Finally got my Graphics card

Rob423

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Well, Newegg was sold out of the LeadTek WinFast A280 Le 128mb 8X gf4ti4200...

so i ordered it from GoogleGear.com... it was the same price, it came out to like 190$ with a 2 day air shipping.

comes with a bunch of game demo's, bunch of cables and connectors, the card it self is pretty heavy (my first graphics card) im used to haveing an onboard 16mb video card..

anyway, tomorrow FedEx should be delievering my system, i will build the pc tomorrow and get everything working and let you guys know what i think of this card.. tomorrow in the morning before it gets here, im gonna run out and get a game or two.

I was thinking of getting NOLF2 (looks pretty good)
or medal of honor.. not sure which to buy.

anyway.. does anyone know how madden 2003 is on the PC? does it look and play better then Ps2?

anyway, i can't wait for this to be complete, i'll be back later on tomorrow on how everything is.

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Rob423

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i forgot to ask you guys one thing.. when installing the graphics card. Do i load the cd in that comes with this?

or do i let xp load the drivers, and then go to leadtek? or the nVidia website? and then which driver do i get?

also if anyone does have this card, it comes with it's own OverClocking Tool.. can anyone give me a few pointers on useing this?

Also, does the Graphics card come with the DVI cable to hook up to your monitor? or does the Hitachi Cml174 come with that cable? because i wanna use the DVI feature.

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14Dx

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I would recommend UunrealTournament 2003 as a good game to buy. The graphics are incredible and very demanding. You can install the drivers on the CD but usually the latest ones you would download from Nvidia (I have no idea what they are, I have a 9500 Pro) will increase performance. Until you download those you can just use windows' default drivers. Sometimes the oc'ing programs that come with boards suck. If this is the case I've heard good things about Rivatuner for oc'ing nvidia cards. Good Luck.

If its not broken, you're not trying hard enough.
 

Spitfire_x86

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Why you bought a Ti4200-8X? For $10 more, you could buy a Radeon 9500 Pro.

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Squints

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That graphics is not much use without a computer!! hehe. You cant go wrong with either NOLF2 or MOHAA, although MOHAA has much better multiplayer. I played the Madden 2003 demo back when I still had my old Radeon VIVO and it still looked much better than the consoles. A good gamepad to get for that is the thrustmaster dual analog. The non-shock version is only $20 ($30 for shock)and its the best controller I've ever used. Happy gaming!
 

Ghostdog

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Just curious Rob, why do you only use nVidia?
Anyways, congratulations on the card. What kind of system are you getting?


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Spitfire_x86

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Because you have good experience with nVidia cards? I have also good experience with nVidia cards and like them. But now, I am seriously thinking about buying an ATI card, though I have no experience with them

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flamethrower205

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I've had only good experience w/ NVidia cards and only bad with Ati cards. Guess which company my next card will be from.

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti
 

AMD_Man

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I've had only good experiences with ATI cards and only bad with nVidia cards. Guess which company my next card will be from?

Intelligence is not merely the wealth of knowledge but the sum of perception, wisdom, and knowledge.
 

flamethrower205

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How many cards from each company have u used?
For me that'd be let's see....... 25 Ati cards (3 of which ended up in my rocket :evil: ) and ~75 NV cards. I certainly think NV's trustability says something to me.........

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti
 

AMD_Man

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I have experience with only three nVidia cards actually (all GeForce2s) but hundreds of ATI cards (7 of which are actually mine). A lot of the cards at my school are old ATI Rage Pros that run Couterstrike just fine. :tongue: . I gave up on nVidia after getting countless BSODs, lock ups during WinXP installation and not being able to run my ATI TV Wonder with stability. Switching to an ATI card on that particular machine fixed all my problems. My first ATI card was an ATI Xpression 2MB.

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chuck232

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AHHHHH!!!

I used 2 ATi cards (still use 1) and they both worked farily good. The R8500LE kinda messed up some textures, but was quite fast. Replaced it with a Ti4200 and haven't loooked back, but I will say, I don't think ATi's drivers suck as much as soime people say. It could be just certain instances, but on the whole, nVidia and ATi have been good to me. :wink:

...And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put my computer back together again...
 

Rob423

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i winded up getting the asus nforce2 board and the xp2800+

but with my god dam luck i recieved a defective board, it cannot run 166mhz fsb... it's only letting me run 266FSB (133mhz)

so right now it's running @ 1.8 ghz, 1 gb of pc3200 cas2 corsair xms.. and the graphics card is nice... my Hitachi Monitor is coming today..

well now i gotta get a new mobo.. OR! keep this setup... buy a cheaper processor.. the highest with 266mhz.. and get a new board that handles 333mhz fsb and then swop... but that'd be later, maybe when the hammer comes out..

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AndrewT

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2 ATI and 2 nVIDIA here, all of them were great till replaced them with a newer card.

only thing I didn't like was the Detonator driver loosing a simple function (ctrl+alt+t to switch to TV and back), worked when used factory driver off the cd. but no other problems.

ATI drivers, no clue what people complain about, no problems here (playing games most of the time).

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Ghostdog

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It´s kind of funny that people who have had problems with ATI in the past automaticly choose to never use their products again. What if nVidia went bankrupt and ATI would be the technology leader, would you still refuse to buy ATI cards?

I realize that after you´ve been blown off by bad drivers or bad manufacturing or whatver several times, it´s hard to take the step and give a company a chance, but I´ve heard alot about ATI getting their act together. Maybe you should give them a chance. (Not a biased post towards ATI, just find it interesting how many people reason when choosing graphics cards).

Rob, that will be a sweet system! Too bad you didn´t pair those up with a 9700Pro. That would kick it.
I just picked up my 3D Prophet(9700Pro) today. Going do a real comparison between my old and new card, so it´ll be a few days before i plug it in.

<font color=red>I´m starting to feel like a real computer consultant.</font color=red>
 

hellcatjr

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Have to agree with ghostdog but a ati 9500pro smokes a ti4200 in games, and if u bought the agpx8 card because it was agpx8 i would have to ask why since a geforce 4 will never be able to use it, its just not fast enough, as well as the fact that a 9500pro would have cost about the same =) but after all its your choice i have used alot of VC's but i prefer NV but to be honest right now i am floating with a 9500non pro that i unlocked and am loving it, so what evers clever i guess =)
 

flamethrower205

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Several failures I would go back. 25 is more than several (btw, amd man, if I were to count the nv cards at my school, it'd be something like 375 then......) If NV went bankrupt, I'd make do w/ a Parhelia and oc it like mad:)

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti
 

Rob423

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HOLY CRAP THIS MONITOR IS AMAZING... just got it and shot it in DVI mode... wow.. that's all i can say, thank god something made me happy today!!!

HITACHI LCD IS EXCELLENT!

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chuck232

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Don't settle with the defective board. Go and get an RMA!!! (Dear lord what is the world coming to, not RMAing defective stuff.)

...And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put my computer back together again...
 

flamethrower205

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No u wouldn't, cause if u knew me in real life u'd be too scared too :tongue: j/k, I'd never kick the crap out of u for that.......

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti