
 
I just got mine. I was going to go with the 64mb, but for $30, why not? I had to overnight it also. I can't wait. I'll post results.
 
Mines on the way as well.... I will be happy to reach Ti500 speeds and have the extra 64mb of memory for over $100 less than a regular Ti500...sounds like a good deal to me..🙂
 
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