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Geforce4 Ti4200 upgrade for Shuttle SN45G?

D

dejacky

Banned
I have $300 to spend on an AGP video card upgrade for my Shuttle SN45G. The video card will be paired with an AMD mobile barton 2.5Ghz cpu running at ~215Ghz FSB speed hopefully. In order of priority:

1. QUIET (passive if it can fit, perform stable, and still have high performance)
2. Stability/Reliability/compatibility (needs to run games just as well as CAD apps and vid editing)
3. SPEED (as fast as possible for $300!)


What should I get and why? (a voice in my head says "don't get less than 6800gt performance!") I don't mind buying something and performing mods to make the speed acceptable. Or is now not the right time to upgrade my video card. Should I wait a few months until the next gen cards come out?
 
You could get a geforce 6800 and an nv silencer. That should be around 300 together, and you will get speed and a quiet running setup.
 
It doesn't HAVE to be passive cooling, a really quiet fan cooled vid card is acceptable...but if there exists a reasonably priced and sized passive cooling solution, I want it 🙂 A voice in my head is saying "don't get less than 6800gt performance!"
 
You wont get a 6800gt for less then 300. An NV silencer is not passive. But it is quiet enough to where you wont hear it.
 
You aren't going to find a 6800GT for $300, or anywhere close to $300.

The only 6800 vanilla that I know comes with passive cooling is the gigabyte for $289

http://www.newegg.com/app/view...=14-125-142&depa=1

I hear it still gets a decent OC, and you may be able to unlock the pipes. This is all i know of for a passaive solution.


you could go with the dumbed down 6800GT made by asus, with only 128 meg of DDR1 ram, instead of 256 meg of DDR3 on a stock 6800GT.... BUT you will get the open 4 pipes guaranteed with it for $319.

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-121-177&depa=1


Or you could try any of the 6 6800's listed below (listed in order of price $268-285). The cards are basically the same and you can buy the card you are most comtfortable with. Then to try and get to your 6800GT levels you add on a artic Cooling NV silencer 5 for $29. pretty much the best air cooling system for the 6800 series, and its very quiet. Good luck and let us know what you do.


Artic Cooler

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=35-186-120&depa=1

6 6800 vanillas to pick from:

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-150-068&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-139-162&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-140-045&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-119-145&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-170-056&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-130-202&depa=1

 
Thanks so much guys! That asus "6800gt" with only 4 pipelines sounds familiar. Wasn't there a mod to enable the other pipelines on that specific Asus card? Considering I want this next video card to be a HUGE performance leap above my Ti4200 what are your opinions on best bang/buck card for my application?
 
that asus card has ALL the 16 pipes open already. Its a 6800 GT. all the 6800 vanillas only have 12, with the "possiblity" of opening to all 16 becuase they are based on the same reference card as the 6800GT, just the other 4 pipes are masked.


If it was me, I would buy any one of those 6800 vanilla cards. Do a little research and pick the one you think is best, they are basically the same card, at this point its picking the manufacturer your most comfortable with.

I went from a ti4200 to my 6800 vanilla (PNY).

it is a HUGE noticable improvement.


Chris
 
Dejacky,

yes it has all the pipes open. Heres a link to the review thats confirms it.

ASUS review

heres a few quotes from the review.


"The card has the AGP x8/x4 interface, 128 MB DDR SDRAM allocated in 8 chips on the front side of the PCB.
Hynix memory chips. 2.8ns memory access time, which corresponds to 350 (700) MHz, at which the memory operates. GPU frequency ? 350 MHz. 256bit memory bus. Pixel pipelines x texture units - 16x1. 6 vertex pipelines"

And here was their conclusion

"Conclusions

As we can see, despite the initial scepticism about how bad it is to limit this powerful chip by a low memory bandwidth and twice as low memory capacity, the test results demonstrated that this video card is one of the most attractive ones! Its price being only a little higher than for regular GeForce 6800, it has a powerful chip! It plays its role. The accelerator works off its price just fine.

Will it be for long? When will the games come out, which will require more than 128 MB memory? - It's a difficult question, many people ask it. That's what I think: if you want to get a fast and reliable video card for the nearest year ? V9999GT is your choice. If you want an accelerator for 1.5-2 years in advance, you'd better buy a "sterling" GeForce 6800GT.

ASUS V9999GT 128MB DDR proved itself good in all aspects! Both the operating stability (I mean our sample, of course) and the quality in 2D in 1600x1200 at 85Hz are excellent.

In our 3Digest you can find more detailed comparisons of various video cards. "


 
It will run the same as a regular 6800gt until it runs out of video memory. On Doom3at Medium settings, it would perform about the same as a 256 MB 6800gt. However, on high and ultra settings (which require at least 256 and 512 MB video mem respectively), you will notice a significant drop in performance as the card has to "page" video info (vertex buffers, textures, etc.) to system RAm and even the *gasp* hard drive, which will destroy performance. If you don't mind keeping the vertex count and texture size down, the card is a great choice.
 
Dejacky,

its hard to say. There are many factors..... depends what game your playing. How much demand does it put on the VC? DO you AA or AF on?


But in general, you will probably have a hard time running the latest graphically intensive games.. Doom 3 and HL2 come to mind in 1600 by 1200. But for the most everything else, whatever you through at this card, its going to handle just fine.

I dont think for $300 you will find a better card.

 
Thanks so much everyone. I've just decided to wait until prices "come down" before upgrading my video card. I haven't been that impressed with the <$300 video card performance...unless someone points me to a good deal 😉
 
Have you considered a 6600GT instead? That's the card I've been thinking about upgrading my GF4 ti4600 to. From what I've read the performance is excellent and you can get them in the very low $200 range. I'm looking at the MSI ($222 at Newegg last I saw) because it has VIVO. Just a thought.
 
I have the BFG 6800 OC and am very satisfied with it's performance. I play all games at 1280x1024 as that is the native resolution on my LCD and have not had any performance issues in Doom 3 / HL2. You can pick this card up for $250 from outpost.com and it has a lifetime warranty. I had no problems unlocking the masked pipelines and vertex unit but YMMV.

http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4082672
 
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