Looking for a video card upgrade recommendation

[Gurm]

Same chip speed? Your actual benchmarks for any given device will go up perhaps 20%.

But the fact that you can use your hard disk and video card concurrently, that you don't have to tweak latency at all (unless you're ME and you really wanna with PowerStrip), and you will NEVER see a driver infinite loop?

Worth every penny.

- Gurm

[Technoid]

Originally posted by Wombat
And the removal of VIA headaches: priceless.

Well, thats one of the points thats not encoruaging me
Never had a single "VIA Headache" with my mobo....

Originally posted by Gurm
Same chip speed? Your actual benchmarks for any given device will go up perhaps 20%.

And it explains why they don't seem much faster compared with sdram systems....

But the fact that you can use your hard disk and video card concurrently, that you don't have to tweak latency at all (unless you're ME and you really wanna with PowerStrip), and you will NEVER see a driver infinite loop?

Whats a infinite loop?

Worth every penny.

- Gurm

This I don't doubt for a sec...

Thanx, I get my tax return Next week so I think I know what to spend it on

[The PIT]

Whats a infinite loop?


A well known problem that effects Via chipsets. Seems to have been fixed with different drivers and Bios's. Either that or people have switched to win2k or put up with it.

[Technoid]

PIT:
It was a rhetorical question, hence the Smiley...

I have built over 100 computer on VIA chipset mobos and Have yet to experience any of the so called VIA bugs!

[Gurm]

Technoid:

Lucky you. It's mostly a WinXP problem (the infinite loops), and the "VIA Latency problems" only surface when you get it good and loaded up, and maybe not even then depending on Mobo, BIOS, and cards.

- Gurm

[The PIT]

Well Viahardware forums were full of it one time. I've seen it so yes I think he was lucky.

[Technoid]

Not necceasry luck,
I have been using MSI motherboards since well before Athlon and not a single one has been a POS!
and ofcours bios tweaks etc etc...

[Gurm]

Nah, it's not just that it's MSI = good.

I had an MSI 694D Pro, and it had latency issues. Not "crashing, show-stopping, hissing crackling" latency issues, but more like "boy the performance of this board is crap" latency issues.

And infinite loops. Hoooo-boy. 694 chipsets and ATI cards were NOT a good match.

- Gurm

[Wombat]

With my KT133A board I couldn't use the burner until Breese's latency patch (lots of troubleshooting and coasters and lockups until then). Even after that though I still couldn't do on-the-fly copying -> the bandwidth sucked. On my AMD750 board it just increased the burn time from 6 minutes to 7.

[The PIT]

From what I read over at Viahardware there was no one particular cause of the infinite loop. Some was faulty hardware (Not faulty videocards only as John Gatt spoke about) others just the match of the drivers on the computer. For some poor sods there was no cure bar binning the motherboard.
My solution was just going back to win2k that worked perfectly for 6 months and has continued doing so.

[Technoid]

Well, now I got a MSI 745 Ultra mainboard, a Promise TX2 Raid card, 512MB DDR and a whole week off from work

[Wombat]

Well, now I got a MSI 745 Ultra mainboard, a Promise TX2 Raid card, 512MB DDR and a whole week off from work

Man, I hope my machine is still there when I get home.

[Technoid]

ROTFLMAO!!

I promise!

It will still be there!

[The PIT]

Sorry I've just nicked it.
For benchmarking honest gov.