GEforce 4 brands..

[FrancisBegbie]

any idea on which brands are the most reliable...the one i had in mind was the PALIT DAYTONA...

 

[ezdriver]

You can't go wrong with ASUS, but that higher quality also comes with a higher price tag, too.

ez

 

[CubicZirconia]

The brands are all very similar. Certain types have more exotic cooling setups, most of which add little to the actual cooling performance. As far as reliability, the brand is basically negligible. I wouldn't spend extra money on a "better" brand unless I was getting a significantly longer warranty (even then I probably wouldn't to be honest).

 

[BlueWeasel]

I agree with Cubic. However, I have used Gainward with both my GF3 and GF4 cards and think they are excellent in terms of performance and cost.

 

[chizow]

Quality of RAM should be your biggest deciding factor. Cores should all be A3. Then you get into features like DVI/VIVO/TV-out/8X AGP (not a huge factor IMO). After that comes PCB design and quality (6 layer vs 8 layer extended) and lastly cooling (although noise could be a major consideration. Included software may factor in too, as some have higher quality DVD proggies (if you don't have one already), better game bundles, and VIVO software. Adapters and dongles should only factor in if you plan on taking advantage of the adapters.

Chiz

 

[AnAndAustin]

Yeah brand matters very little for GF4TI cards, brands known to have skimped on some of their GF4TI designs/implimentations are AOpen, Evga and Gainward's non-GS. As pretty much said by chizow, only go for the more expensive cards if they have a bundle or extra features you are looking for.

 

[Slappy00]

GAinward can suck my ass:

1) Bought a Gainward Cardexpert Cardexpert powerpack 64 (GF3 vanilla)
2) Had crashes in all DX 8.1 games .... winXP pointed finger at "Nivda GeForce 3" (dx 8.1a 28.32WHQL)
-reinstalled windows (for other reasons) after a clean format...still there
3) Sent e-mail to Gainward explaining my problem
4) their reply: there are no BIOS updates, that card is outdated and no longer supported*

SO I warn you when you get a Gainward card.. their website was crap up to about 2 months ago, and their "servic" as they like to call it is likes to pretend you are an idiot.

*I had the full quote somwhere in this forum (I lost the e-mail due to a crash on my e-mail server) but thats honestly what they told me, the worst part was that the Ti class had just come out like a month before that ... I'll do a search and append the other post when i find it

 

[Slappy00]

Here it is:

It all started with Empire Earth. EE would run fine for like an hour and then crash...hard, requiring a soft reset. when xp booted back in i would get a fimilar message stating that "there is a problem with (in bold) Nvidia GeForce 3. Please contact vendor for blah blah blah."

I was like ok whatever, so EE dont work, no bigge. Then Dungeon Seige crashed randomly. This got me scratching my head so I sent an email like so:

> I have a problem with my Geforce 3 card that i bought a year ago from a
> reseller, manufactured by your company.
> The card was Gainward CARDEXPERT GeForce3 PowerPack !!! 64MB
> After recieving the card and installing the drivers everything was running
> ok..for awhile
> Reciently I was trying to play some newer Direct 3d games like Empire
> Earth and Dungeon Seige, both using what appears to be the same rendering
> engine. I updated my drivers to the newest WHQL Nvidia Drivers 23.81 (or
> something of the sort) and the direct 3d games crash after a few minutes
> of use. After the crash, which sometimes requires a reboot Windows XP
> Professional points the finger squarely at The Nvidia Device (do doubt
> refering to the drivers) and it continues to crash on Direct 3D
> applications untill i restore the old 21.83 drivers, in which case
> everything works fine (for the most part).
> Open Gl applications work fine and D3d applications work fine with the old
> drivers... I do not want to use the outdated drivers and would like to use
> any newer drivers offered for the card. It seems ludicris to me that
> 21.83 drivers work but newer ones do not for direct 3d. which leads me to
> my next problem.
> I am also at a loss in finding your drivers for the CardExpert series for
> your driver page ONLY shows the Ti series 400+ it does show nor say where
> to find your drivers for the Card Expert Series. Your BIOS page is equally
> frustrating, and doesnt have the model of the card i am d/l the bios for
> (although i would have to assume that all the GF3 cores are alike).
> Finally my system setup:
>
> MSI KK266-R
> Kingston PC150+ memory
> Gainward CARDEXPERT GeForce3 PowerPack !!! 64MB
> AMD Athlon 1.33 @ 266
> Sound Blaster Audigy
>
> thank you in advance for your time


Get this for respose, and this should make you think twice about dealing with Gainward:

Hi,
No new bios is available.
GeForce 3 is old and discontinued. I think that the old driver sometimes is
the best driver.
Thanks.