Which ti 4200 128mb to buy?

[AirbornJesus]

im looking to buy a ti 4200 128 thatll last me a while. im planning to o'c it to boost the ram bus speed. the tv and dvi outs seem pretty standard, but i dont need video in. id rather not pay for extra software like dvd stuff and video editing. it seems that a lot of people have the 4200 cards, but i cant find good reviews of many. can anybody give me a recommendation?

 

[Jayczar]

I like both PNY & Visiontek, good warranties and
made in the USA.

 

[AirbornJesus]

does pny sell a 128mb version in the us?

 

[Akira13]

I've posted a similar question. I'm in the market for the same card, but w/o the overclocking. My GF2 GTS has lasted me close to 2 years now, and I need something to allow me to play GTA3 at high resolutions with all the eye-candy available. People told me that Gainward would be good for overclocking, but that's by far the most expensive Ti4200 around. Then I found EVGA, which has a big HSF on it, but people say that the HS is poor. Finally (today) I saw Chaintech's special edition Ti4200. It is sure pretty: gold plated HSF on die, and gold plated RAM sinks. That's my top runner right now, and I think it would make a decent overclocker (due to the RAM sinks). Chaintech is also the cheapest 128mb Ti4200 card I've seen.

 

[MaximusPSO]

I'm interested in the Chaintech as well. Somewhere I read that the memory on some 4200's can be crappy. Anyone know if Chaintech uses decent memory on their 4200's?

edit: just read that some guy who bought a Chaintech 4600 found the heatsinks were held on by doublesided tape.......

http://www.newegg.com/app/CustratingReview.asp?item=14-145-011

it seemed to be simple double sided "foam" tape that I could see transferring any heat what so ever

I don't know. I like the price though....

 

[mellondust]

Previous gainward and leadek cards seem to be on top of the pack, but I have notice that even though the gainward 128mb card has good ratings on the newegg web site, if you read the commments, a majority of the people have had some kind of problem with them. There is not much feed back on the other cards. It is kind of confusing with no decent comparison reviews around.

 

[Mingon]

I have a inno3d which seems pretty good.

 

[Akira13]

Originally posted by: MaximusPSO
I'm interested in the Chaintech as well. Somewhere I read that the memory on some 4200's can be crappy. Anyone know if Chaintech uses decent memory on their 4200's?

edit: just read that some guy who bought a Chaintech 4600 found the heatsinks were held on by doublesided tape.......

http://www.newegg.com/app/CustratingReview.asp?item=14-145-011

it seemed to be simple double sided "foam" tape that I could see transferring any heat what so ever

I don't know. I like the price though....

Double sided tape!!!!!!! No!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just bought it from newegg last night!!!!!!!! Hopefully that guy with the 4600 was confused, and mistook excellent thermal pads for double sided tape. With the size of those heatsinks, it would take thermal padding to hold them on. Anyway, the card should be here by Friday, so I'll post my opinion after that.

 

[AirbornJesus]

i still cant find a decent comparison. gainward is expensive, and ive seen several posts about issues w/ evga. hopefully the chaintech tape story is some sort of mistake.... i wish more sites would review these boards...

 

[rawhyde]

FWIW Firingsquad.com has a review up today of the Visiontek 128 MB card... overclocked to 310/550! For <$170 at buy.com with coupons and $20 rebate it's tempting. Definitly interested in hearing what Akira13 has to say about the Chaintech card as I think I've narrowed it down to these two, unless of course leadtek get's off their a$$ and releases the 128MB verison of their 4200 card...

 

[WT]

I'm in the market too and don't know if I wanna splurge on a 128 meg card when the 64's are that much cheaper. I run low res on all games (always at 800x600) and would probably not even need the 128 card until Doom3, and even then only if I wanted to up the res to 1024x768. Of course, 4xAA would probably require the addtnl 64 megs too. Decisions .. decisions ....

 

[MaximusPSO]

-bump-
Anyone else have any experience with these cards?

 

[HFC]

Typical ram sink that I have seen are held on with double sided thermal tape. The reasons are there nothing for the heatsink to clip on to and otherwise have to put more holes around the eight ram chips to mount heatsinks. You can go to svcompucycle, heatsinkfactory, coolerguys, crazypc, etc to look up this thermal tape.

 

[sep]

Sharky Extreme Tours Chaintech Nothing about this card, but just an FYI.

Chaintech Geforce4 4200 "GT21" Special Edition VIVO
Specifications:
Chipset - NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200
Memory -128MB DDR
128-bit Memory interface
256-bit Graphics Architecture
250 MHz Core Clock
444 MHz Memory Clock
350MHz internal RAMDAC
VIVO Connector,VIVO Cable
With Games/Software bundle:WinDVD, 3Deep AquaNox MDK2, Model#: A-GT21-G4
*I would assume 4.5ns ram.

This card GT21 looks sweet!

*****LEADTEK*****
Although I do want to see the pricing on the WinFast A250 LE TD 128MB. Does leadtek still provide temp monitoring and isn't this the only video card manufacture that does? Ohyea...1024x768 video out!

 

[AirbornJesus]

the chaintech is lookin pretty sweet, tho i would like to see how it compares to the visiontek xtasy card. the xtasy got really a good review on Firingsquad, so im interested in hearing reports from chaintech owners...

 

[cdub]

The 128MB Gainward Ti4200 Golden Sample should be in my hot little hands today. I will have time tomorrow to benchmark and OC it, I'll post my results on this thread tomorrow or Sunday.

I have been using the usual tests: 3dmark, JK2, and I need to figure out how to run the Q3A test.

 

[Voltmaster]

 

[Voltmaster]

I recieved my Chaintech GT21 Thursday from NewEgg. Just got it installed yesterday along with a new motherboard and cpu. I did try overclocking the memory on the GT21 last night, using Powerstrip v3.18. I took it from the default 445.5 to 499.5 just to see what would happen. It increased the 3DMark2001SE score by 220 points. I still need to do some configuring in the motherboards bios, will then start working with the the memory clock and core to see what I can safely get out of it.

The GT21 sure looks sweet!

 

[Akira13]

But what are the heatsinks made of?

 

[Voltmaster]

I believe they are aluminum. I don't know what the gold plating is. By the way, the GT21 has a two year warranty. My old GeForce 2 Pro card is a Chaintech card and is still going strong in my son's computer. As of now my timings are set at 275core/500mem. I'm using the Anandtech review of the Gainward 4200 128mb card as a guideline, as they were able to oc to 330/540. The fan on the GT21 seems to be quiet, although I have two case fans, two fans on the power supply and of course the CPU fan so it's hard to pick it out of the crowd.

 

[Akira13]

Aluminum is good. Now I eagerly await Fedex.

 

[DealMonkey]

I just picked up the Gainward Ti 4200 128mb "Golden Sample" for $199 @ Newegg. So far I really like it. Good 2D quality, great overclockability, comes w/ full VIVO, DVI, some decent software - and a full version of Serious Sam 1. Didn't expect that last one, but it was a bonus since I've never played it

I'd definitely recommend it... Plus it would look really cool in a case w/ a window or something - the red PCB and fan are pretty attractive compared to, say, the Visiontek card...

-DM

 

[cdub]

So on my Gainward 128MB Golden Sample... I got it pretty much maxed out at 280 Core, 530 Memory clock with RivaTuner. 3DMarkSE2001 Score: 9392. At 250/520, the card's native ability, I got a 9183. I am not super-duper impressed with the increase in memory core, but also I might just need to improve my overall system performance to get that higher.

That's with an Epox 8kha+, Athlon 1800XP, 768MB ram.

 

[MaximusPSO]

When the Chaintech is back in stock, I'll probably get it. Thanks for the help guys!!!

 

[happybob]

for you guys with chaintech gt21, have you tried out the video-in function? i noticed that it only comes with s-video in, does that mean you can't connect the card to a vcr (which usually doesn't have s-video) for example?

thanks.