Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: bloom25 on July 18, 2002, 05:10:10 PM
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Those of you planning on spending $400 for a video card may want to hold out a month for this one. It seems to be beating the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 badly.
http://www.anandtech.com has a review.
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Awesome card it seems. Even though I have a Geforce 4 Ti4600, I am happy to see this. It means the technology is moving faster than ever. In two years the graphics in PC games will look better than real life
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It scored over 14,000 3DMarks at E3. If they get the drivers right this time, NVidia is finally going to have serious competition.
Just think of the CPU you will need to keep that card busy though. hehe.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
It scored over 14,000 3DMarks at E3. If they get the drivers right this time, NVidia is finally going to have serious competition.
Just think of the CPU you will need to keep that card busy though. hehe.
That doesnt impress me. What impresses me is that the Geforce 4 scored around 4,000 with FSAA, and the ATi scored 10,000 with the same level of FSAA.
I WANT THAT.
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Hehe,..it sure do look good. I think I might actually go out and buy this thing when it hits the streets. Of course,...when they move to .13u process in March,...its gonna get faster again. Damn technology!
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I was reading that article too
Personally, I'm more interested in the real data/numbers from a real production card. But, its been 6 months, time for all our $350 video cards to be worthless again ;)
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Yep LePaul,..I am anxious to see what clock rates they settle on for production, but it does show some rather nice potential.
I wonder what NVidia card prices are going to do over the next couple of weeks? Gonna be interesting.
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Prices dropping is generally good...I'm happy I got my 4600 for $300 versus what they are everywhere else ($350, $379, etc etc)
Kind of like buying a new car...when the next model year comes around and you see what the NEW models have, you kinda sigh and move on ;)
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It's a given that every few months something new will come out that is a great improvement over the previous state of the art. In video cards that is especially true. :)
It's good to see ATI offer some serious competition to nVidia though, it's been quite a while since that has happened.
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How about ATI drivers ? Recently bought Radeon 8500, W2K and P4 1800 MHz. Tried 3ds max in OpenGL mode, lockup. Reboot, again, lockup.
Downloaded new drivers, all OK. Funny, all I heard about ATI drivers came true ;)
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For you guys that are into the 3DMark thing.
Just FYI,..MadOnion has a posted score of an ATI9700 at 15,479 3DMarks. Of course,..it was with a 3Ghz P4.
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hmmm dont tryed this one, but ordered MATROX Parhelia 512
it seems beet up even more , any one already have it ?
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Uh minus,...the 9700 crushed the Parhelia. The Parhelia really has not fared well in performance tests. Not as well as one would think it should do.
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i think the only thing the Parhelia has that's worth a darn is the 3 monitor support.
other than that, radeon is on a comeback it seems.
i'm still crunchin away with my ol' Gefroce2 ULTRA...gonna hold out as long as i can since AH is pretty much the only thing i play anyhow.
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uh uh well, now using GE3 and the constant 75im/s well do no what with more, but 2 D quality pising me off in Ge force,s and the real high quality dual wiew and beter performances like ge4 and same price stil can cancel , but where a HELL to find the ATI then ????
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minus, the ATI9700 is not out in volumn yet. Expect it to be shipped in quantities in the next 2 to 3 weeks.
I expect there will be 2 versions of the R300 ATI boards. The 9700 and 9700 Pro, with the Pro beinig clocked higher. It would be a smart move on ATI's part, as very few systems can actually push the R300 to its limits and it would give a good price break to the 9700 family while keeping all the features.
Heck, at this point they could drop the core speed by 30% and still be on par with the NVidia Ti4600.
I would not mind that level of performance for say,...under $300 U.S. :D
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As long as they dont call it the ATI 9700 and the ATI 9700 oem...
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waaaaaaaaaaaaa
I,m buying new comp in a week or so, no way to afford new vid card, so tell me, is the voodoo 5 still any good or am I still i the dark age's.
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you can get a motherboard with onboard gforce 2 grafics that are dang nice for like 80 bucks on pricewatch. I used one on a comp i built for step mamma. it got 50 fps sitting on runway offline at 1000 x 1200 on ah ,just amazed me that it could be that good and onboard. it also has onboard sound and agp for future better cards. was the easyest install I ever had.
asus a7n266-vm
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Originally posted by wolf37
waaaaaaaaaaaaa
I,m buying new comp in a week or so, no way to afford new vid card, so tell me, is the voodoo 5 still any good or am I still i the dark age's.
My Voodoo 5 is still running strong, what concerns me more is that this new ATI card does not support Windows 98 SE.
I have worked with all versions of windows, and still prefer SE. My Saitek X-36 only works 100% with SE. I suspect sometime after December I will be forced to build a new computer from the ground up to play LOMAC and Project 1. I hate to give up Win98SE, PIII, and the Voodoo which are still serving me so well in AH, OFP, All the Jane's games, and Starfleet Command. I think I will leave this computer intact for use when friends come over because it works so well.
If 3dhq (formerly 3dfx underground) ever release the fully WinXP/DirectX8.1 compatible drivers they claim they are developing, maybe my Voodoo will stick aroung a little longer as my primary video card, but I suspect those drivers don't exist or won't perform as advertised. So my attention will probably turn toward ATI unless NVidia actually uses some of the image quality technology they bought out from 3dfx. The GF4 may be light years ahead of the GF2 in terms of IQ, but the Voodoo 5 still looks better than the GF4. Where is a next generation card with the kind of image quality 3dfx always promoted? I was hoping Kyro would fill that nich, but it looks like ATI with their buggy drivers is my last hope.
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Streak,...that is just a rumor about the 9700 not working under W98.
Here is how it got started; MS has officially turned off WHQL for W98, so any drivers written for 98 cannot be certified. ATI has already announced they have drivers for 98 for the 9700.
They just cannot be WHQL, but there is support for 98, ME, 2K, and XP.
Oh, and "thier buggy" drivers appear to not exist with the 9700. I believe it was Anand that discovered a bug in MOH and ATI delivered another driver in less than 24 hours to correct the problem.
You guys should be aware, the 9700 was not designed at ATI in Canada, but in San Jose by a team they put together from the various acquisitions they made last and early this year.
One of the gurus on the project is a guy from Pixar. He knows his stuff.
All reports, so far, say the drivers are rock solid, and the board is not even in production yet. All features are enabled and they have a new UI in place, which exposes more features than ever before.
This is a different team that did the 9700 and it shows.
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I visited their site. Their own specifications lists the supported operating systems as being:
WinME, Win2000, and WinXP
That is what I based by statement on. If they still support Win98SE on the side... then it increases the likelyhood I will try their product since I wouldn't have to upgrade my operating system. However, the rest of my computer would likely be a bottleneck for such a card.
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They released a pre-release concerning 98 support. They only list the WHQL drivers on the WEB site right now, but they stated they will have support for 98.
All drivers released after 7/31/2002 will not longer be able to get WHQL from MS, as they are dropping the program for 98.
You may want to visit the Rage3D BBS, as ATI reps post information there regularly.
As far as you computer goes....you just about need a 2+Ghz CPU to keep the card busy enough, but ATI looks like they are going to have 3 different versions of the R300 family. The PRO, LE, and normal versions all running at different clock rates and at different price points.
The LE version appears to be clocked to compete head to head with the NVidia Ti4600, but be cheaper.
This is all speculation right now, but it does make sense. ATI needs too fill the big price gap they are going to have between the 9700 ($360.00 U.S.) and 9000Pro ($130.00 U.S.).
In the workstation market, a picture of a quad R300 board is making its rounds. Rumored to be able to do real-time photo-realistic art and be part of the FireGL line. I beleive this product will not make it to production, simply due to the fact you would need a dedicated power supply to run it, as it would require about 200W to power just the card, but you never know.
I see ATI having a problem with the 9700. It is going to take one screaming CPU to push the card and, and at least a 4X AGP bus. I can see guys buying it and putting it in a 1GHz/AGP 2X system and complaining about the lack of performance. ATI would do well to state a CPU speed that would push the card, or at least keep it busy.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
I see ATI having a problem with the 9700. It is going to take one screaming CPU to push the card and, and at least a 4X AGP bus. I can see guys buying it and putting it in a 1GHz/AGP 2X system and complaining about the lack of performance. ATI would do well to state a CPU speed that would push the card, or at least keep it busy.
i wish all card manf. would do this. it would really save the consumer questions and hassles.....assuming they can read of course :D
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Ok, Skuzzy, fess up! Which one did you pre-order :D
And are you going to stick that sucker in an AMD or Intel system?
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Hehe,..the 9700. Intel P4 2.53Ghz.
Currently, the 9700 is the only one available in the line. ATI is still fumbling about with the other models.
Been watching the dev on this product a long time. I am now watching the R400 dev cycle.
Gonna have to get a 21" monitor to be able to enjoy all the games at 1600x1200x32.
Dunt worry,...NVidia lovers have a good part coming in the NV30 chip. Hard to say what performance/cost level will be at this time. Heck,..all the NVidia sites have conflicting information on when the NV30 will be out.
The only official information I have garnered about the NV30 was a press release from NVidia to the SEC/stock (concerning quarterly projections) holders which stated they would not be able to get the NV30 out in time for the Christmas sales season. Take that for whatever it means.
Intersting times ahead for all gamers.
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Dammit Skuzzy... if you beat my 3DMark score I'll have to run out and get one of these new gizmos.
What do you currently have in the 2.53?
AKDejaVu
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An ATI8500. Hehe,..get ready to play catch up Deja :D.
The current 3DMArk score for the 9700 in a 3Ghz P4 (overclocked I assume) is 15,479. I figre to get really close to that, if not beat it, when I am done.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
An ATI8500. Hehe,..get ready to play catch up Deja :D.
The current 3DMArk score for the 9700 in a 3Ghz P4 (overclocked I assume) is 15,479. I figre to get really close to that, if not beat it, when I am done.
Cripes!
Tweaked out, the best I could do was 9450!
Oh well, considering I've upgraded from a Voodoo 5, I'm delighted to be ABLE too play these newer games ;)
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By the way,..maybe you NVidia followers know,..has NVidia pissed off the industry,..in general?
I mean,..all of a sudden all these third party video card makers are churning out ATI based cards rather than NVidia based cards.
I mean, Creative Labs, Hercules,..several others and now Crucial...yep,..the RAM guys are cranking out an ATI based video card with thier ram on it. What gives? Any clues? I can't even speculate why this is happening.
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Hehe,..posting the same time LePaul.
The 9700 is really way overkill and the NV30 will be too. There are only 2 game titles that can even make these boards breathe hard,...UT2003 and DoomIII.
And the 9700 at 1600x1200x32 with full FSAA and anisotrophic filtering enabled still manages to get above 60 FPS in UT2003. I figure DoomIII will make it break a sweat, but not much of one.
The real trick with these cards are games that make use of hardware T&L. In the past, the T&L cards were pretty slow, but not anymore. Games that do not use hardware T&L will not see the performance gains versus games that use it.
I just cannot imagine what the R300 will do when they throw in the DDRII ram, then migrate to .13u process. I mean,..geez!
The age of video cards holding back the CPU's are officially over with and a new realm has been ushered in. WOOHOO!
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
An ATI8500. Hehe,..get ready to play catch up Deja :D.
The current 3DMArk score for the 9700 in a 3Ghz P4 (overclocked I assume) is 15,479. I figre to get really close to that, if not beat it, when I am done.
Just out of curiousity... what do you get with your 8500 on that box? I have a 4600 and am getting just a hair under 12,000 right now.
AKDejaVu
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I see ATI having a problem with the 9700. It is going to take one screaming CPU to push the card and, and at least a 4X AGP bus. I can see guys buying it and putting it in a 1GHz/AGP 2X system and complaining about the lack of performance. ATI would do well to state a CPU speed that would push the card, or at least keep it busy.
The whole principle of incremental upgrade is that the next component you buy is more than the rest of your system can fill. You buy a gonzo videocard that your CPU can't stretch. Then you buy the new mobo and CPU to stretch the videocard. Then you buy more memory, or bigger hard drives, or a larger monitor, and the loop keeps going around and around, ratcheting your system to higher and higher performance. The individual upgrades are cheaper than jacking up the hood ornament and sliding a new car underneath.
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On the other hand, I love my "antique" P3 and Voodoo 5. I am more likely to build a whole new state of the art machine instead of always lagging far behind the leading edge as the incremental approach tend to do.
Though I will only buy somewhat mature technology that has thorough data on reliability and performance rather than follow the market hype of the absolute newest hardware besides the price advantages of waiting awhile after a new release.
If I had to build a machine right now... I would probably go with the P4 (AMD has reached the limit with the Athlon, P4 is going to keep getting faster for awhile, though AMD is clearly the more cost effective) and the Radeon 8500 (don't care for NVidia image quality at all). But I don't have the money to build right now and wouldn't if I did have the money. Next generation hardware should be just around the corner and the future of XP should be pretty firm within a few months (final service packs, etc.). I am hoping AMD jumps ahead of the P4 and still has a better price.
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Ahhh,..the 8500 cannot even compete with the 4600 NVidia Deja, but I get just over 9,000 3DMarks on the box.
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Was getting just under 7900 with the Radeon 8500 in a 2GHz box. Was wondering how big of a difference the CPU/FSB would make.
AKDejaVu
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I think most of it is the latest drivers for the 8500. They have definately improved the performance, and not just in the benchies. I have noted quite a bit of difference in the games I play. Much more fluid/smoother than before and the FPS is up as well. Maya runs much better as well.
Course,..the faster CPU/bus couldn't hurt. I think once you get past about 1.5Ghz CPU, the 8500 starts being a bottleneck,..depending on the game.
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There sure is a lot of hype about this card floating around the internet, I hope it lives up to it. Hopefully ATI can captialize on the market window that nVidia has left for them. NV30 is probably 3 to 4 months off yet, and there's no real confirmation that it will be able to exceed the R300s performance.
streakeagle, you might want to wait a couple months before you pronounce the Athlon dead. ;) There's still a whole new core revision to be released later this year, and even the current Throughbred has been reworked and is running at 2.13 GHz right now (2800+ rating). (The 2200+ runs at 1.8 GHz.) There's no official word on when to expect to see them available though...
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You are correct bloom. There has been a bunch of talk about the 9700 product. I can get past that, but what I find more interesting is the lack of response from NVidia.
In the fact of thier stock dropping from $70/share to $11/share, one would think they would say something positive about the NV30 versus the 9700.
I find this perplexing. The only thing they have been saying centers around some screen shots that were not rendered by the NV30, but claiming this is what the NV30 will be able to do in real time. The video community, at large, already knows the shots are not being done by a NV30.
Then the hype about the 1024 shader instruction cache, which turns out to be only 256 instructions, which is proprietary to NVidia as DX9 calls for something less.
No news from NVidia whether or not the NV30 will have a 256bit data path. They have said they think a 256bit path is a waste, which leads one to believe the NV30 will only be a 128bit path.
I have been watching both camps and one of two things come to mind on what is happening.
1) NVidia is very confident about the NV30 and is keeping its cards to its vest until they are ready to show it. This would say they know they are going to beat the R300. They should beat it, but the margin they can beat it by is the question.
2) ATI just completely sucker punched NVidia and NVidia is concerned they are not going to outperform the R300 or will only be on par with the R300's performance.
Number one has some good grounds. NVidia is the market leader in terms of percentage of medium to high end cards in systems. ATI is still playing catch-up here, and if the 9700 does not do well, they will have gained nothing on NVidia, except for a lot of nice marketing. This does not neccessarily translate to more dollars for ATI.
Overall, NVidia may be banking on the fact that they are the leader and have a strong following. Whether or not they are the fastest on the block may not hurt them in the short term and ATI being the fastest kid on the block may not help them.
All speculation until the NV30 is real and the 9700 is shipping, but still, the reactions in the marketplace are interesting to note.
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Video card brand loyalty is a very very fickle thing. Nvidia does not want to even be in a race and they definalty are now.
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Well, got some official news from NVidia abou the NV30 via a conference call by the CEO to the investor community.
bloom and Deja, you will find this interesting. NVidia has not taped out the NV30!
Now, consider they are moving to a .13u process, which thier FAB house (TSMC) is having trouble with.
You want to have some fun speculating on when it might actually ship? I think it is later than even I originally had speculated. I think it will be a miracle if they get it out during the month of December. I am leaning towards late January, early February.
What do you think?
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Ah good news for us bargain shoppers who buy the year old technology as well. Now I am waiting on free falling geforce4 prices :)
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
Well, got some official news from NVidia abou the NV30 via a conference call by the CEO to the investor community.
bloom and Deja, you will find this interesting. NVidia has not taped out the NV30!
Now, consider they are moving to a .13u process, which thier FAB house (TSMC) is having trouble with.
You want to have some fun speculating on when it might actually ship? I think it is later than even I originally had speculated. I think it will be a miracle if they get it out during the month of December. I am leaning towards late January, early February.
What do you think?
Not taped out yet? Figure from the time you tape something out, you have to generate masks for each layer. That's about 8 masks to build the transistors and 2 masks per metal stack. The masks can be generated at a decent rate, but they have to then be checked and qualified. That is not fast at all.
I have no idea what their .13u process is, but enough people have experience with it that their stepper vendors ought to be able to help them out.
Once all that begins... figure about 6-12 weeks until the first processor is made and tested... barring incidents.
I'd just hate to combine a new tapeout with a new process. Troubleshooting problems becomes considerably more difficult.
AKDjeaVu
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Ya,...you and I are of the same mindset Deja. The problems TSMC is having is what caused ATI to go with .15u for the R300 so they could get it out before the holiday shopping season.
There are not many short cuts NVidia can take to speed the process without risking a large scale diaster. About the only short-cut I see is not fiddling with the layout and taking a chance it is right out of the software design. Big gamble.
I can't see them doing that. I mean, they are dealing with a 100+M transistor count. You cannot fiddle with the qual times on something like this.
The CEO was pressed to when the part would be taped out and all he would say (he said it twice) was, "We expect to be wrapping it up soon.".
Oh,..he also blamed Microsoft and Intel for NVidia's $150M shortfall in thier earnings.
He seemed to be focused on the low-end line pulling them through these "tough times."
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I've got my cash ready to go as soon as this card hits the streets.
I'm just wondering what kind of performance I could expect from an AMD xp chip at 1.4 ghtz and 512 mb PC21OO on a Shuttle AK31a?
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Generally speaking Gunthr,...most folks do not have enough horsepower in thier computers to push the card, so they pretty much all agree to just turn up everything they can to slow the card down (1600x1200x32, 6X FSAA, AA filtering....).
Of course, it all depends on the game as well. DoomIII taxes the heck outta everything, and UT2003 is right behind it.
Overall, I would say your CPU is probably the slowest I would run with this card or a NV30 card.
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Amazing, Skuzzy. :D Thanks...
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I'd actually heard from a couple places on the web that those screenshots weren't real.
If NV30 hasn't actually taped out yet nVidia is going to have to work REAL hard to get it out by Christmas. If they haven't even got real silicon to test there's an awful lot of testing yet to do before you can even speculate on a release date (timing and test vector verification).
I think this is actually the first time in nVidia's existance since the TNT 1 that they are actually playing catch up!
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As I had speculated before, ATI is definately going tohave 2 versions of the 9700. The base 9700 and the 9700 Pro, which will have a core clock of 325Mhz. The base 9700 is either going to be 300Mhz or 275Mhz. I do not have firm data on this yet.
The 9700Pro will come standard with 128MB of DDR ram.
NOTE: The R300 does have a DDRII ram interface as well, so I expect when that ram becomes available in quantity ATI will roll out another version of the 9700.
Here is a picture of the 9700Pro
(http://www.cptech.com.tw/powercolor/web/images/pcpro/R9700CARD1.jpg)
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Okay, here is the Hercules version of the 9700. NOTE: This version is clocked at 300Mhz, but it is pretty.
(http://www.chip.de/newsbilder/2716826_c241d91288.jpg)
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If you look closely at the above 2 pics, you will note they are exactly the same PC board.
Of course, Hercules goes with the blue board and heat sinks on the ram chips, with a different fan.
Basically, no matter whose R300 based board you get, you have the same board. ATI has incorporated the video DAC's into the R300 (400Mhz) so video display quality cannot be effected by whatever company builds one.
Also note: Anyone considering this card will also need to think about upgrading the power supply in your computer. The card draws around 55Watts of power, so if you have a high end system with a 400W supply, you may want to think about upping it.
Of course, more power means more heat. Cooling will be critical. Just some stuff to think about.
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Hiya all:
Well this is the comp I am buying, please tell me what you think.
Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz Processor
ECS P4 Mainboard w/ Audio
512 MB DDR RAM
Intel P4 ATX Case w/ 250 Watt Power Supply
1.44 MB Disk Drive
Seagate 60 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive
My video card...VOODOO 5 5500 PCI
Altec Lansing 2 Speakers w/ Sub-woofer
Fujitsu 8725 Keyboard
Customer Supplied - Mouse
56K V.90 Internal Modem
GVC 10/100 Network Interface Card
LG 52X CD-ROM
LG DVD-CDRW 8x12x8x32
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
I am also putting in my sound card..Creative something or other, it works ok.
so what do you think, does it look like a good system. yes I am still a computer dweeb.
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Wolf,
That power supply is pretty small; especially if you ever want to upgrade to one of the new power hungry vid cards.
DJ229
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Hmmm... Looking at these things I can't help but remember my discovery of the most noisy component in my current rig - the fan of GF3Ti. I got a really quiet and pretty cooler for the CPU but that little bugger is still screaming it's head off:(. I wonder when the manufacturers realise that amount of noise the cards make is probably illegal in some countries?;)