Chaintech cards any good?

[slim_lim]

I'm considering getting a Chaintech Geforce2 TI, mainly because it's way cheaper than the same kind of card from a well-known brand manufacturer. Do you think it's a good idea? Anyone got something terrible to say about Chaintech and stay my hand?
P.S. Does 64mb DDR matter much vs/ 32mb? Worth extra $17?

[wild_andy_c]

GeForce 3's are generally only 64Mb parts - all 32Mb parts are usually OEM parts.

The chaintech card isn't bad but it's cheapness will show in its connectivity and build quality. They usually use memory that will do the specified speed and not acyually overlclock very far.

[slim_lim]

Yeah, I know it's OEM I'm talking about. No TV-out, but I don't care about that. Nvidia OEMs aren't underclocked like ATI ones, am I right? I want to know if 64mb ddr will make much difference vs. 32mb so I don't pay more.
I'm talking about GF2 TI btw, not GF3. Can't find any reviews for this card, but their GTS genrally received good responses and was very ovrclockable. I wonder if this one is like that.

[wild_andy_c]

No - NVidia cards are rarely underclocked. I do know that Sparkle have been known to sell under-spec memory on their GF2MX cards at 143MHz instead of 166MHz.

[funnyperson1]

the 64 mb will make a difference when newer games come out...and how much is this card?...if youre getting it for 100$ i suggest a Radeon7500 or a Gainward G2 Ti just so you can get max speed out of it when ocing......if youre getting for 70$ and its the 64mb part its not a bad deal....

[slim_lim]

Well, the 32mb part is $82 ($89 shipped) @ axiontech. The 64mb part is $99. There are other cheaper deals on the same card @ pricewatch ($75) but they're in Cali, so I gotta pay tax and it comes out more expensive. :( Where can I find this Gainward deal for $100? Sounds interesting.
I might check out Radeon 7500 in a store when I return the Visiontek TI I'm running right now (bought it to test whether it'll run in bh6 agp 1.0; not gonna keep - $150 is way too much for it). 7500 are quite expensive though. Most stores have them for $200, $150 the lowest I've seen. It's a little cheaper on the Internet but the bulk of those seem to be inferior OEMs or 3rd party cards.

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by slim_lim
Well, the 32mb part is $82 ($89 shipped) @ axiontech. The 64mb part is $99. There are other cheaper deals on the same card @ pricewatch ($75) but they're in Cali, so I gotta pay tax and it comes out more expensive. :( Where can I find this Gainward deal for $100? Sounds interesting.
I might check out Radeon 7500 in a store when I return the Visiontek TI I'm running right now (bought it to test whether it'll run in bh6 agp 1.0; not gonna keep - $150 is way too much for it). 7500 are quite expensive though. Most stores have them for $200, $150 the lowest I've seen. It's a little cheaper on the Internet but the bulk of those seem to be inferior OEMs or 3rd party cards.


Fact of the matter is a 7500 Radeon is a faster card than any of the G2 Ti200, pretty much all the reviews confirm this. You need links I got em....

Powermagic offers a retail 7500 that comes with clock and mem speeds the same as a retail ATI 7500, here is a read on it, you can buy it online for $119 US through pricewatch.com

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/radeon7500/index.html

Also I have heard good reports on people buying OEM ATI cards made by ATI , can be found for $91 & 96 , you just do not get the cables that come with a retail 7500

check out pricewatch, click video cards then search ati radeon 7500

better buy is the 7500 it offers more than any G2Ti200, and there are NO driver issues with the 7500. i got one and love it as most people here know LOL,

All the best

Cisco Kid:D

[wild_andy_c]

Do please check out the scores at Madonion - in general the 7500 isn't a patch on anything GeForce 3 based when you look at the scores. There seems to be an ATi army trying to propaganda some performance from Radeon just like ATi themselves !!!!

[Ifishsum]

Slim I bought the chaintech 64mb GeForce 2ti...new for $77 on ebay. I don't think it will overclock as much as a Visiontek or other larger name card (gonna put a crystal orb and ramsinks on and see what happens then) but for $77.00 I'm happy with it...great improvement over my VooDoo3 16meg.

BTW definitely get the 64meg if you like more textures in your games

[slim_lim]

Ifishsum, can you tell me what kind of DDR is on that card? Thx.

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by wild_andy_c
Do please check out the scores at Madonion - in general the 7500 isn't a patch on anything GeForce 3 based when you look at the scores. There seems to be an ATi army trying to propaganda some performance from Radeon just like ATi themselves !!!!

um he said G2 Ti200....Cisco...the only Ti200 is G3....the G2 is Ti500

[Ifishsum]

Originally posted by slim_lim
Ifishsum, can you tell me what kind of DDR is on that card? Thx.

It's Samsung memory. I'll be pulling the card in a day or two to put RAMsinks on, I'm gonna write down the numbers on the chips. PM me if you want that info too.

[wild_andy_c]

$77 is a mighty fine price indeed

[slim_lim]

Thx, Ifishsum, please PM me the details about the memory when you pull your card or post them here. Out of curiosity, how much were you able to o/c it out of the box? I've had mixed success w/ my Visiontek test TI (gonna take it back to store) - it'll go 490 on mem clock but only 270 on core before artifacts start appearing.

[wild_andy_c]

I'm very confident that a GF2Ti with memory at a DDR rate of 500MHz would woop a 7500

[Ifishsum]

Originally posted by slim_lim
Thx, Ifishsum, please PM me the details about the memory when you pull your card or post them here. Out of curiosity, how much were you able to o/c it out of the box? I've had mixed success w/ my Visiontek test TI (gonna take it back to store) - it'll go 490 on mem clock but only 270 on core before artifacts start appearing.

Out of the box, 270 core/440 mem with no artifacts when cold, but after playing RTCW for awhile I start to get em. Gonna lap the core a little (sink doesn't even touch the metal center of GPU!) and add sinks on the RAM (didn't come with any) that should help. I'll be surprised if I hit 500 on the mem just by adding sinks but for the price I didn't expect an awful lot. Will keep ya posted.

[wild_andy_c]

That card seems to have yielded an overclock similar to that of my Creative GF2 GTS 32Mb I had - the memory went from 333MHz to 350MHz and then crapped out.

[Ifishsum]

Slim the memory info is as follows:

Samsung 145
K4D263238M-QC40
UA1A16DD korea

If I'm reading it right it's 4ns memory someone plz correct me if I'm wrong. Crystal Orb should be here in the next day or two I'll see how it overclocks when I get that on.

[slim_lim]

Very interesting... it's the very same exact RAM used in my retail Visiontek TI. Wonder why the memory on it overclocks so much better then...

[Ifishsum]

got the crystal orb and ramsinks on... made zero difference in overclockability. Max OC with no artifacts/freezes is 280/440, highest 3Dmark score for my setup is at 265/431 (3200 default). Honestly this is about what I expected from a lower end card, so I'm not unhappy. (except for spending the extra $ on the orb and ramsinks that made no difference LOL). Just a little surprised that with the same mem as the retail Visiontek, it doesn't do better than it does. Oh well, still whoops my voodoo3 which I paid twice as much money for 2 yrs ago