Ti 4600/Radeon 8500 Got'em both. - turned soap opera

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Sketcher

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2001
2,237
0
0
Originally posted by: merlocka
If a store has a return policy, I highly recommend taking advantage of it. You could also reward the store by making actual purchases there, if their prices are low. I try not to buy anything which I cannot return for full refund, no questions asked.

I can't believe Sketch got so much flak for doing something so logical. I've purchased and returned about a dozen video cards from BestBuy. I bought and returned about 5 pairs of speakers (several mail-order) before I decided on one. If I didn't like any of them I would have returned them all. It's smart shopping.

Thanks merlocka,

I think, through furthering discussion and bringing to light a few more details, we're all getting around to "reading from the same book" if you will. Not necessarily all on the same page, but at least from the same book :)

-Sketcher
 

rbhawcroft

Senior member
May 16, 2002
897
0
0
at the end of the day if you said to a cfo in a retailer how do you price your returns policy they would say well on the good will basis, and those che*ting fu*ks who dont engage it in the way they should are the source of the cost of the policy, you antisocial people are tos*ers, have you ever seen an ad that says no worries returns policy? i have , have you ever seen a returns policy that says buy all the copies we have and bring back the ones you dont like? er no. and the idea that a 85% refund pays for the cost to the retailer is wrong, the only reason the retailers do it is that the think the cost that shits like you cause them is outweight by the good will to the standup peope

hey sketcher how many innocent iraqies did you vaporise with misfires for a $25 barell of oil, in an easily avoidable war? (it didnt need to be fought as the indpendence of Kuwait is not central to the oil price), do their dead chilren get warm feelings anymore?
 

richleader

Golden Member
Jan 1, 2001
1,201
0
0
I'm not gonna trash Sketch, but I do think that massive returns hurt the industry and Merlocka's "smart shopping" contributes to it. After all, other's of us are smart shoppers too--we wait for the reviews to come out, wait for a deal, and then jump on it. I always figured that's the way it's supposed to work, rather than a way to try everything out at home until you find something that strikes your fancy. On the other hand, I'll save the lion's share of my vitriol for those who REALLY exploit the system, like that one guy who bragged about getting a Geforce 3 to tide him over for three weeks or so, returning it for a full refund, and then snapping up a geforce 4 when they became availible. I feel the same way about people who get CostCo memberships just so they can "borrow" a laptop for 364 days.

They give the rest of us "smart shoppers" a bad name. No wonder managers are so often jerks to people--they just had some guy badgering them for 2 hours trying to force them to accept a misprint from a web page someone sent them via email, printed it out in B&W at 2.5 DPI, and demanding that Best Buy honor it in the store to get their Ti 4800 for the price of a G4 MX.
 

rbhawcroft

Senior member
May 16, 2002
897
0
0
how about this sketchey gets the job of his dreams on a trial basis, stock options, internet boom etc, and the manager knows he needs to get a system out of the door before the tech-crash that he has personally predicted precipitates, so he hires two or three guys he likes the look of with the intent of cutting to one after the deal ends, so he gives the jons on trial basis - well after all I might get made permanent and get stock options, then he sacks two when spending gets cut with his customers, and decideds that although he did think he would keep one techy they had done so good a job he didnt need a follow up in house tech support team, and would sack the last person and save up for more hiring and r and d at the end of the year when conditions were better, and just think of how clever he was!!! ahahaha ehehehehe hohohhohoh
 

Sketcher

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2001
2,237
0
0
Originally posted by: rbhawcroft
at the end of the day if you said to a cfo in a retailer how do you price your returns policy they would say well on the good will basis, and those che*ting fu*ks who dont engage it in the way they should are the source of the cost of the policy, you antisocial people are tos*ers, have you ever seen an ad that says no worries returns policy? i have , have you ever seen a returns policy that says buy all the copies we have and bring back the ones you dont like? er no. and the idea that a 85% refund pays for the cost to the retailer is wrong, the only reason the retailers do it is that the think the cost that shits like you cause them is outweight by the good will to the standup peope

hey sketcher how many innocent iraqies did you vaporise with misfires for a $25 barell of oil, in an easily avoidable war? (it didnt need to be fought as the indpendence of Kuwait is not central to the oil price), do their dead chilren get warm feelings anymore?

\Sketcher kneels and bows to the obvious wisdom and incontestable political mind of rbhawcroft... rbhawcrofts' grasp of corporate economics thinking is beyond reproach as are his calculating and irreproachable insights of humanity.

Pardon my sarcasm and foul language following:

rbhawcroft.... how do you pronounce that? I keep trying to sound it out, but all I get out of it is D U H MMMB A S S. Sorry if I botch that up - but I know how important names are.

Where to begin... The sensible part of my mind says "leave it alone". But, but... It's kind of like road kill - you just gotta keep on looking.

I actually printed this thread out and asked my CFO for his take on the matter. After noting that some of it was hard to read because of poor grammar and that it seemed to be written by children (I explained to him that some users here are from other countries and that many of the users here are indeed kids) he berrated me for spending valuable work hours paying attention to "Chat room lunatics" and also for wasting his time with it - but like looking at roadkill, he just couldn't pull himself away! He's reading this as I'm typing it :)

Actually, now typing what he's tellling me!

1. CFO's generally do not use foul language to express themselves when addressing mundane topics. (We save that for the arguments over tee times)

2. "Sketcher", Rio Rebel and merlocka seem to have a reasonable grasp on various issues of return policies. But now he wants to know if I'm buying company hardware at Best Buy and If I'm cashing the rebates without submitting them to accounting... ;) he caught me. j/k

He's now calling his daughter who works at the call center for Minneapolis MN. Circuit City's customer service. Got her voicemail.

3. Looks like someone pissed in rbh'whatever's wheaties. Would be interesting to see what he (is it a "he"? I guess you don't know) looks like in person.

Daughter called. She doesn't know anything about the impact of returns on her company but she knows that Best Buy draws more customers because of their lenient return policy. When asked, she said she didn't know how Best Buy is able to sell same products for less than Circuit City. She said her CFO is on Memorial Day vacation but she'd ask him about it if she remembered to next week.

4. My CFO has a 5:30 board meeting to prepare for - he warns me not to spend much more time on this, but he see's how it can be somewhat addicting. \CFO leaves office.

rbhawcroft,

Regarding your excellent grasp of political and international warfare. Innocent killed... from misfires... tomowawk missiles = "0". Dizmac imaging and real time satellite surviellance verified electronically and visually confirmed 28 of 28 sea launched T-hawks from my platform successfully achieving proper yield. (meaning hit their target w/in 3 square feet of intended point of impact) Now, if there were innocent people there against their will, that is a tragedy. But these targets were known ammo dumps, bunkers and military strategic holdings. It is well known and documented that Saddam convinced and forced civilians to walk in front of troops and stand in front of potential target landmarks in an attempt to dissuade pilots from dropping bombs.

BDA assessment of war time scenarios involve innocent people. It's war. It's unfortunate, it's a fact of war. Do I take on the mindset of a killer of the manner of which you imply in your ranting? No. I dutifully served my country and supported the goals of that war. Do I have doubts? I'm human. Of course I do. I'm not going to argue whether or not my psyche is as scarred as you make me out to be. But a final answer = no innocent people were killed by misfires of T-hawk missiles from my platform. There were no misfires.

easily avoidable war? (it didnt need to be fought as the indpendence of Kuwait is not central to the oil price

Uhmmmm, you sort of step in your own ignorance with that statement. You're right in that the independence of Kuwait was not central to the oil price - which makes you wrong about what you're arguing about. But NATO did not approve war time appropriation simply to make Kuwait independent. There were a couple other minor reasons (much sarcasm in the word "minor") - Kuwait's independence was a by-product of the NATO coalition's effort. People tend to overlook the fact that NATO decided what happened there, not just the U.S. the U.S. just happened to carry the biggest stick. Well, there is the whole "Leader of the free world" mumbo jumbo, but there's a bigger picture here than the small target that you're war-bashing about.

Uh oh, the sensible part of my mind is beginning to win over. This is a soap opera that is better eschewed in "OFF TOPIC". I know that regardless of what I say you're going to impress the world with more incredible enlightment. Your insulting remarks are almost witty. Just try to regurgitate a little less of the ignorance you hold on economic and political issues.

You really do not know what you are talking about.

Oh, and I think it was $18.00 a barrel, not $25.00 - but then there was a variance between pre and post Gulf War oil pricing and whether or not imported fuel oil was supplemented with assurance from Federal Reserve - look at me, going on and on - ignoring the sensible voices again.

REMEMBER PEOPLES, THIS IS THE VIDEO FORUM - ASIDE FROM A LITTLE OT SIDETRACKING, RANTING SUCH AS IS RECEIVED FROM DUMBASS is out of place here.

So I'm thinkin' of pickin' up a couple of Matrox Parahelia's and see if I can run dual 6 monitor setups under windows XP Pro. Of course that means I'll have to get a few more monitors to test it all out - Returning it all when I've realized I've spent way too much money of course! :D

-Sketcher



 

Sketcher

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2001
2,237
0
0
Originally posted by: richleader
I'm not gonna trash Sketch, but I do think that massive returns hurt the industry and Merlocka's "smart shopping" contributes to it. After all, other's of us are smart shoppers too--we wait for the reviews to come out, wait for a deal, and then jump on it. I always figured that's the way it's supposed to work, rather than a way to try everything out at home until you find something that strikes your fancy. On the other hand, I'll save the lion's share of my vitriol for those who REALLY exploit the system, like that one guy who bragged about getting a Geforce 3 to tide him over for three weeks or so, returning it for a full refund, and then snapping up a geforce 4 when they became availible. I feel the same way about people who get CostCo memberships just so they can "borrow" a laptop for 364 days.

They give the rest of us "smart shoppers" a bad name. No wonder managers are so often jerks to people--they just had some guy badgering them for 2 hours trying to force them to accept a misprint from a web page someone sent them via email, printed it out in B&W at 2.5 DPI, and demanding that Best Buy honor it in the store to get their Ti 4800 for the price of a G4 MX.

I agree Rich Leader.


Everyone, please note - if you read my posts you'll see that I intended to keep one card (so I'm a little "guilty") then I thought I'd keep both (then not guilty at all) and then realized I had unforseen family matters to tend to so returned both (ultimately "guilty", but not by intention - I guess).

I did not go and buy these things with the premeditated intention to return both. I think some of you guys spend too much time reading the National Inquirer
 

Sketcher

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2001
2,237
0
0
Originally posted by: rbhawcroft
how about this sketchey gets the job of his dreams on a trial basis, stock options, internet boom etc, and the manager knows he needs to get a system out of the door before the tech-crash that he has personally predicted precipitates, so he hires two or three guys he likes the look of with the intent of cutting to one after the deal ends, so he gives the jons on trial basis - well after all I might get made permanent and get stock options, then he sacks two when spending gets cut with his customers, and decideds that although he did think he would keep one techy they had done so good a job he didnt need a follow up in house tech support team, and would sack the last person and save up for more hiring and r and d at the end of the year when conditions were better, and just think of how clever he was!!! ahahaha ehehehehe hohohhohoh

You are a peach, just wonderful I tell you :)

FYI - I'm a Systems Adminstrator - this is my dream job (if you don't count getting paid for taste testing State Fair corn dogs).

Actually rbhawcroft, in some circumstances, it does work kinda like that - only you inform the applicants of the scenario and they accept the position on a trial basis, knowing the potential outcome.

Just what is your point? Ahh, never mind. Weekend is here. More important things to look forward to. Feel free to continue the tabloid saga though.

Anybody care to comment about VIDEO CARDS? :)

-Sketcher
 

kami

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
17,627
5
81
Um let's get this back on topic shall we
rolleye.gif
:p

I am in the market for either a GF4 ti4200/4400 or a Radeon 8500 but I can't make up my mind...which is going to last me longer? Ideally I'd like it to be good enough to run Doom3 next year. It will be paired with a AthlonXP 1800+ most likely.

My system is aging (p3 @ 980, GF2 GTS)...and I am so out of the loop with hardware stuff (no upgrades in over 18 months), it's almost embarassing :eek:
 

rbhawcroft

Senior member
May 16, 2002
897
0
0
if you did want to see what i looked like you can go here: www.marlbrook7.freeserve.co.uk/travels, youll see my degree was arabic, you are egotistical, cynical abuse of what is supposed to be a fair returns policy is not right, and it does have an impact on others, i cant belive a cfo would waste time reading this trivia.
 

Sketcher

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2001
2,237
0
0
Originally posted by: kami
Um let's get this back on topic shall we
rolleye.gif
:p

I am in the market for either a GF4 ti4200/4400 or a Radeon 8500 but I can't make up my mind...which is going to last me longer? Ideally I'd like it to be good enough to run Doom3 next year. It will be paired with a AthlonXP 1800+ most likely.

My system is aging (p3 @ 980, GF2 GTS)...and I am so out of the loop with hardware stuff (no upgrades in over 18 months), it's almost embarassing :eek:

kami,

Which Radeon 8500 are you thinking of? I've used the LE and DVI 8500 and they're both worth the $$. Just depends on what opts you want. Realistically, if you're system is adequate right now - and you're wanting to be able to run Doom3 "Next Year", I'd wait until Doom3 is out, then by a card. By then, new cards/better technology will be available, prices will have come down - there'll be a few more reviews comparing the exact cards you're considering, etc...

I can't compare the 4400 because I can't see it side by side and I never ran benchmarks on it. It's an excellent card. but comparing? Don't know. If benchmark comparison's mean anything to you - you might want to click around MadOnion to see what their results are. Otherwise, I'm sure someone's put out a decent review.

If the need is only for next year's Doom3, wait a bit. (one of my rigs is a PIII 450 w/a Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS 32MB). I remember when that card was at the pinnacle of everyone's wish list :) Good card.

Here's a linky's that might help ya:
AT Sub $200 Video Card Roundup

-Sketcher
 

kami

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
17,627
5
81
Well, the ti4200 mops the floor with all the Radeons in every single one of those tests. If I get a 4200 I plan on overclocking it anyway...almsot every review I've read shows that it can easily be upped to ti4600 performance, or at the bare minimum ti4400 performance.

Being a Canadian, I can't really afford the latest and greatest....I'm not willing to spend $500+ CDN for a video card. I did a lot more reading and I think a 128MB ti4200 is what I need..The extra RAM will make it more future-proof as well (and cross my fingers that it'll run Doom3 at 60fps in 1024x768x32, which I think it should). Now the problem is finding someone with the damn thing in stock!
 

Sketcher

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2001
2,237
0
0
Sounds Good Kami!

I think you're on the right track. And for $189 (US) on pricewatch, you can't go wrong. (heh heh, I finally read the AT review myself :) ) No Question, 4200 or 4400 are the way to go.

Let us know if you get one and how it goes for you.

Good Hunting!

Impressive Bedroom Theater by the way! :D Nice LOTR collection!


-Sketcher
 

RedRooster

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2000
6,596
0
76
Originally posted by: kami
Well, the ti4200 mops the floor with all the Radeons in every single one of those tests. If I get a 4200 I plan on overclocking it anyway...almsot every review I've read shows that it can easily be upped to ti4600 performance, or at the bare minimum ti4400 performance.

Being a Canadian, I can't really afford the latest and greatest....I'm not willing to spend $500+ CDN for a video card. I did a lot more reading and I think a 128MB ti4200 is what I need..The extra RAM will make it more future-proof as well (and cross my fingers that it'll run Doom3 at 60fps in 1024x768x32, which I think it should). Now the problem is finding someone with the damn thing in stock!

Why not look into the Abit 4400? It seems like most of the Canadian e-tailers have the card in stock, and it's one of the cheapest 4400s out there(~$350-375CND).
It's heading my list right now, and if those 4200s don't get their arses up here soon, I'll be all over that Abit. :)
 

FalseChristian

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2002
3,322
0
71
It's a free f*cking country! If he wants to return the cards then he has that right, you f*cking commies!
 

RobsTV

Platinum Member
Feb 11, 2000
2,520
0
0
Yep, I know some people that have a yearly BBQ, so they go to K-Mart and get a bunch of lawn chairs,
then after the party, they return all for a refund, no questions asked. But wait, K-Mart filed chapter ??

So that's not a good example.

How's this.
Bought a video card at CC and after I found out it dropped performance dramatically (due too Cyrix incompatability),
returned card to CC. Was shocked to see that I had to pay a 15% restocking fee!!!! No way around it. Since the
card did work, it was not defective, even though performance was 1/10th what is was rated at. Sure they tried
explaining to me that since many people misused the return policy, it cost them millions a year, so they had no
choice but to charge a restocking fee. After that, I refused to go back to CC, even though it is 5 minutes away,
and now I must travel an hour to get to the nearest BB. The hour drive each way is deterent enough to keep me
from returning a product, defective or not. So like most do, I now spend 30 seconds reading reviews, and then
get the product that sounds like it suits needs best, even if I'm not able to compare side by side, to gain a slight
price or perfromance edge.
 

iwearnosox

Lifer
Oct 26, 2000
16,018
5
0
Arguing on the internet is the same as running in the special olympics. Even if you win you're still retarded.
rolleye.gif
 

Sketcher

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2001
2,237
0
0
Actually, retarded/challenged/disadvantaged/gifted or not... Special Olympics competition takes courage and dedication. In contrast - Any Loser can post in a message board.
 

Gulzakar

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
3,074
0
0
Oh God, some of you are so uptight... It's a free country, let him go about his business. I'd be more angry at welfare cases and teenage moms then a man who returns a couple video cards.