Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: LePaul on June 20, 2002, 11:30:20 AM
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Local EB guy said the PNY's were awful
Few on eBay for $325....Asus and Visiontek brands....which are better?
Sold the airplane, got cash...want Geforce 4600 :) Also upgrading to a better motherboard per Bloom's suggestion.
Thanks!
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I went with the Abit Siluro Ti-4400. Here's a discussion on Tom's Hardware guide.
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q2/020522/index.html
Whatever you decide to go with, I'd buy it from newegg.com. They have excellent customer service, and competative prices.
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Originally posted by banana
I went with the Abit Siluro Ti-4400. Here's a discussion on Tom's Hardware guide.
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q2/020522/index.html
Whatever you decide to go with, I'd buy it from newegg.com. They have excellent customer service, and competative prices.
Read that article, they really do not choose one they prefer, leaving me (and the reader) a little vague on which is the better make.
Im leaning on the 4600 because its the Cadillac of the line, and for once, I want the best available :) Any reason why opted for the 4400 versus the 4600 (asides price)?
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I just ordered a ti4400, in hopes of being able to OC it to a 4600+ level. Will see if it happens. If not, I'll probably buy another $100 in cooling equpiment trying to get it run that way anyhow. :)
Its an msi ti4400. I only got MSI beacuse I wanted a card with video in.
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Any reason why opted for the 4400 versus the 4600 (asides price)?
Besides price? Nope. Just didn't want to pay an extra $100 for another 5% of performance.
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I'd go for Leadtek, they should have high-resolution RF filters in all post geforce2 line cards..
That means you will get a brighter and sharper high-resolution picture to your 2D desktop and even 3D. The difference is real, with my old card I couldn't use 1600x1200 desktop and now with the same monitor I can still read the 'fine print' using the new card.
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PNY ti 4400 here
1st one from Circuit City was dead out of box ($299), exchanged it and haven't had an issue with it yet. Came with neat 3d glasses.
2d text is as good if not better in 98 than than Leadtek geforce2 ultra it replaced. Great desktop in WinXP also..
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Eagler the ultra2 didn't have the higher quality RF yet, only geforce3 and up has it.
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I got an Abit 4600 for $309 at http://www.mwave.com and it's been smooth sailing so far.
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Eagler that is weird that u say that, i also had the same thing happen to me a circuit city first 1 was dead outta the box the 1 have no is great , no problems at all, also as far as clocking the card i have Oced to 4600 spec with no problems, stable all across the board salute 38
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MSI TI4600 here and zero complaints.
OC'ed to 315mhz core, 680mhz memory and stable.
Only one thing that I will voice concerning the higher end GeForce 4 cards...make damn sure you have a high end CPU to drive this beast. I got the TI4600 before I upgraded the rest of my machine. I was using the TI4600 in an Athlon 1.4ghz T-Bird (266mhz DDR setup) and my frame rates were not much better than with the old GeForce 2 Pro card it replaced.
Now that I have the new XP2100, mobo, memory, etc, this baby screams. I am running AH at 1280x1024, 32 bit, 4x FSAA, full range of view (shift F1 in AH) and my frame rates rarely drop below 100. Flying about without too much activity produces frame rates over 270 fps!
I bought my MSI TI4600 at Newegg for $306. Prices have dropped some since then I think.
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Originally posted by AKWarp
MSI TI4600 here and zero complaints.
OC'ed to 315mhz core, 680mhz memory and stable.
Only one thing that I will voice concerning the higher end GeForce 4 cards...make damn sure you have a high end CPU to drive this beast. I got the TI4600 before I upgraded the rest of my machine. I was using the TI4600 in an Athlon 1.4ghz T-Bird (266mhz DDR setup) and my frame rates were not much better than with the old GeForce 2 Pro card it replaced.
Now that I have the new XP2100, mobo, memory, etc, this baby screams. I am running AH at 1280x1024, 32 bit, 4x FSAA, full range of view (shift F1 in AH) and my frame rates rarely drop below 100. Flying about without too much activity produces frame rates over 270 fps!
I bought my MSI TI4600 at Newegg for $306. Prices have dropped some since then I think.
I have an Athlon XP 2000+ (1.666 ghz) and am yanking out the MSI motherboard and replacing it with a new one with ATA 33, the faster ram, 333 chipset stuff, etc etc. My current setup uses PC133 ram, Bloom suggested upgrading to the newer/faster boards so now that I have the resources, It Shall Be done!
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Well, if you are going to a KT333 chipset board, I can highly recommend the SOYO Dragon Ultra. This has been the easiest motherboard setup and tweak of any board I have ever owned. Everything worked perfectly right out of the box, everything loaded correctly the first time and I had zero hardware, IRQ, port, etc glitches or problems. It's pricer than some other boards, but well worth the money (I got mine for $145). Also, the onboard peripherals work very well. It has the built in CM 6 channel audio that I think is every bit as good as my SB Audigy (it even has EAX), the onboard Real Tek 10/100 LAN works just fine. The onboard High Point IDE RAID is very nice also. I have a pair of 40GB Maxtor drives on RAID 0 (striped) and the disk performance is noticeably faster. The Sigma box that comes with the mobo (adds four USB 2.0 ports into a 5.25" drive slot on your case) is an outstanding feature. You still have your other USB ports on the back as well.
Anyone that's been building systems for any amount of time knows that VIA has had some chipset problems in the past, especially the KT266. The KT266a fixed a lot of things and was a good performer, but their new KT333 absolutely kicks ass.
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AKWarp, my new XP computer has the same motherboard as yours, and the system works great except I cannot find a microphone boost, which I had even on my old Win98 P2 computer.
Does your mike work okay? Mine works except it is not loud enough, and really needs that mike boost.
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Halo mic boost should be in your volume control properties. Which soundcard are you having?
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Thanks for your response, Mr. RiplEy. I finally found the microphone boost control not in WinXP, which had it grayed out, but in the PCI Audio Applications folder for the soundcard integrated on the motherboard.
The folder even said AUDIO. Wonder how I overlooked that in all my searching? Oh well, one more lesson learned in the endless cycle of computer upgrading.
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Asus and MSI are both good cards IMO. Gainward GF 4 cards have been having ram problems, so avoid them.
I thought it worth mentioning that the GF 4 Ti cards use a LOT of power, so make sure you've got a 350W power supply. The Gigabyte GA7-RXP KT333 boards *might* be having problems providing enough power to the 4400 and 4600 cards. I've been browsing several forums recently gathering info for my next upgrade and it seems there might be an issue here. Since this board won Tom's Hardware's KT333 roundup it might just be because there are a lot of these boards out there though... Typically people don't post in a forum if everything works perfectly, but it still seemed excessive to me.
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I personally might go with the Abit NV7-133R board (nForce chipset) when I upgrade my system in a couple weeks. ( I bought a MSI GF 4 Ti 4200 card w/ TV out for about $180. I can't afford to spend $399 on a video card for only a < 10% additional performance boost right now. ) I can't get ahold of the Soyo board, but I have seen it and it looks very nice. I was considering the Asus A7V333, but the combination of high price and a batch of boards with bad bios chips has made me think twice. The nForce 415D boards (which don't have the integrated GF 2 MX video ) perform at about the same level as the KT 266A boards and only the slightest amount slower than the KT 333 boards. They also have a proven stability record, but I will say they are not overclockable at all if you like doing that. I'm leaning toward this Abit board because it has an ATA 133 raid controller and USB 2.0 support. (Along with integrated ethernet.) It should have excellent integrated sound, but Funked seemed to have a problem with crackling in the mic input, which I'm hoping is an isolated issue or possibly resolved by now... If not, I'll spend $65 for an Audigy card, which would also get me a Firewire port.
It's really a tough choice between a KT333 board or this nForce board. It's kind of a coin flip type situation between the Asus KT333 board and the Abit nForce board, but since I used the MSI nForce board for another system I built back in December and really liked it I'm leaning toward the nForce. VIA boards are certainly a lot more tweakable and have really improved in the stability department since the "old" K6-2 days. I just prefer to go with something with a proven stability record though in the end. I'm really trying to do a cheap (sub $700) upgrade, so the fact that I can get the Abit nForce board for under $100 is a big plus. The Asus board is certainly a tweakers dream though, it has everything and over 30 jumpers to tweak anything you'd ever want. That's ok for me personally, but since I might be doing a couple more systems in the near future; I'd rather go with an easy setup board.
Reusing my 45GB 7200 rpm IBM harddrive, CDRW, DVD, and floppy drives and buying the Abit nForce board, 2 256 MB sticks of PC2100 Corsair memory, the GF 4 Ti 4200, an XP 1800+ (at least) will set me back around $500. If I add a nice Enlight case and 340W Enlight PS it will be around $575. This gives me some extra cash for the Audigy if I choose/need to use it, or would allow me to afford an XP 2000+ or 2100+.
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Maximum PC labs prefer and recommend Visiontek (best performance rattings) and Leadtek (best bang for the buck)