what card will i get?

[blockers]

Hi all.

After last weeks 'gainward gf4 gayness' post i RMA'd the card. Thanks to the Gainward main man on hexus (ty again...)

I have sent him an email and forgot to ask what card i will get back...

I sent an Gainward ti4200 64mb. as ti4200's arent made anymore, will they:
a) fix my card and send it back
b) send me a ti4860 (whatever the latest ti is)
c) send my a gainward fx or some discription
d) make a mistake and send me a 9800 pro [fingers crossed]

anyone have any idea what i will get?

Will

[streetster]

e) it will get lost between here and germany, and you will have no graphics card at all (this is knowing your luck with all the computer stuff you have ever bought).. or

f) they send you a GeForce FX5200 (ie something completely pap)

mark

[chrisf6969]

ti4800 or possibly a ti4200 from a small stock pile in the warehouse.. specifically for RMA's

[blockers]

how does a ti4800 compare to the ti4200?

[bouncin]

they send you a GeForce FX5200 (ie something completely pap)


lol that would be super crappy

[streetster]

yeh. well knowing blockers luck, he will get option e)... isnt a ti4800 just a ti4200 with agp 8x support? ie kinda like 1% max performance difference?

mark

[Austin]

4800SE is slightly inferior to a TI4400. It uses AGP8x (useless) but clocks are sually lower than the 4400 were so end up very close to a 4200. 4800 (non-SE) are just 4600 with AGP8x, so no perf diff at all. I think you'll get a 4200, 4800SE or possibly an FX5600 (non Ultra). They'll do the best they can and at least you'll have a card that works ...

[blockers]

Just looked at some reviews for fx5200, fx5600, and ti4200.

In one: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...view/page8.asp
an MSI card, the ti4200 8x beats the fx5600.

but then in this one:
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont...gw5600u&page=6
the fx5600 beats the ti4200 8x in 3dmark 2003...

what is going on?

Lets hope i dont get a fx5200, and hopefully it will get there. Wouldnt put it past it though, with my luck!!

Will

[TooNice]

For me, that says "there is more to it than synthetic benchmarking like 3Dmark".

Appart from the 3Dmark bench, I see the ti4200 beat the FX5200 in most games (all?) in the GamePC review as well.

[Austin]

Easy, the 2nd link uses 3Dmark03. The 4200 is DX8 not DX9 so the FX5600 gains extra points by being able to runa ll four tests. If you compare the two cards individual scores you'd see the 4200 is faster. Another area where the FX5600 can beat the 4200 is when 4xAA is applied as the GF4TI were never designed for that, 2xAA is very good on GF4TI. AF is also inferior on the GF4TI, pretty but also pretty slow (not unusably so). Finally note there are two different FX5600ultra cards. The original and the newer flipchip one with higher clocks. Unfort the 9600P is easily better than the faster version of 5600ultra and anyway the consumer hardly ever know which version of FX5600lutra they get!

PS. TooNice the 4200 can often beat the FX5600ultra let alone the puny FX5200.

[TooNice]

Oops, I meant the FX5600 (non Ultra - refering to blockers observation).

To be honest though, I am fairly confused with the FX numbering system right now. Its by no mean mean more complex than the Radeon series (where we get stuff like 9500 > 9600, and an 9800SE which, unmodded, is slower than a 9700 etc.), but I've just been following more closely..

I just remember the first FX (dunno the number) flopped badly and couldn't compete with the 9700Pro in most scenarios.
Its follow up did much better, but it was later found out that it wouldn't be able to deal with DX9 games elegantly.

The only one that I can remember well enough is the 5700 Ultra, which seem to do better than the Radeon of the same price range quite often, for current games anyway.

I know about the FX5200 as much as I know about the Rad 9200.. Nothing, lol...

[Austin]

First FX was the FX5800 (& ultra) which were incredibly loud, huge and hot. Basically nVidia made some bad decisions (well bad guesses really) and jumped into 0.13mu and DDR-II too early. It really delayed them and it must have hurt when the Rad9700 series totally killed the GF4TI cards. Plus nVidia must have known their FX5800 (to be) were seriously poor as they ended up seriously o/c'ing them on release in order to give perf near the Rads ... hence the heat, noise and cooling required.

nVidia revised this to give the 5900 series which certainly competed with the Rad9700 series. They also released the 5200 and 5600 series to do battle with the 9000-9200 & 9500/9600 respectively. The FX5600ultra were a lot (in gfx terms) slower than the Rads so nVidia revised them quietly to a flipchip design with faster clocks closing the gap to the Rads but not by enough and consumers didn't know which version they would get anyway. The FX5200 are better (slightly) than the Rad9000-9200 which are basicly castrated Rad8500, they're cheaper to produce and hence more profitable (hence easier to release in the right price bracket). The FX5700 series are very new and an attempt by nVidia to close the gap in the mid-range market. FX5700 are still pretty poo as the clock speeds vary significantly, AFAIK there is no official speeds for it. The FX5700ultra however gives nVidia a good shot as in pure 3D perf it is faster than the Rad9600XT but, as is applicable to ALL of nVidia's DX9 cards, it is still based on a far inferior design than the Radeons and will most likely hurt people down the line in games which are not specially optimised for them or when nVidia get their stuff together and forget about heavily optimising the drivers for the FX. When DX9 becomes the norm none of the current FX cards are likely to be capable of playing them well. It seems the mid-range Radeons will be better at FULL DX9 games than the top end FX (currently FX5950). The biggest shortfall was nVidia's decision to go for a 64bit and 128bit precision while ATI went the much smarter way of a single 96bit precision. Bottom line ... nVidia made too many decisions which turned out to be poor.

[Rythmic]

In all probability though - You'll get a refurbished GF4Ti Series card. Hardware companies normally have some wrongly returned cards hanging around that they can't sell as new anymore, so they get used as replacements for RMAs. It's common practice throughout the industry. Normally they try and ensure that the card is the same age or younger than the card you returned.

[Anders]

Did you get a replacement card blockers? I cannot even get Gainward to reply to my RMA request. The only reply I have managed to get from Gainward was from Andy whom posts on here. What did you say in your e-mail to support@gainward.de? Did you edit and attach those PDF documents that are mentioned in the RMA procedure document?

It is ridiculous the length of time this has dragged on for. The annoying thing is that when I first had this problem my card was still within its one year warranty. Back then I did not know it was a hardware fault. If Gainward had actually replied to my first contact attempts that I made via their website to let me know it was a hardware fault then I could have contacted my supplier in time and Gainward would not have had to deal with it directly.

I was going to phone them but then I realised the phone number was in Germany, damn it.

Related thread about "Gainward gayness" which I posted in is here: http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...d&pagenumber=1

[blockers]

Hi.

I have not recieved a replacement yet, nor heard from the support people saying they have received my card.... dont know if it is time to worry yet!

I will mail them in a second, and see if they have even recieved my card, i hope they have, knowing my luck they probably havent.

Will

p.s. will post when i get the card

[iamwhoiam]

hmmm, I wouldn't be too worried. I ordered a pair of jeans from routeone.co.uk and I had forgotten all about it. They arrived on my door a month later.

hmm i might be getting rid of my 9800 softmodded soon too :S