What's the highest quality GF3 Ti200 board?

[Xtasy]

<< What exactly is a golden sample? How does it differ from the regular card? >>



From the looks of it, it seems that all Gainward gf3 ti200s are golden sample, but only newegg mentions it, as if newegg is the only one to carry the GS, makes it very suspicious of other gainward ti200s sold else where.

 

[Omer]

Demonic --

re: the golden sample naming.

Someone out there correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it refers to the manufacturer using the fastest RAM available and other high quality parts plus and an updated BIOS geared towards overclocking.

but I'm not 100% sure. I know it's a good thing

 

[Newbie77]

My vote is for Leadtek. Very good 2D performance plus, it's highly overclockable. Running stable at 245/550.

 

[Rantis]

My vote goes to the gainward Ti 200 golden sample. it is the best card i've ever had. and at 1600x1200 32bit colors the 2d looks great on a sony 21inch trinitron.


Mellondust: did you try a replacement card? you probably could have without any risk of losing any cash....

 

[JK16]

Another vote for gainward. Their cards outperform other ti 200 stock, and o'ced, they can actually surpass the raedeon 8500 and some gf3 ti 500 boards. Their 2d quality is also very good, text and games are sharp at 1600 X 1200. Still at 2048 X 1536, things are soemtimes blurry

 

[fade2black]

I got a leadtek because I heard it has good 2D image quality. You really can't go wrong with any of the boards.

I'd say that you go on the basis of: (1)memory speed, (2) price, (3)connectors and (4)software bundle in that order.

Leadtek 200T: 4ns, $170, VGA out+S-video, games: dronez and gunlok

Decent package though the games is suck.

 

[mellondust]

Rantis,

I have not got a replacement card, I returned the gainward and got a full refund. I have not decided for sure which to get yet, though I will probably get another gainward. I had already sent the card back before I realized I could have just exchanged it for a new one and did't want to buy another one before I got my refund. The price of this card has gone down $5 since I first ordered it, I guess I'm kind of waiting to see if it will go down any further after christmas because there is no way I could get it here for christmas anyway. Anyone out there think these prices will go down much soon?

 

[Omer]

thanks to the AT forum suggestions -- just got my gainward ti 200 from newegg !

Very nice piece of hardware:
* Runs quite
* 2D looks great
* Runs fast
* Looks cool

Thinking of overclocking a bit -- and I'm a total newbie when it comes to this

So a couple of quick questions:
1) I read about an artificats program that can detect artificats while overclocking -- does this work ? any recommended software ?
2) Any software based way to guage temperatures ? Or do I need some hardware?
3) Where is the limit as far as getting to a point where you can damage the card ? Will it shut itself off ( reboot ) before anything bad happens ?
4) I installed the latest XP detonator drivers, 23.11 -- runs fine. Are these what most people are running, or are they using the gainward reference ones ?

thanks!

 

[ChrisADuffy]

And believe me - you will not be disappointed with the Gainward Geforce 3 Ti 200. It is awesome.

 

[Operandi]

[/i]Thinking of overclocking a bit -- and I'm a total newbie when it comes to this

Ok,

1. The program I use and have and good success with isArtifact Tester. I used it with my Radeon and it always seemed to work well.

2. A far as I know there isn?t any way that can be done via software. In order for it to be even possible Nvidia would have to have an internal thermal diode in core, and I don't think there is.

3. As far as the limit goes. It really depends on the quality of the components that includes the chip, ram and HS/F. Just overclock it slowly and test for artifacts and stability. There isn?t any way you can damage your card before either it crashes or you see graphical glitches and artifacts

4. Use the Nvidia reference drivers, lots of board makers don?t even bother making their own any more. I couldn?t really tell you which ones you should use since i don?t have a Nvidia card. But I've been hearing there are some issues with one of the newer releases causing problems on AMD systems. Something about an "intonate loop" so u might want look up on that.

 

[Omer]

Operandi --

great info -- thanks !

quick followup to 2 points.

>2. A far as I know there isn?t any way that can be done via software. In order for it to be even possible Nvidia would have to have an >internal thermal diode in core, and I don't think there is.

too bad -- wish that was built in. Is there a cheap/reliable hardware solution you recommend ?

>4. Use the Nvidia reference drivers, lots of board makers don?t even bother making their own any more. I couldn?t really tell you which >ones you should use since i don?t have a Nvidia card. But I've been hearing there are some issues with one of the newer releases >causing problems on AMD systems. Something about an "intonate loop" so u might want look up on that.

Ya I'm going with the reference 23.11 XP drivers from Nvidia. I have an Intel p3-1ghz and it's working perfectly.

Pissed me off that AMD based system still have problems every once in a while -- really keeps me from building one -- but I might end up getting an N-force based system for the reason of the unified driver, etc ... Not that's it's AMD's fault but at this point things should just "work"

happy holidays to everyone !

 

[Operandi]

too bad -- wish that was built in. Is there a cheap/reliable hardware solution you recommend ?

There isn't really any reason you should have to worry about the temps. The GeFroce 3 samples seem to very solid and most will run at Ti 500 speeds. The only thing holding you back in your overclock will most likely be the DDR memory on the board. And from what I've been hearing about the Gainwards having 3.0ns RAM you shouldn't have any issues there either.

I've never really messed with any external temp monitoring stuff. But Here are some solutions that should do what you want.

 

[RobsTV]

I screwed up and got in on the $99 Visiontek GF3 Ti200 deal.
While waiting the 20 days for it to come in off backorder, I tested 3 Gainward GS.
WOW! All hit 260/560 no problem.
And at $175 shipped!
Then the sad day, when my Visiontek arrived.
If the rebate falls through, I'll have paid $168 for a card that is about 80% the Gainward.

I have been one of the strongest supporters of Visiontek for a couple years.
No more. The Gainward is by far, a much better card in every respect.

 

[gogoman]

I just bought my Gainward card at ATACOM for $165.00. Two things:
Firstly, There seems to be an power inductance(round things with coils) missing? There should be two of these between the memory heatsinks and the connector but my card has only one?

Second, when trying to install the new driver, I having trouble setting my display driver to standard vga ...the display panel->settings->advanced->adapter->change button does not exist in Win2K but instead, there is a "properties" button which I clicked on to get to the Hardware Wizard instead. I still can't get the Standard vga option to show up after going thru "Show all hardware listing". Can anyone help?

 

[Omer]

gogoman --

as far as installing drivers.

When i put my new card in it didn't recognize it in windows XP properly. Didn't show up right -- just wasn't recognized.

I simply ignored that and made sure all my old drivers were removed from my old card.

Then installed the Nvidia detonator 23.11 drivers and it auto-detected the card and everything worked -- so maybe try that.

good luck.

 

[gogoman]

Thanks for the tip Omer but I reinstalled Win2k and downloaded the latest driver 21.XX from gainward.com. I was able to install that driver. Does anybody out there know how to set the display driver to PCI standard VGA type in Win2k ?? How come there is no "change" button in the adapter menu?? ...use to have one, I recalled when my I was using WinME.

 

[Omer]

gogoman --

ok ... I think I'm following you ...

If I remeber properly, in WIN2K you don't change the adpater in the display->properties->adpater area.

Goto the control panel and select SYSTEM then HARDWARE and then DEVICE MANAGER. Open up the DISPLAY ADAPTER tab and you should see your card, then choose PROPERTIES and the driver info is listed with an UPDATE DRIVER option. Then you can have it look for a new driver or "have disk" and use whatever drivers you want.

Also, I'm using the reference drivers from Nvidia and not that gainward ones -- but it shouldn't matter.

hope this helps.

 

[gogoman]

Omer,
When I choose "update driver", there is no option to select the standard PCI vga display adapter from the list of manufacturers in "show all hardware". Almost everytime you change display driver, you 'll need to set it first to "Standard PCI VGA display" and reboot before executing the new driver setup as recommended, right? That option disappear with win2K...unless somebody knows otherwise.

 

[Omer]

gogoman,

I'm on XP so this is all from memory, but I don't remeber switching the adapter to standard pci display first. What is it showing up as now ? If it's a fresh win2k install it should auto-detect the card to some extent or ask for drivers, did it do that ?

I do remeber having a tnt2 card showing up in the multimedia section instead of display adpaters. Have you looked there.

What happens when you run the detonator drivers ? have you tried running the installer EXE or trying the extract the drivers and use the "have disk" to locate them ?

hope this helps.

 

[gogoman]

Omer,
Yah, I had to reinstall Win2k cos a fresh install will use a generic VGA display mode from which I can then install the latest Gainward driver. I have successfully done that. The reason I use the gainward driver instead of nvidia's latest detonator driver is just so that I could use the expertool software that came bundled with it to overclock the card. I guess I could use NVMAX too with the detonator driver 23.11 but I wanted to see what this tool has to offer before taking that route. Before, I was unsuccessful the first time trying to install the Gainward driver from the CD cos of this problem of setting it to Standard VGA driver first. Now, I am up and running with 7300 3DMARK2001 scores at 250/500 oced speed. I still have to install my old GF2 Pro card onto an older system which means I 'll have to figure out how to set it to standard VGA display again.....Last time I tried uninstalling the display driver, my systems goes into an endless loop of reboot. I can't even boot it up in safe mode then.

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