Dell Geforce 2 GTS manufacturer... Any ideas ??

[Stiffler]

I have a Geforce 2 GTS 32mb card that came shipped with my Dell Dimension. Yes I know that buying a computer from such a company is a bit sad, but I got it for free so who wouldn't except it?

Anyhow the graphics card is identified as a Dell Geforce 2 with the drivers shipped with the PC, and with any detonator drivers it appears as a NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro. There are no visable marks on the card itself at all.

I was just wondering if anybody knew who manufactured these cards and if drivers were available ? The performace I get with this card is nothing like the kind of performance I expected, and other people with simular systems get higher performance levels.

Tim

I am Homer of Borg ! Prepare to be... MMMhhhhh Doughnuts

 

[bront]

My guess is that it is some OEM card of some sort. Posibly with slightly slower memory, or at least not the higher performance memory. Do you know if it's DDR or SDR mem?

As far as performance you were expecting, who are you compairing it to?

I was disapointed with some of my benchmark scores untill I actualy looked at who I was compairing them to. It turned out I was the only one out of the scores I was looking at who hadn't overclocked the FSB, meaning that I wasn't compairing results in a reliable manner. Turns out I was doing pretty well when I found non-overclocked systems and compaired them.

60 FPS, 70 FPS, 80 FPS Crash!
Daylight comes and I have to go to work :frown:

 

[chaotictech]

Dell uses visiontek for there nvidia dased cards. Hope that helps.

If you ever stop learning, YOU'ER DEAD!!

 

[Stiffler]

Thanks...

I was comparing it to someone with a very simular system and card (not overclocked) Guess its just a cheaper card

Thanks for the info chaotictech

Tim

I am Homer of Borg ! Prepare to be... MMMhhhhh Doughnuts

 

[phsstpok]

All Geforce2 GTS's are pretty equal given the GPU and memory have equal clock speeds. The default clock for most are 200/333. However, Visiontek has a new OEM card, a GTS-V (I'm not saying this is what you have), with default clocks of only 175/286. Drivers detect this card as a Geforce2 GTS/Geforce2 Pro but with the slow clocks. You might want to get an overclocking utility like Geforce Tweaker, PowerStrip or NvMax just to see what your default clock is.

You can also look at the speed of the video card's memory chips to get an idea. My Visiontek GTS-V has 7ns memory which equates to 143mhz (or 286mhz DDR). Some of the best GTS's have have 5ns memory, 200mhz (400mhz DDR) which usually means very good overclocking above the 333mhz default.

My GTS-V overclocks to 210/340 which barely gets it above the default clock for a standard GTS. (I only paid $65 for the card).

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Crashman]

Standard GTS cards came with 6ns memory (DDR). The GTS-V is a different animal do to it's slow memory.

Back to you Tom...

 

[phsstpok]

Since I haven't pryed off the stock heatsink yet, is the GTS-V an all new GPU or do GTS-V cards just have slower memory?

When overclocked to the speed of a standard GTS (200/333) the GTS-V seems to perform identically. Though, I have never had a GTS on my system so I'm not 100% sure, just benchmark scores seem to be right.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Crashman]

If your 7ns memory can handle 333MHz, you may want to consider reflashing your card with retail BIOS. Then you won't need to overclock it. My GTS did 220/390. Does yours have a fan on the heatsink?

Back to you Tom...

 

[phsstpok]

For a budget card, the GTS-V performs great. When I did a comparison at Madonion I compared my score to the scores of all Duron based systems, (which is what I have), using Geforce2 MX/MX400's (one of my other possible choices). My score of 3198 is only beaten by 7 MX/MX-400's combined with a Duron.

The GTS-V is a great alternative to an MX-400 if one doesn't need 64MB of memory, i.e. only plays games at 1280x1024 or less.

Also ,I have been able to run the card with memory at 410mhz, granted, with a huge amount of artifacts. I'm wondering I can eventually get my artifact-free overclock, signifcantly above 210/340.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Crashman]

You can always try cooling the memory. I would go ahead and load retail GTS BIOS. And you don't need 64MB to game at high resolutions, I've been gamming at 1600x1200 with a 32MB card. And your DDR RAM even at the lower (true) clock speed still outperforms the SDR of the MX.

Back to you Tom...

 

[phsstpok]

With today's games with fairly moderate textures you can play at 1600x1200. When textures and poly's start to increase, a 32mb card will need to turn to the AGP memory more and more, killing framerates.

I realize the GTS or GTS-V with DDR has nearly double the memory bandwith of the MX's SDR but some of the MX-400s, like Gainward CardExperts have memory up to (or down to) 3.8ns or 3.5ns. I thought they would be more competive with GTS cards. Frankly, with prices dropping as they are, why would anyone take an MX over a GTS.

As for loading a GTS BIOS. I think I will skip that. Overclocked is overclocked. I still don't know if the GTS-V is an all new GPU.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Crashman]

I doubt the GPU is different.

Back to you Tom...

 

[Stiffler]

Thanks alot guys for all the input. The card in question was shipped with my PC on 22/11/2000 so its not at all current (Sorry for forgetting to mention that) Its is nearly a year old and possibly over a year old.

Do I look at the chips themselves for that information ? is it easy to upgrade the bios ? can I go back ?

Yes there is a fan on the chip... I wish I had a digital camera so i could include a photo of the card

Tim


I am Homer of Borg ! Prepare to be... MMMhhhhh Doughnuts

 

[phsstpok]

Yes, look at the numbers on the video RAM chips. Usually you will see a number that ends with, for example, "-6", meaning 6ns, or "-55" meaning 5.5ns.

5ns equates to 200mhz (400mhz DDR).
5.5 to 182mhz (364).
6 to 166.666mhz (333).
6.5 154mhz (308).
7 to 143mhz (286).

A year ago, Visiontek was an OEM supplier only, but the specifications of their video cards matched retail products. Some of their cards (a lot) made it to the reseller markets. They were prized because they were stripped down just to the card and the drivers. You didn't pay for packaging or bundled software and the cards overclocked like crazy.

Starting with the release of their Geforce2 Ultra, Visiontek started selling products for the retail market.

In the past, Visiontek under-clocked their OEM cards. Well, at least my Geforce256 SDR was underclocked. It has 5.5ns memory which is good for 183mhz without overclocking yet the default memory clock for that card was 166.6mhz. That memory overclocks to 216mhz (with a little help from RAM heatsinks), which is a nice 23% overclock. Not bad for an "OEM" part.

My new Visiontek GTS-V overclocks from 146mhz (286 mhz DDR) to 170 mhz (340 mhz DDR), so far. If that stands, it's only a 16% overclock and no where near the level of many retail GTS cards

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[phsstpok]

I forgot to mention, with your video card being at least a year old, it is undoubtedly an orginal Geforce2 (probably a GTS) not the GTS-V I have been talking about. It may or may not be underclocked. We'll need the information from the memory or from the utilities I mentioned earlier. Remember, the default clock for a GTS is 200 mhz core, 166.6mhz memory (333 mhz DDR).

I, personally, don't recommend flashing a video BIOS. It can render a video card "videoless". If it were to happen, you can usually re-flash the video BIOS but you have to do it without the benefit of a display. Flash and pray!

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[bront]

I would guess that you have SDR mem on your card, and are compairing it to cards with DDR mem. That would account for performance descrepancies.

60 FPS, 70 FPS, 80 FPS Crash!
Daylight comes and I have to go to work :frown:

 

[Red_Zealot]

I have a Dell GeForce 256. Every Identification on it listed it as "Dell". I found out it was a Creative Labs card through mmc, I think. I actually forget how I did it.

"If you teach a child to read, then he or her will be able to pass a literacy test" - George W.

 

[phsstpok]

There aren't any Geforce2 GTS cards with SDR memory. They all have 128-bit DDR.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Stiffler]

Ok I had a look at my card and below is every bit of text that I could find on my card :

In a small square box top right of card:-

Nvidia Corporation 180-p0020-0100-E02
Tested to comply
with FCC Standards
For home office use

The port on the card for the monitor says : Arton

The Ram :

Infineon
SGRAM
HYB39D32322TQ -6
A2
0042 SUU45243

On the back of the card - Topsearch TS-M-8VOC


Thats all I could find on it. But thanks for all the information you all gave me.

Tim


I am Homer of Borg ! Prepare to be... MMMhhhhh Doughnuts

 

[chaotictech]

Its an oem visiontek alright! I have the 64mb retail i also the the 32mb oem version. There prety good cards.

If you ever stop learning, YOU'ER DEAD!!

 

[Stiffler]

So is there anyway I can maximise its performance ?

Flash BIOS, overclock, drivers ?

Tim

I am Homer of Borg ! Prepare to be... MMMhhhhh Doughnuts

 

[chaotictech]

you can get the 22.50 beta drivers and use the coolbits g\registry hack to overclock it. I got 215gpu and 390 stable aout of my 32meg oem and 255gpu and 420 out of my 64 meg retail visiontek

If you ever stop learning, YOU'ER DEAD!!

 

[chaotictech]

Just read that the 22.80 drivers are better than th22.50. Going to try them when i get home.

If you ever stop learning, YOU'ER DEAD!!

 

[phsstpok]

Well, the "-6" means 6ns memory, good for 166.66mhz (333mhz DDR) without overclocking. This also means that your OEM GTS is spec'd the same as most retail GTS cards, no difference and it should perform the same. If your performance is way lower than other GTS cards I'd look to settings on you computer. You'll be limited with an OEM system as to options but one place to look is to make sure you have the latest chipset drivers installed for your motherboard and to make sure AGP is activated. If your GTS card happens to be running in PCI mode it would be very slow, maybe 1/3 of what it should be. If your running 0-20% slow it would most likely be video driver issues, non-optimized memory settings, slow memory, etc. In other words, your system is not fully "tweaked".

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Stiffler]

ok thanks then my system is a PIII 866 with 256 RDRAM (700) motherboard situation is simular to the graphics card.. .I have no idea who manufactures it :/ and so no driver updates for it. I have always run the latest drivers from Nvidia, the last update to XP caused a further decline in performance

Tim

I am Homer of Borg ! Prepare to be... MMMhhhhh Doughnuts