help me pick my next video card

[KeiFront]

Last time I checked it wasn't fixed, not that I'm surprised by this.

[schmosef]

Last time I checked it wasn't fixed, not that I'm surprised by this.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Man do I miss the old Matrox...

I was planning on doing some dev work today. I suppose that if I have that problem I can try some of the older SE drivers. I know they worked with my AGP P650. The PCI card is brand new so they may not support it.

[Kurt]

Lemme take a look a look at futureshop.ca...

Ok... I would say that their retail price is about 10% higher than my wholesale price on high end cards. With that % increasing slightly on more mainstream cards.

For example, they want $360 for the ATI 9800Pro that I almost bought. My cost would have been $300 or less (my sales rep can usually drop it a few dollars).

I bought the PowerColor 9800Pro for $240.

I stand corrected about XFX. I still don't know who they distribute through though. Their website says they have a channel partner program, so maybe they self-distribute?

There's a lot of brands that use smaller distributors because they can't get much attention from the bigger players or because the bigger players don't think they can be relied on to ship on time. For example, Matrox got dropped by Ingram around the time that the G400 came out. My sales rep told me that they were sick and tired of Matrox never meeting their ship dates.

...did I ever say I had to wait 1 year before getting my G400MAX (ok, about a million times actually)? That was from Ingram too BTW...that's what I call not meeting your delivery schedule...

The only ones to beat Matrox are actually VIA. I received an answer to an e-mail enquiry close to 1.5 years after I'd asked the question (at least they answered...)

Ingram does distribute XFX here (EU), but they don't distribute the same brands everywhere (same for the other big ones too).

[schmosef]

Not that I did this switch specifically for the gaming, but I've now downloaded and played demos for FarCry, Doom3, Half Life 2, Warhammer 40,000, Ground Control 2, Act of War, and a few others that don't come to mind immediately.

I have to say that I was blown away by how far games have come in the few years since I was playing regularly. New kit makes all the difference. Being able to play them at a decent resolution with all the eye candy maxed out was a real treat. And to think that my ATI 9800Pro based card isn't even considered top of the line... Oh Matrox, how the mighty have fallen...

[KeiFront]

Schmosef, for what it's worth, I've got an XFX Geforce 6800 the quality is ok. I've got no complaints so far about the card, 2D qualiy is very good and 3D speed is awesome compared to the Parhelia I had before. XFX is widely available here, wanted to buy a leadtek but they are very hard to find overhere.

[Kurt]

No problem to get the Leadtek cards here, they're available at one of the major distributors. In doubt, just ask me, I can tell you where to find what you're looking for.

[greinedo]

Be carefull with XFX. I had a bad experience on friday evening 23:30 approx.

http://forums.murc.ws/showpost.php?p=529298&postcount=100

It was a XFX Geforce 6600 GT /128 AGP Dual DVI

Sure the 3D perf was very good Aquamark=60000 !

But it just died while browsing the net.

Since then, I saw on the net a lot of complains about XFX.

[UtwigMU]

XFX = Elite group/ECS/PCChips...

[greinedo]

OK everything is clear now for me.

I had so many problems to make the ECS K7S5A Pro motherboard working !
It was the worst PC hardware experience I had. Bad design, a lot lot of problems. A dozen of forums speaking about those problems. It was a cheap card but ...


If I had known that !

XFX=ECS that's really funny

[schmosef]

I may have a slight problem that you guys can weigh in on.

I've posted a new thread on it: link

Please take a look.

[schmosef]

OK everything is clear now for me.

I had so many problems to make the ECS K7S5A Pro motherboard working !
It was the worst PC hardware experience I had. Bad design, a lot lot of problems. A dozen of forums speaking about those problems. It was a cheap card but ...


If I had known that !

XFX=ECS that's really funny

Yeah, I hate ECS too!

[UtwigMU]

ECS K7S5A has been flawless for 1.5 years now, but that board is generally considered exception.

PC Chips/ECS also makes or used to make Apple ibooks, btw.

[Marshmallowman]

Yeah I bough my ecs k7s5a knowing what the likley problems were...and importantly the fixes to do. (chipset Heastsink and a few other mods)

Since then it has been great, It OC'd a 2400xp to 3000xp speeds and is very stable with excellent performace....eg raid and capture card work together and don't choke like every via or nvida chipset board I have every owned.

It has a few design flaws...but they are fixable(if your are up to it)

Having said that I will probably never by ecs again

I have heard good things about XFX though, the tend to use OC more then most cheap cards(on apar with expensive cards, eg good cooling and ram), but I have not heard much about their reliabilty