Annisman's 5th Giveaway - Zotac Amp! GTX 480. Winners announced!!

WINNERS HAVE BEEN CHOSEN!


I went over all of the entries, and so long as they were elligible (met all requirements) I added their name to a hat and did a random draw.

These are the winners, and the runners up (in case they don't contact me within 48 hours).

Winner of the GTX 480 Zotac Amp - 'AMW1011', Runner up is 'Daniel L'

Winner of Mafia 2 - 'Hamitaltintop22', Runner up is 'Jereece'


EDIT: Both of the winners have contacted me, MM, or orther admin, feel free to un-sticky this thread. THANK YOU!

If the winners do not contact me withing 48 hours, then next in line will become the winner (this has actually happened a couple times with my giveaways)

To the winners: Please contact me via PM, thank you.

Congratulations to the winners, I hope everyone had as much fun as I did, it was great to see everybody's rigs and chat with you all.

As always, look for more future giveaways here on Tom's.

- Annisman

















Well, it's been a fun year or two doing giveaways here on Tom's.

For those who are new, or those who have not kept tabs on the giveaways, they are pretty straightforward. I buy a piece of hardware, and give it away to the community. Some of you will understand when I say, that the joy of giving, really does outweigh the prices I pay for the giveaways.

Some things that have been given away to date:

Nvidia 8800GTS 512

ATI HD 4770

Intel E8400 CPU

4GB G.Skil DDR2 Memory

32GB Super Talent SSD

X-FI Fatal1ty Xtreme Gamer Sound Card

Many Steam games


Without further adieu I am announcing my fifth official giveaway:


This giveaway is an Nvidia Fermi GTX 480 Zotac AMP! Graphics card.
The Zotac Amp! editiod card has a Zalman 3 slot aftermarket cooler, high factory overclocks, and is pretty much one of the best non-water cooled GTX480's you can find on the market.


Here are some pics of this beast:














As usual, there will be some minor guidelines/restrictions to this giveaway, so please read them carefully and follow them exactly, so that I can enter you in the drawing.

Edit: I will also give away one copy of Mafia 2, ANYONE can enter for that, no restrictions, just mention in your post that you would like to enter for the game.


Rule # 1: If your graphics card in your current PC is ranked AT/OR higher than: Discrete: GTX 280, GTX 285, GTX 470 Discrete: HD 5850

You may not enter this drawing.

To see the rankings, refer to the Graphics Heirarchy charts done here by Tom's Hardware. http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 761-7.html

This is a pretty low bar, as most people do not have cards in the upper few tiers. Also, if you have SLI or Crossfire setups, please use common sense, for example GTX 260 SLI and 4870 Crossfire would not be acceptable. Where as, other setups such as 8800GT SLI and 4770 Crossfire would be acceptable. If you are not sure, just ask!

This rule is in place so that the person who gets this card will be getting a legitimate upgrade for their PC, please, I ask, if you have a VERY high end PC do not enter and take away a chance for somebody else to really benefit from this card. Thank You!

Rule # 2: You must post a picture of your PC, the PC that the card will be going in. There are many ways to host photos online:

Tip from Shadow: "Don't use Image Shack. They delete your images if it gets too much traffic. Use imgur.
Link: http://imgur.com/
Imo, Imgur is faster and they don't delete your image up to 4 weeks or more. "


MY PC



This rule is in place so that I can see where the card would be going, and because I want to see your rig! And I'm sure others would enjoy it too. If you do not have a picture, you will not be included in the giveaway!


Rule # 3: You must list your computer specs; for example mine would look like:

Intel Core i7 920@4.0Ghz
2X Nvidia GTX 460 1GB SLI
Gigabyte X58 UD5
Asus Xonar DX Audio
Zalman 850W
12GB Corsair XMS 3 Memory
8800GT Physx
2TB WD Black
1TB WD Black
120 GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD
Thor's Hammer CPU Cooler
BD Rom Drive
Corsair Obsidian 800D

You don't have to go into that much detail, but it should be similar.

Rule # 4: Give me a brief explanation as to why you want the card, what games you like to play, and maybe a history of your past video cards.

Also, on a side note: I understand that people have tragic things that happen to them such as losing your job, etc. But please keep that to yourself, the decision on who gets the card will NOT be based on personal situations to keep things fair.

Rule # 5: Only one entry per person, please give everyone else a fair chance to win, don't be selfish when I am spending my own hard earned money ( I work at a pizzaria for crying out loud! )

That is all the rules for now, if I see the need to edit an existing rule, or add a new one, I (obviously) hold the right to do that!

Lastly I will adress a few random things:

The video card is a whopping 3 slots thick so make sure you either have room in your case, or can make room for it.

This card NEEDS a beefy power supply, I don't know the exact requirements, but off the top of my head I would say a QUALITY 600-700 Watt power supply is needed for this card, and other components.

I will pay the shipping, but I will ONLY SHIP TO THE USA, if you do not live in the land of freedom you can't have my card !


And Finally, let's have some fun guys, I don't want to see accusations/complaining etc. etc. etc. I will decide later when I will end the giveaway, but it probably won't go for more than a week. The winner will be announced in THIS first post. Take your time with your entries, and don't be shy, if you aren't entering, stop in and say hello.

EDIT: The game Mafia 2 is a coupon code, so anyone can enter for it, nothing is being shipped obviously.

- Annisman

Woah, awesome Annisman!


*Pictures of the computer coming up after I find my camera.


http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1458239
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/76c86/


Setup:
2.66GHz Q9450 C2Q @ 2.8GHz
CM N520 HSF
4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
XFX ATI Radeon 5770 1GB
600Watt OCZ PSU
320GB 7200RPM Seagate HDD
Cooler Master Elite Mid-Tower Case (cheap generic CM case) ---> I'm about to transfer everything to an empty Apevia Sniper-G case I have lying around...


I usually play FPS shooters, RTS, and RPG games such as Crysis, GTA4, Metro2033, FarCry2, Starcraft2, Company of Heros, Stalker, Morrowind and Oblivion, etc. I also love playing Valve-source mods such as Dystopia, NeoTokyo, Fist Full of Frags, Zombie Panic Source, Zombie Master, SMOD, etc

My favorite RTS has been the Total Annihilation series (TA Spring mod also) and the Starcraft series.
My favorite FPS (that I no loner play) have been the Half Life series.


I currently have an ATI 5770...it's great, but suffers under good gfx settings on my 1080p monitor. Older games, RPGs and RTSs are fine, but my Metro2033 fps dips into the teens even at lowered settings and resolutions. I suspect it's because the 57x0 sucks at tessellation or Metro heavily favors Nvidia cards...? GTA4 is just as bad, but that's probably because of bad coding. >_<

My past history of video cards have been:
8400m GS (laptop)
9800GTX (first real GPU)
ATI 4650 DDR2
ATI 4870
9400GT
my best card I ever had was a 5850, but unfortunately I only had it for about a month before having to trade for a friend's netbook since I needed it for school...

I love tinkering with computers and I'd love to play around with an Nvidia 4x0 card. Also, I'd be able to max out my games on my monitor. ;D

@Dipankar

LOL, well I work at a pizza place (see above) So that eliminates number 2.

'begging' is not one of the official rules, so number 3 is not it.

I don't think I'm that kind, so it must be #1 "You want to acquire a God status among the forum members".

haha, good post.

i have the game already so i dont think i will do much with 2 copies

What do you think I meant by "I pay for my education" I am in college.

Also, we need to continue this coversation through P.M. because it's derailing the good natured inentions of this thread.
, and I'm not arguing with someone on an internet forum about my life.

This is really cool; very nice. I'd like to enter for ONLY THE GAME. I have a GTX460 in one system and a HD5770 in the other, but they seem to be enough for my needs, since I mostly play [MMO]RPG and RTS, and my newest FPS is UT2K4 (which I rarely play).

Edit: Jonpaul, that's a cool idea also. I may have a component or two I should give away like that...

The 4850 I gave out a few months ago went to "shadow187" who made good use of it compared to what he had and he was/is a loyal community member who has helped many people within the forums. That had alot to do with deciding to give it to him.

Even if it's just a WD Caviar Black 640-GB 32-meg cache 7200-rpm SATA hard drive, it will indeed be an upgrade to someone who posts here.

I will PM you once i figure out what items i will give out.

sticky this one MM

As usual, thanks mouse.

No worries mate, I would have stickied it earlier but that "W" word got in the way.

Computer Specs
Antec 1200
Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 3.53Ghz
Asus P5K-Premium @ 1057Mhz
6GB DDR2-1066
ATi Radeon 4870
3x WD 6400AAKS RAID 0
1x 1.5TB 7200.11
SilverStone ST1000-NV (1kW PSU)
ViewSonic 22" widescreen
Windows 7 Pro x64



Edit: I no longer have a IDE DVD drive so that IDE ribbon cable is gone. I also added a Intel Server NIC as my realtek one doesnt function properly, and I removed that backpanel expansion USB/Fireware

My 4870 is studdering in many of the new games now @ 1680x1050 with AA and AF. I play alot of FPS, and RTS games. RTS games can play hell on my graphics system with a boat load of units. I also do a decent amount of video encoding and ATi GPU's dont accelerate video encoding as well as nVidia GPU's with CUDA.

Previous Graphics Card history:
GeForce 2 MX400
ATi Radeon X800 XT
ATi Radeon 2900 XT
ATi Radeon 4870

I probably won't win, but good luck to everyone that enters.

Yo I'm eligible!




Intel Core i7 920@3.8Ghz
EVGA GTX 260 768mbs
Asus P6Tv2 X58 Deluxe
Corsair TX750 PSU (wish it was modular, but i think i did a fine job gettin cables pretty clean)
6GB GSkill RAM (cas latency 8)
1TB Samsung Spinpoint
Cooler Master V8
NEC DVD drive
Antec 902 Case
Windows 7 Ultimate

I'd like the card because I've been holding off on all DX11 games until I had a DX11 card; with one exception, Battlefield 2. Also I play at 1920x1200 and there are plenty of games I must sacrifice Anti-Aliasing due to a lack of RAM on my card. Some games I must drop out of my native resolution to play too as I'm quite sensitive to FPS drops.

Games - Counter-Strike Source, L4D 1&2, COD4, Starcraft 2, Battlefield 2, Fallout New Vegas, Crysis, Far Cry 2, Portal

Past cards:
-GTS 8600's in SLI
-GTS 7600
-1st card ever was a Voodoo 2

My previous gfx cards were two GTX 8600's in SLI. Fortunately the 2nd card was given to me because that setup was not very strong, although it could have been CPU-bound because I had an old AthlonX2 at that time. When I got my current GTX260 it was the only item that made it into my new build. I'd say it's the weakest link in my system when it comes to gaming. I've also been quite interested in having a dedicated Phys-X card but when I attempted to use one of my old 8600's (before giving one to my sister and one to my friend), it wasn't quite strong enough. Plus I have a case that will cool that beast!

I'm not an entrant, but annisman, exactly how do you get these hardware? Manufacture gifts? Competitions? PM if needed.

Anyways, it's good of you to do this. Perhaps you may want to reduce the "minimum" needed to enter. As in a person with a ATI 4870 still has a fine card and so can't enter. This should go to some one in need imo. But I'm not the OP so I'll shut up.

Tip: Don't use Image Shack. They delete your images if it gets too much traffic. Use imgur.
Link: http://imgur.com/
Imo, Imgur is faster and they don't delete your image up to 4 weeks or more.

Oh and PS: I have 2x keys for Dogfighter left that I got this week (I got 2x packs and gave a bunch to my friends). I will give them to who ever Annisman chooses, that is if OP agrees to this. Obviously, one must have a Steam account. I may also throw in Bioshock (the first one) and/or Civ III (any one who has not played this and in to RTS should play this imo). I realize these 2 games are old, but they ARE excellent games. Better than most of the other cr@p out now.

Thank you for the offer of games to give out, I am sure you will find some people who want them in this thread, PM me in a few days and we will make a quick discussion on how to pass them out.

Also, thanks for the tip on Imageshack, I didn't know about the issues.

The 'minimum' requirements will stay as they are, I have put pleanty of thought into it, and that is where I want it.


And lastly, to answer your question, most of the hardware that I giveaway is hardware that I buy for my rig, or my brother's/friends rigs that is not being used anymore (I upgrade constantly) so there are always parts coming available. Anyways, I hate selling parts on Ebay or craigslist, or the classifieds so I figure that giving them away is more fun, albeit much less profitable. So it all comes out of my pocket at one point or another.

Specifically for the GTX 480, I thought I would be using it myself, it turns out that I do not in fact need it, so that is the reason I am giving it away, I did not buy it to give it away, that was not my original intent. But since I don't need it, it's up for grabs.

Hopes that answers your question, and PM me some time!

Cool. Makes sense.

Fair enough. It's your hardware and you have the right/responsibility to do as you wish.
Will PM you later (PM me if I forget).

I will pick a date later, but shouldn't go for much more than a week.

Well its been a while since i been on the forum side of the website, and what a great time to come back on a check

But i live in the UK so i guess i cant enter for the GFX card, and will just have to enter for the game.

Hmm, do i have to wack up specs and pics to enter for the game mate? If so just let me know and ill edit

John.

Now that's what I call cyber-generosity! If you really want that "God" status, you have my vote, dude.

Anyway, I'm not qualified for this contest due to my "green" rig, and you know the Fermi too well to suspect my alibi.

Mafia 2, that CPU demanding game? The one that requires a Quad-core instead of a decent GPU? How ridiculous... Count me in!

I'm from Indonesia though. But I've had Google Chrome sent me stickers and shirts from the US, so I guess it shouldn't be an issue for you, oh God annisman.

PM me if needed. But if I'm not qualified, then it's fine. You still have my salute for being such a generous pizza guy. If I'd knew delivering pizzas can get me a Fermi, I would've done that a long time ago!

The world needs more people like you, man. Stingy rich guys just isn't right.

I really don't care for the reasons that you're doing it, all though I can't enter the give away anyway, but, one things for sure, you could be any of the things mentioned by Dipanker and it still doesn't make a difference since it's not what you give for free that counts, it's the thought.......that actually counts.
I have or had around 8 rigs built and the number keeps increasing by the year, so that's exactly what I started doing, started giving stuff from inside them away to kids who really needed to get their crippled rigs moving and didn't have the dough to do it......
Really, I do admire the thought..... Giving is certainly better then keeping for ourselves without using .......
So keep up the good work.... and If I could I would add a few components to your give away, sadly, I'm not in the states to be able to do that and luckily I'm in a much poorer country with a lot more kids in need of such freebies....
Keep up the good work.....
Here's My Rig for you to ogle at








Specs

Phenom II X2 555BE @4.0Ghz
2X Nvidia 9600GT 512MB SLI
1X Nvidia 9500GT 1GB Dedicated PhysX
Asus M3N-HT Deluxe Mempie Edition
Creative Audigy2 Value Audio
Tagan 600W
8GB Transcend 800MHz DDR2 Memory
1TB Seagate Barracuda
500GB Seagate Barracuda
Crosair H50 CPU Cooling Loop Push Pull Setup Inward Airflow
LG DVD-CD RW ROM
HAF 922 with the 200mm Side Intake and a 120mm Silverstone Bottom Intake

Will Post the Externals of the Rig in a day or two......... in the present pics the 9500GT is missing since they're a little older will have them on in the next Post....excuse the dust, that's a weekly issue.....

I'm sorry, this one is USA only, as most of my contests will be.

I came across your post on AnandTech's forum & thought I would participate.

I mostly play First Person Shooters and sandbox games such as the Grand Theft Auto series, Mafia 2 etc.
I'm a big id software fan and own all their games and still currently have some of them installed.
GTA Vice City would be my favorite sandbox game to date, mods for that game kept me busy!

Recent favorites include Batman Arkham Asylum, Oblivion, Crysis & Singularity (Underrated Game).

As for Graphics cards I've owned. The first was a 3dfx Voodoo 1, 3D accelerated Jedi Knight was heaven.
Others include mostly Nvidia cards. I did own a 9800 pro by ATI tho, that card owned hard at the time.

I'd like the card because I like maxing out the graphics on all my games, even multiplayer games.
I'm sure a 480 could chew up and spit out any game currently available.

It's pretty cool of you to do this, thanks for the chance for an awesome upgrade.

~ My Specs ~

MB: DFI LANPARTY DK P35-T2RS
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 @ 3GHz
RAM: Patriot 8GB (4x2GB) PC2 6400
PSU: CORSAIR 520HX
GPU: eVGA 9800GT 512MB
Display: Dell s2309w
Sound: Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic
Case: Antec P182 Gun Metal
HDD: Seagate 320GB + Samsung F3 1TB
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit

~ Hardware Porn ~

USA only because shipping is much more simple for me, and that's it.

And I forgot to mention, the game is not a physical copy, it's a coupon code to download the game, so yes the game is available to anyone.

Well, I don't know about other games since I'd didn't have fraps on while playing them but for crysis.......

This is the log.... at 1920 X 1080
2010-10-30 10:15:20 - crysis64
Frames: 5303 - Time: 180000ms - Avg: 29.461 - Min: 22 - Max: 40

2010-10-30 10:18:21 - crysis64
Frames: 3797 - Time: 180000ms - Avg: 21.094 - Min: 0 - Max: 35

2010-10-30 10:23:48 - crysis64
Frames: 3466 - Time: 180000ms - Avg: 19.256 - Min: 8 - Max: 25

And the game automatically selected everything to high.... so I guess it feels cool....
Before this I had 2 X 6800XTs from XFX....... with the Ageia PPU...... Those were given away...
And cooling pretty good since I used the Arctic Silver TP they'd sent....... as a tryout...
Now I've got this rig, plus one with 2 CFed HD5750's and the 965BE on an MSIGD70 board......

And the best part of these is they don't need any extra power inputs...

im in too...

my system:

Amd phenon x4 9850 black ed. @ 2.8
4gb ddr2 800mhz
Ms7309
500gb seagate 7200prm
Sunbeam PSU 680W
nvidea onboard (gpu Fried.... was ati 5650))
external blueray
aoc f22s 1080p
windows 7 Home P.

game i like to play :
Mw2
metro 2033
bc2
mass effect
crysis
god of war (with emulator)


well i mostly play fps which is clear up there ^.
this card will allow me to play all of them maxout,
and now that i don't have a gpu it would be something
awesome.

i've had: a 6600gt, 7900gs and my last ati 5650.





luck for everyone!!

I am not sure if i am qualified for the giveaway,(since the pc i have right now is very old and won't be able to host a GTX 480; however, i am planning to build a gaming rig within a week or two, which will be able to host this nice card.) but i think it's worth a shot.

games i like to play: wow, crysis, dragon age, mass effect, mass effect 2, dirt 2, bad company 2, mafia 2, resident evil 5, assassin's creed 2, starcraft 2

reason for entering: I really want to get a legit graphic card since my pc can't run any of the games list above except wow(at lowest setting and 10 fps )

As for now, my pc spec:
Intel E2160
Intel GMA 950 (i know that's not a graphic card, but that's what i got)
2x1GB ram
160GB hard drive
430W power supply

past graphic card: none

At last, thanks for being so kind to offer such a giveaway.