Video card - opinions?

[floppybootstomp]

Lookin good Flops

Its a shame its a return card instead of sparkling new.

It probably isn't a returned card but obviously I have no way of knowing.

The supplier may have just been trying the card for themselves as they build systems as well as supply parts.

I did say it's a possibility as the anti-static seal had been broken and a new anti static seal affixed,

It is now registered for the ten year guarantee with BFG, they e-mailed me back but no mention of the free T Shirt and Teflon pads.

Come to think of it, as the warranty for this card is direct with BFG and not with OCUK, it's unlikely to be a return.

Whatever, it's working fine and guaranteed for ten years, looks new so that's good enough for me.

I'm not rich, not rich at all. The ex missus took everything I owned when we split so I now live in a council flat. So each time I get some work in (I'm self employed) I can indulge in my hobby. I don't have any expenses other than the normal living ones and my car, kids have flown the coop.

I had very little work come in for this first quarter, only now are things beginning to pick up a little, hence the new card.

The AMD machine now has 2Gb of Corsair Dominator 1066 DDR2 memory, so I'm going to try and overclock the 3.2Ghz chip at some stage.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Waynos_Face:

Four machines? Yes

Main machine is primarily used for gaming and work. That's the best one, running Vista Home Premium.

Second one has fairly good spec and is used primarily for video editing and audio. I recently added the games listed above as it's running XP Pro and those games won't run or run well on the main machine using Vista. The machine is also in the bedroom as opposed to the living room. Video encoding can take hours so sometimes that machine is tied up doing just that.

System 3 is a budget machine and is used purely as a Home Media Entertainment Centre, running XP Pro it has about 300 DivX movies and around 1100 Audio Albums on it. Trouble is, I can't afford a 32" TV to go with it yet so it's only being used as a juke box atm, through my stereo Hi Fi. I almost bought a TV instead of the Video card and RAM, but in the end chose not to.

And system 4 is an old socket A machine with a removable hard disk caddy. I have 5 old IDE disks in caddies and atm they have on them: Win XP Pro; Win 98 (for old games); PC Linux OS and the other two currently don't have anything on them. The beauty of this system is trying different Linux OS's and not being worried about breaking them. Good fun

The main machine and the Media machine share a monitor, mouse & keyboard through a KVM (which will go once I get a TV) and the other two share a monitor through it's VGA and DVI inputs, which means I can only have one or the other switched on at any one time.

There, hope that's as clear as can be

 

[Ian]

That card looks pretty tasty Flops!

I didn't even realise they could come with 10 year warranties nowadays, that is very impressive indeed (Although if it does go wrong after 9 years, I suppose it's only worth a fiver).

Glad you're pleased with it

 

[Abarbarian]

Thats a darn impressive card matey . You might not notice a great deal of improvement in some games to start with but I bet after a while when you have been playing games maxed out you will notice a quality drop when viewing games on a lower spec pc .


See you were in too much of a rush to fit the card and play to dust out the pc then .

 

[floppybootstomp]

See you were in too much of a rush to fit the card and play to dust out the pc then .

Get outta here

I did hoover it out actually but not too well it seems as I can spot some dust in those pix that I didn't actually notice in real life.

Like by the water cooler pipe inlets and the top fan. You should have seen it when I first opened it up though

The Zalman CPU cooler's fins attract a lot of dust.

 

[Waynos_Face]

Yeah, question answered thanks.

 

[floppybootstomp]

(Although if it does go wrong after 9 years, I suppose it's only worth a fiver).

I suppose you're right there, that's probably how they manage to offer a ten year warranty (or a lifetime warranty if you're American).

Which made me wonder, what was the top card about ten years ago?

If I recall correctly it may have been a Voodoo III PCI Card with 16Mb RAM.

I wonder if one of those is worth more than a fiver now?

 

[Ian]

Bargain Voodoo 3 - 1p cheaper at Ebay : £4.99

Doesn't seem like too long ago when those cards were the muts nuts. I remember having one of those 4MB inline 3D cards (not the original 3dfx, but the competitor - I just can't remember the name).

 

[floppybootstomp]

Yep, I had the 3dfx 1 which sat alongside your regular video card and was connected by a massive cable. It cost me £110.00 at the time

And I couldn't even give it away, had been trying for several years so recently it went to the recycling centre.

You were almost spot on with the fiver prediction then, hehe