HEXUS.winners win4FREE competitions :: Inno3D GeForce 9600 GT and 9800 GX2

[Abhik262]

Q1
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-Gold plated TV out and DVI connector that allows better signal quality and less oxidization
-Custom made cooling solutions with systematic noise reduction
-Stylish Ramsinks that assists with heat penetration

Q2
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When i look to prurchase a graphics card, i take in a number of things into consideration. The first is its performance (as at the end of the day, its why you upgrade). I expect every card i buy to be able to play most current games at my top resolution (1280x1024) with atleast 30 fps. This is beacuse i like to keep my graphics card for atleas 2 years and thus i require above avearge performance to begin with. the next this i look for is if a GFX card is in my price range, however this is flexible as i am more than willing to stretch my budget for a card which will provide better performance to price. the final thing i take into consideration is aesthetics (silly i know). this is because, although i know i will probably not be looking at it for the majority of its useful life, it is nice to know that whenever you open it up, theres a shiny heatsink/cooling unit with some great looking stickers. In other words, its a childish thing. I personally couldn't care less for the amount of noise it produces, so long as my windows are intact, im happy with a futureproof card. Also, as of late, i am more inclined to go wih NVidia due to their wider range of cards (more price cuts) and increased number of bundles with free stuff or lots of cabling.

[Aez]

Question One

1. Stylish Ramsinks that assists with heat penetration
2. Custom made cooling solutions with systematic noise reduction
3. Gold plated TV out and DVI connector that allows better signal quality and less oxidization

Question Two

When purchasing a graphics card i look for the card with the best performance to cost ratio but as i do play various games i lean more towards performance, i then look to see which manufacturer has the best features for the cost for example if one company offers 1 year warranty at £100 and another company offers a 5 year warranty at £115 i will take the 5 year warranty. I also take into account the cooler on the card, a card which is too loud will be a real pain to work with and i will gladly pay a little more for something that is almost silent.
Customer service is also a factor i consider when purchasing, if a company has very bad service i will not buy from them even if the product is much cheaper, regular and fast driver updates are a must too. The bundled items that come with a graphics card also affect my decision, if a game that is highly rated and looks interesting is bundled with one companies card but not with the other and the cards are of a similar specification it makes sense to pick the graphics card with the game.

[JonnyManc]

Question 1:

• Gold Plated Connectors - Allows for better signal quality
• Uber-cooling capabilities utilising the latest cooling technologies - To reduce temps and potentially increase overclocking
• Noise Reduction - The cooler on the iChill is much quieter than the stock hsf

Question 2:

When I purchase a new graphics card, the most important factor is its ability to deliver. This does not just mean perform, I want good quality components that operate with effiency, perferably quiet and obviously powerful....but the price-point HAS to be right and match the levels of performance achievable.
We all want more for less, and in some cases this can be done (good warranty, overclocking, games, cables etc).
The final part of my puzzle is reliablity and service, this is not a perfect world and things break so its noce to have a decent warranty and the service to back that up.

[CK_1985]

Q1

3 Unique features of the iChill range:

1. Custom made 3rd-party coolers for superior cooling, advanced overclocking and noise reduction.
2. High-quality solid-state capacitors for improved stability and durability.
3. Gold-plated connectors for better signal quality and noise reduction.

Q2

What I look for when buying a graphics card:

1. Performance. Like all gamers, I want to be able to play the lastest games at native resolution with the detail settings as high as possible.

2. Cooling. It is important to me that I keep my system as quiet as possible, so efficient cooling is a big factor. I also like to overclock, so tweaking headroom is a must.

3. Reliability. From driver stability to manufacturer's warranty, peace of mind is essential to me.

4. Price. As much as I would love to spend all my money on my computer, it simply wouldn't be practical! Therefore value for money is probably my primary consideration.

5. Efficiency. Lastly, with the state of the environment what it is, a responsible gamer should always keep an eye on power consumption. That is not to say I would only buy a low-powered card, but performance-per-watt will always be taken into consideration.

[Kamisaki]

Name three unique features belonging to Inno3D's iChiLL range of products?
1. High quality solid capacitors for greater longevity.
2. Custom heatsinks and fans designed for reduced noise and GPU temperature.
3. Gold plated video connectors for the best connection.

Write in 100 words or more what features you consider most when you buy a graphics card, and why?
For me, the biggest factor in buying a graphics card is price/performance ratio. I usually have a specific budget and I want to get the best performance that I can at that price level. Second, I definitely consider the brand’s reputation for quality and what their warranty is like. I tend to keep my hardware around for a while, so I need it to be high enough quality to last. I also consider noise levels. It’s not the most important thing to me, but if I have two similar choices, I’ll definitely go with the one that’s quieter. I want to hear the sounds of the game I’m playing, not the computer hardware it’s running on.

[Azza17]

Question 1: About i-Chill

Three Main Features of i-Chill

1. The gold plated DVI and TV-Out connectors allow better signal quality through the reduction of oxidization.
2. The inclusion of Ramsinks, assist with heat penetration and add style to a gaming rig.
3. The solid, tough and solid (so solid it's described twice!), solid capacitors help to achieve stable power voltage, adding durability to the card!

Question 2: What features, and why, do I most value in a graphics card?

Shopping for a graphics card is never easy. With a world full of different opinions, and a graphics card industry with rival manufactures going to war with every release, I find real world benchmarking, in games such as Crysis (the pinnacle of graphics) as an important, and ultimately a determining factor in any card a purchase. A higher benchmark at the optimum resolution and settings (high), means a higher FPS. A higher FPS allows Crysis, and others, to be played with maximum enjoyment, which is exactly why we game in the first place.

Moreover, affordability and features are also important. Back in 2005, I happily purchased a PNY GeForce 6600GT to replace my PNY GeForce FX 5700LE, and despite reading great benchmarks for my price range, I suffered from severe artifacts after only a short period of gaming. The card wasn't faulty, but the cooling system was flawed. I had to underclock the card to play efficiently. Since then, my purchases have to include a sufficient cooling system offering A grade heat dissapitation [stylish ramsinks and gold connectors are a bonus too! ]

[SmileyUK]

Question 1

(1) Gold plated TV out and DVI connector that allows better signal quality and less oxidization
(2) Exceeds normal overclocking speeds with up to 10%
(3) Custom made cooling solutions with systematic noise reduction

Question 2

When buying a graphics card i tend to look at the pinnacle of the price/performance ratio. It used to be all about the performance but as i have got older and more responsibilities that need taking care of i have to find the right product at the right price. My price range is usually around the £150-175 mark so i hunt around there.

Feature wise i look for something that is quiet most of all because my pc is in the lounge and it has to have good support for a HDTV as its connected to that rather than a monitor. This also means i need good antialiasing abilities from the card as the resolution is not that high.

[TheDarkLord]

Question 1;

1: Gold plated TV out and DVI connector that allows better signal quality and less oxidization
2: Superb solid capacitor for stable power voltage and advance durability
3: Custom made cooling solutions with systematic noise reduction

Question 2;

One of the first things I look for when buying a new video card is doing online research for reviews on the card and what people are saying about its performance in current games ect. After I have the GPU that I am aiming for it becomes a matter of brand, when deciding brand there are a few very important things I look for, first and foremost, warranty, how long is it covered, what is and is not covered ( overclocking for example ), next is any kind of customer loyalty program or upgrade program ( such as eVGA's Step up ). The next thing I look for is does the card come pre overclocked?, and what is the quality of the card itself and the cooling solution used, a big thing is deciding which brand I am going to go for has to do a lot with what the card looks like, ( both front and back, I have a computer case with a large window and I like to show off the components inside, and being that the video card is so important to gaming, it’s one of the main pieces to show, a ugly looking video card cooler will definitely not be inside my case.

[Tidus]

Question 1

- Exceeds normal overclocking speeds up to 10%.
- Custom made cooling solutions with systematic noise reduction.
- 3 Year Warranty exclusive to the iChiLL line only.

Extra one: Gold plated TV out and DVI connector that allows better signal quality and less oxidization.

Question 2

When I look for a new graphics card I consider my current system performance if I'm upgrading the card, there's no point getting the best card if my CPU doesn't have the power to complement it. If I'm building a new PC then I will check current prices and future release schedules, why buy a new card just before the next generation of cards comes along and pushes the prices down. If the cards I'm after are to expensive I'll just buy a cheap medium range card with the parts for my new pc and wait for my desired card to become affordable, price / performance (Bang4Buck) is the most important aspect for consideration, you can only get what you can afford and most people will only pay a high price for a card that delivers proportionate performance.

Performance

The first aspect of the card I look at is the performance, I start by looking at the benchmarks to see which cards can play the games I want to play at the resolutions I want to play them. 60+ fps for games at 1920x1200 would be a good benchmark for me as requirements only get higher, 512MB's of ram is a minimum when considering HD gaming, you really want 1GB+ if you plan on using AA on HD displays. While the number of frames the card can deliver is important so is the quality, some cards suffer from bad flicker and various other problems due to driver problems and overheating.

Performance across games is an important test, if a cards performance is inconsistent offering good performance on some games and less on others I'd be put of, AMD's 3870 X2 card is good on some games and bad on others.

I don't really pay much attention to the technical details of a card like how many transistors it has, how many pipelines / texture units or memory type, trusted benchmarks are a lot more useful, showing you how well the hardware actually performs.

SLI and Crossfire don't interest me as the performance increase is limited and varys depending on the game played, some games even suffer with multiple cards due to bad scaling problems. Add the extra power usage of multiple cards idling in your machine and you can hardly see any benefit.

A good overclocking rate is important aswell so you can squeeze out those extra frames when the card starts to struggle, when buying a card already overclocked it's worth looking at how cool it runs to see how much more can be gained from it.

A high performance card should have at least 2 DVI connectors, having a HDMI connector is handy aswell.

Drivers & Control Panels (Nvidia Forceware vs AMD Catalyst Control Center)

How often are the drivers updated and do the updates make any improvements, I was considering buying AMD's 3870 X2 card but after looking at the benchmarks in Unreal Tournament 3 with the drivers not supporting antialiasing in Direct X 10 I was put of, even more so when I read an updated benchmark for the card with a driver update and patches that were said to fix the problem but made no difference at all.

Linux drivers are also important with Ubuntu gaining popularity more people will need good drivers, this is another area where Nvidia outclass AMD.

Comparing control panel software can be useful if there's no clear divide between card performance, setting up the correct colour settings for your desktop and video can be time consuming so a well designed control panel is very handy. Driver profile support for switching between colour / video & 3D settings is very useful and is better implemented by AMD than Nvidia. While Nvidia's Forceware software uses far less memory than AMD's Catalyst software it is more lacking in features (compared using vista).

HD movie and audio features like decoding Blu-Ray movies using dedicated hardware to take the load off my CPU, de-interlacing and colour correction to enhance my DVDs and HDMI Pass through are also important, all high range cards should decode HD content now anyway.

Power Usage – when I've found a good range of cards that meet my performance requirements I look at how much power the card consumes. Cards that consume lots of power when idle are written off, I'm more forgiving of high power usage whilst playing a game but not when idle, power saving features are always a plus.

Cooling - I try to keep my PC running cool so after adding a card I don't want to see my case temperature rapidly rise, so the cooling solution should be able to keep the card cool, if the card runs hot when idle it doesn't give much confidence for overclocking. Dual slot cards that blow the hot air out of the case usually work well, while water cooling is the most effective option it's expensive and water and electronic equipment aren't a good match.

Noise - The less noise is always better it isn't too important when playing games as the volume will cover it up but excessive noise is a pain, if the card is loud when idle then I won't buy it, I'd expect the idle noise level to be close to my CPU noise level.

Looks / Design – Looks aren't important to me when looking at cards, the card faces the bottom of the case so who cares about a picture on top of the cooler when you won't be able to see it, I don't have a window on my case either so it's useless to me. A card should have a solid well built design not a pretty one.

Size – Cards are getting bigger and bigger, a smaller version of a card that achieves the same level of cooling as a bulkier version is a plus.

Packaging and Bundled Extras – While giving away a lot of free stuff with a card is good I don't really want any of it so I tend to go for a card with less free stuff and a lower price. Free games are hit and miss, people have different tastes in games so giving away a free game can be pretty pointless, when reading reviews from retailers selling graphics cards you always see complaints about people not receiving the free game aswell and you can't be sure if the card maker or the store you brought it from is at fault. HDMI / DVI / VGA converters are good extras to receive, giving away a free good quality HDMI cable would be welcome. In the end a well packaged card with no extras and a lower price than it's competitors is better than a card with a lot of free extras and a high price as I can buy all the extras I need with the money I save.

A good warranty is needed aswell, if the warranty for an overclocked card only lasts for a year then it doesn't say much for its quality, a 3 year warranty would be good.

So what card would I go for?, for a high performance system a 9800 GTX or a 9800 GX2 (when the price goes down) and a HD AMD card for a HTPC.

[sbmongoose]

Question 1;
Gold plated TV out and DVI connector that allows better signal quality and less oxidization
Custom made cooling solutions with systematic noise reduction
Solid capacitors for stable power voltage and advanced durability

Question 2;
When buying a graphics card the first thing I have to consider is the price to power ratio. I’m not a hardcore gamer by any means, however I do enjoy playing the odd game now and again and would love to have a shiny experience playing Crysis, but I work in retail so get no money for anything fun. I do also do a lot of 3D graphics work as a hobby, so stability in Softimage XSI is a huge one to me, more than out and out performance. Under XSI NVidia traditionally has been much more reliable than ATI. Also with Nvidia purchasing Mental Images, it seems quite likely that there will be some performance increases in Mental Ray with CUDA (based on their development of Gelato) with a GeForce or Quadro card, which is less likely with ATI. Finally I think about the noise and heat put out by the card. Currently my PC is sat on my desk, and it is not the quietest thing in the world, but it’s not too bad, but I certainly don’t want it to increase in noise.

Simon

[amallah]

Q1:
* Custom cooling designed with noise reduction in mind
* Overclocking tested
* Heatsinks and other features designed for heat dissapation

Q2:
Most important to me when it comes to considering a new video card is lag-free performance at high-quality for the games I currently play (figures like 200fps are great for benchmarks, but irrelevant imo) and the card not being a loud power hog. Most of the other features are great for bragging to your friends, but I just like quiet, efficient and gets-the-job-done.

[Koolpc]

Question one

1. Gold plated connectors for better noise reduction and signal quality
2. Superb coolers for awesome cooling, great overclocking and noise reduction
3. High-quality solid-state capacitors for improved stability and durability

Question 2

Price, Performance, Reliability, Cooling. These are the factors that i look for when deciding what graphics card to buy.

A reasonably priced card that is affordable, has the best performance for my budget while not sacrificing on detail and gaming experience, is very reliable which you know you will get from a first class graphics card manufacturer and also a card that is very quiet but also very cool is a must. Being an avid gamer frame rates are very important too and with a top end card you get top end performances.

[KalC]

Question 1:

1) Gold plated DVI and TV out connections allow for better signal quality and less oxidization
2) Solid capacitor for stable power voltage thus prolonging durability
3) Custom designed heatsinks which help aid in noise reduction and superior cooling ability

Question 2:

When in the market for a new graphics card i tend to follow my very own 4 golden rules

1) Price to Performance Ratio - Thou shalt not put a hole in my wallet

Very important! usually when buying a graphics card the price is the most important factor to me as i simply cannot afford to spend bucket loads on a
top of the range one (would be nice if i could though) but then again having the best card today will probably not be the best card tomorrow. So keeping
that in mind i tend to go for the mid range cards that can play the latest games with acceptable quality with decent frame rates.

2) Noise - Thou shalt not sound like a hoover

Being a silent enthusiast (which i caught from various members around this forum ) quietness is an absolute necessity for me now. I usually find myself investing in 3rd party cooling as i find stock coolers too loud most of the time.

3) Reliability - Thou shalt last me more then 2 months!

Seriously though, Ive been in numerous situations (mainly with ATi if im name calling) when a brand new card began showing awful artifacting in some games just recently after my purchase. From experiencing that i made the switch to Nvidia ever since and haven't looked back so to speak. Essentially then, a decent warranty is a must as with me, things do tend to go wrong

4) Media Capabilities - Thou shalt not cry when running a 26" monitor

In my experience this is probably the most tedious, finding a card that can play latest games on a high res screen with playable frame rates. Nothing is more disappointing than purchasing a new card with lots of excitement and then loading up your favorite game to find out that it is playable no more! So a card that can run a large monitor is imperative and also a card that can cope with HD content is a nice feature due to me having a monitor that can display
such luxuries

Ace

[Ivor Crayon]

Question 1:
1. Gold plated TV out and DVI connector that allow better signal quality and less oxidization.
2. Superb solid capacitor for stable power voltage and advance durability.
3. Custom made cooling solutions with systematic noise reduction.

Question 2:
What do I look for in a graphics card? I look for solid capacitors and a solid performance. I look for gold connectors and gold-standard support. I look for effective cooling and a cool games bundle. I look for low noise at a low price. I look for a brand with a quality image that produces great image quality. I look for a card that performs to the max so that I can play to the max. I look for great styling because that’s my style. I look for innovation beyond dimension. So above all else, I look for the little sticker that says inno3D.

[kalniel]

Question 1:

1) Exceed normal overclocking speeds by up to 10%
2) Gold plated DVI and TV-out connectors for better signal quality and less oxidisation.
3) Custom made cooling solutions with systematic noise reduction

Question 2:

A graphics card has to give me perceived value for my money.

Perceived value is not about budget hardware, but instead comes down to improved performance in number of performance indicators. These include:

• A genuine improvement in gaming satisfaction. While some people are more interested in raw numbers, I am most interested in features that will increase my enjoyment of playing games. That could be having the capability to accelerate the latest graphics APIs, but equally it could be having accessible software controls that enable me to quickly configure my hardware for optimum performance.
  
• A genuine improvement in computing environment. It is no good having the fastest graphics card in the world if it runs so hot and noisy as to have an impact on general computing or other components in your case.
  
• Performance over the lifetime of the product. A quality product will work well for the entirety of its lifetime. Manufacturer’s confidence in the quality of their product is often shown by their warranty.
  
• Impact on the wider environment. My perceived value of the product is increased if steps have been taken to reduce the environmental impact of both the making of the card and in running it.

[danroyle]

Question 1

1. 3rd Party cooling system on i-chill series means better cooling and overclocking capabilities
2. 3 year warranty
3. Solid capacitators for a more reliable/stable card

Question 2


when i look for a graphics card the main things i look for are a brand with a reputable name,ideally a card with an extended warranty period in 3 years or more.

value for money is very important for me also and if i can find a cheaper card that is of a similar quality to a more expensive brand i will buy that.

also performance is essential on a budget i cannot afford top end so mid range cards need to be good.

noise is a factor when i choose a card my pc is in my living room/bedroom so cards like the x1800xt used to drown my tv out so i like quiet but good cooling performance.

also the card needs to show a significant increase in performance over my current card, no point spending £!50 on 3 extra fps.