ATI Clone Cards

[Will]

I'm finding that there are far more ATI RADEON clones for sale than genuine
ATI product. I find this extremely confusing because some of these brands
have lousy quality and others decent, and it's hard enough to keep track of
all of the subtle variations on RADEON itself (Pro, XL, GT, etc) let alone
map which subsets of those submodels' features are implemented by different
sub brands. What exactly is ATI's strategy here? Don't they worry about
losing control of their brand and its perceived quality?

In any case, I'm seeing Sapphire clones of the X1600 Pro 512MB PCIE units
for sale (primarily Sapphire) for under $180. I don't see how that is
possible when its the most recent technology RADEON technology. Is this a
real market price for that model?

 

[Tapioca]

I'm finding that there are far more ATI RADEON clones for sale than
genuine ATI product. I find this extremely confusing because some
of these brands have lousy quality and others decent, and it's hard
enough to keep track of all of the subtle variations on RADEON itself
(Pro, XL, GT, etc) let alone map which subsets of those submodels'
features are implemented by different sub brands. What exactly is
ATI's strategy here? Don't they worry about losing control of their
brand and its perceived quality?

In any case, I'm seeing Sapphire clones of the X1600 Pro 512MB PCIE
units for sale (primarily Sapphire) for under $180. I don't see
how that is possible when its the most recent technology RADEON
technology. Is this a real market price for that model?

I would'nt worry about 3rd party cards especially those made by Sapphire, as
they make the "genuine" ati cards anyway.

 

[Geoff]

I'm finding that there are far more ATI RADEON clones for sale than
genuine
ATI product. I find this extremely confusing because some of these
brands
have lousy quality and others decent, and it's hard enough to keep track
of
all of the subtle variations on RADEON itself (Pro, XL, GT, etc)

do just that, keep track of the chipset models
1300 1600 1800 is it ??
and sub models pro XL GT XT etc
if you learn the difference between those you know what you are buying
try tomshardware, they normaly have a nice list comparing all chipset
combo's

3rd party making buys chips, puts em on a boards, sell product
being that is, they buy the gfx chip, memory chips, resistors, caps etc
stick on all the board, sell it

why don't ATI and nvidia and others do that themselves?
go read up about a company called 3dfx.....

 

[Will]

I've purchased clone ATI cards before that were absolute garbage, simply
because the card builder skimped on components and did a lousy job building
the card.

If farming out non-essential manufacturing is essential for simple
economics, then ATI should at least put some kind of stamp of approval on
cards to let users know they tested the card and found it to be a worthy
implementation of a card that uses their GPU. Right now on eBay even if
you identify a clone vendor like Sapphire that makes good ATI card, a lot of
the cards being offered are Sapphire clones not made by Sapphire. There is
a huge market in falsely advertised copy products on places like eBay.

I don't think it would be hard to develop a certificate of authenticity
program that would tie a unique identifier on the COA to a card serial
number, and ATI could set up a web site that allows users to type in a card
serial number and COA number, and ATI would indicate if the numbers match,
and if the card is already registered to another user.

 

[Andy C]

Sapphire is OEM for ATI........stick with them.

I've purchased clone ATI cards before that were absolute garbage, simply
because the card builder skimped on components and did a lousy job
building
the card.

If farming out non-essential manufacturing is essential for simple
economics, then ATI should at least put some kind of stamp of approval on
cards to let users know they tested the card and found it to be a worthy
implementation of a card that uses their GPU. Right now on eBay even
if
you identify a clone vendor like Sapphire that makes good ATI card, a lot
of
the cards being offered are Sapphire clones not made by Sapphire. There
is
a huge market in falsely advertised copy products on places like eBay.

I don't think it would be hard to develop a certificate of authenticity
program that would tie a unique identifier on the COA to a card serial
number, and ATI could set up a web site that allows users to type in a
card
serial number and COA number, and ATI would indicate if the numbers match,
and if the card is already registered to another user.

 

[mxh]

Sapphire is OEM for ATI........stick with them.

Too bad they don't make AIWs.

 

[Sean Cousins]

Too bad they don't make AIWs.

Get a seperate PCI tuner card then you don't have to buy an AIW
everytime you buy a new video card. Lot cheaper in the long run.

 

[Harkhof]

Get a seperate PCI tuner card then you don't have to buy an AIW
everytime you buy a new video card. Lot cheaper in the long run.

Maybe, but I'd rather have the PCI slot a TV tuner would require, especially
since they are reducing the number that come with the new PCI-E boards but
aren't producing the PCI-E x1 boards as of yet. Also I plan on getting a
HDTV tuner card as well, which will require a slot. PCI slots are becoming
more valuable these days (at least until PCI-E x1 is a reality...).

 

[Will]

Why not do the TV Tuner as a USB 2.0 accessory, the way Hauppauge does it?

 

[Harkhof]

Why not do the TV Tuner as a USB 2.0 accessory, the way Hauppauge does it?

I guess that's a thought, but I have no experience with them. Do you use
one, and if so, what has your experience been? How is the software and image
quality?

Thanks,
Hark

 

[J. Clarke]

I guess that's a thought, but I have no experience with them. Do you use
one, and if so, what has your experience been? How is the software and
image quality?

Work fine. Remember, a TV signal only uses 6 MHz of bandwidth. USB2 can
handle that easily.

 

[John Doe]

Exactly as Geoff said, you just look at the model numbers (or tell
by the detailed specifications).

To judge quality, you look at brand names and reviews. That's what
brand names are for.

Are you familiar with a free market economy?

 

[GinTonix]

Too bad they don't make AIWs.

Hmm.. Who do? You know, we only have non-BBA cards (officially, it is)
in Europe, and Hercules is the main partner I think. Who is the one
making the AIW's? Hercules? BTW; Hercules are known to manufacture good
ones, in case you are interested.

 

[rapscallion]

Sapphire makes great cards, I owned a 9800 made by them for a coupl
of years and it performed flawlessly

Do yourself a favor, though, and read up on reviews of the X160
before you buy

 

[Will]

X1600 is half the price of the X1800, but it is software compatible with the
9.0c DirectX technology. So you get similar performance to 9800 and x800
but much better support for higher end shaders and other other DirectX
tweaks.

I'm not using this for gaming, but for a video playback living room PC
situation.

 

[rapscallion]

Willwrote
X1600 is half the price of the X1800, but it is software compatibl
with th

9.0c DirectX technology. So you get similar performance to 980 and x80
but much better support for higher end shaders and other othe Direct
tweaks

I'm not using this for gaming, but for a video playback living roo P
situation

ATI has slashed the price on these so much that they're really hard t
ignore. Since you're not going to be playing games, at the price tha
they're going they might be the best choice for you

Just for fun, though, here are some benchmarks

http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/hisx1600xt/index.php?p=

All in all, I've seen this card recommended for precisely what you'r
going to be using it for

 

[Harkhof]

Work fine. Remember, a TV signal only uses 6 MHz of bandwidth. USB2 can
handle that easily.

Sorry, I somehow missed this response. Which one do you recommend? Any
advantages (aside from the saved slot) to the USB2 tuner?

Thanks,
Hark

 

[J. Clarke]

Sorry, I somehow missed this response. Which one do you recommend? Any
advantages (aside from the saved slot) to the USB2 tuner?

Big advantages are portability and an external box--I can easily move it
from the media center machine to my laptop if I ever want to for example
and I don't have to fish around behind the machine to make connections.
Only real downside I've found so far is that the USB tuners have poor to
nonexistent Linux support.

One other consideration is that the internals take up a PCI slot--that
didn't used to be an issue, but with the arrival of PCI Express the number
of PCI slots has been cut down on many motherboards and building a
multimedia machine it's easier to run out of slots than it used to be.

Note that this applies to the Hauppauge PVR-USB2, which has onboard hardware
compression, so what goes over the USB bus is a precompressed MPEG
stream--I've not used any of the USB2 externals that use the CPU for
compression, so can't comment other than to say that they _should_ be fine.

It can be argued that the USB external box also has better electrical noise
isolation than an internal, whether that has any discernible benefit in the
real world or not I don't know.

 

[Harkhof]

Big advantages are portability and an external box--I can easily move it
from the media center machine to my laptop if I ever want to for example
and I don't have to fish around behind the machine to make connections.
Only real downside I've found so far is that the USB tuners have poor to
nonexistent Linux support.

Hi John,
Does the USB tuner come with software or is Media Center required?

One other consideration is that the internals take up a PCI slot--that
didn't used to be an issue, but with the arrival of PCI Express the number
of PCI slots has been cut down on many motherboards and building a
multimedia machine it's easier to run out of slots than it used to be.

Yes, that's somewhat irritating. Seems like they'd hold off on the as of yet
non-existant PCI-E x1 instead of eliminating PCI slots in favor of a
technology that has yet to produce a card...

Note that this applies to the Hauppauge PVR-USB2, which has onboard
hardware
compression, so what goes over the USB bus is a precompressed MPEG
stream--I've not used any of the USB2 externals that use the CPU for
compression, so can't comment other than to say that they _should_ be
fine.


It can be argued that the USB external box also has better electrical
noise
isolation than an internal, whether that has any discernible benefit in
the
real world or not I don't know.

Thanks again,
Hark

 

[J. Clarke]

Hi John,
Does the USB tuner come with software or is Media Center required?

There are a couple of versions--there's the "WINTV-PVR-USB2" and the
"WINTV-PVR-USB2 MCE". The difference is that the MCE version comes with an
MCE remote and MCE drivers but not the regular software bundle, the one
that doesn't have "MCE" on the end has a different remote that doesn't work
with the remote driver built into MCE and has the standard Hauppauge
software--it will work with MCE but you'll need to download the drivers and
get a different remote. Not sure if the download on the Hauppauge site has
everything you need to get the MCE board working without MCE though--I have
the non-MCE.

Yes, that's somewhat irritating. Seems like they'd hold off on the as of
yet non-existant PCI-E x1 instead of eliminating PCI slots in favor of a
technology that has yet to produce a card...

The motherboard manufacturers don't have a whole lot of choice, they have to
live with what the chipset vendors give them, and Intel had decreed PCI
Express Shall Conquer All. Really wish nVidia and Via hadn't been quite so
quick to jump on the bandwagon though.

Note that this applies to the Hauppauge PVR-USB2, which has onboard
hardware
compression, so what goes over the USB bus is a precompressed MPEG
stream--I've not used any of the USB2 externals that use the CPU for
compression, so can't comment other than to say that they _should_ be
fine.


It can be argued that the USB external box also has better electrical
noise
isolation than an internal, whether that has any discernible benefit in
the
real world or not I don't know.

Thanks again,
Hark