I had posted another thread on the problem I was having with the video cards I had selected but got no responses. I have fixed the issue and I wanted to share what the problem was.
I have never been so clear as to what brand to select than now.
I have the following components on my media center that I was upgrading:
Gigabyte GA 945GCM-S2C motherboard
PD 3.2 Presler cpu
2G Patriot 667mhz memory
Ultra 500 watt psu
Media Center 2005 OS
Thermaltake Lanbox Lite Case
I had an older motherboard that was an AGP setup and wanted to change over to PCI express for a faster card. I started out with a PNY 9600GT and was disappointed from the 3dmark06 scores I was getting then I took it back and picked up a Visiontek 3870 and couldnt get 3dmark to even start and I was getting horizontal lines when I played movies. Then I took back that card and picked up the one I started to get in the first place, the EVGA 9600GT.
Here are the 3dmark06 scores with the same components other than the video card:
PNY9600GT - 4750
Visiontek 3870 - would not load 3dmark06
EVGA 9600GT - 6715
Brand selection is obviously very important. I would have to speculate that other brands would get different results as well. I was limited to what brands to select from at Microcenter due to all of their ATI cards are Visiontek. DONT BUY THESE. At least not the 3870. I may have gotten a bad apple out of the bunch but I didnt want to drive back and return video cards for the next week to find out.
This is the final kicker for me. The PNY and EVGA had the EXACT same specs. I had the sales rep to look up both of the cards and compare when I first purchased the PNY. The PNY was 20.00 cheaper but obviously not worth it compared to the EVGA.
My old AGP setup with an ATI brand X850XT scored 2000 with the same cpu and memory.
My CPU scores were differential between the two cards:
PNY - 987
EVGA - 1621
This proves that not only does the cpu let the video card shine as I think most of us believed in but the video card also lets the cpu shine. The proof is the scoring using the same cpu.
I purchased an E2180 and will later test the EVGA 9600GT and see if that improves the score to any considerable degree.
I may need some assistance getting it to OC over 2.4ghz on this motherboard. So if any of you overclocking gurus want to get involved the give me a pm or reply here and we will set a time.
I thought this was a very useful bit of information and wanted to share what I learned with this...
I have never been so clear as to what brand to select than now.
I have the following components on my media center that I was upgrading:
Gigabyte GA 945GCM-S2C motherboard
PD 3.2 Presler cpu
2G Patriot 667mhz memory
Ultra 500 watt psu
Media Center 2005 OS
Thermaltake Lanbox Lite Case
I had an older motherboard that was an AGP setup and wanted to change over to PCI express for a faster card. I started out with a PNY 9600GT and was disappointed from the 3dmark06 scores I was getting then I took it back and picked up a Visiontek 3870 and couldnt get 3dmark to even start and I was getting horizontal lines when I played movies. Then I took back that card and picked up the one I started to get in the first place, the EVGA 9600GT.
Here are the 3dmark06 scores with the same components other than the video card:
PNY9600GT - 4750
Visiontek 3870 - would not load 3dmark06
EVGA 9600GT - 6715
Brand selection is obviously very important. I would have to speculate that other brands would get different results as well. I was limited to what brands to select from at Microcenter due to all of their ATI cards are Visiontek. DONT BUY THESE. At least not the 3870. I may have gotten a bad apple out of the bunch but I didnt want to drive back and return video cards for the next week to find out.
This is the final kicker for me. The PNY and EVGA had the EXACT same specs. I had the sales rep to look up both of the cards and compare when I first purchased the PNY. The PNY was 20.00 cheaper but obviously not worth it compared to the EVGA.
My old AGP setup with an ATI brand X850XT scored 2000 with the same cpu and memory.
My CPU scores were differential between the two cards:
PNY - 987
EVGA - 1621
This proves that not only does the cpu let the video card shine as I think most of us believed in but the video card also lets the cpu shine. The proof is the scoring using the same cpu.
I purchased an E2180 and will later test the EVGA 9600GT and see if that improves the score to any considerable degree.
I may need some assistance getting it to OC over 2.4ghz on this motherboard. So if any of you overclocking gurus want to get involved the give me a pm or reply here and we will set a time.
I thought this was a very useful bit of information and wanted to share what I learned with this...