Order Your GeForce 4

[Wij]

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/winfastti500/page2.asp

I seem to remember a few reviews like that saying it looked sweet

 

[Xavier]

well the rf filters and ramdac on our leadtek, hercules and gainward cards appear to be identical, the leadtek is the TDH (later model with hardware monitoring) so I guess the guy is noticing the effects from digital vibrance...

 

[Embattle]

The HS on the Leadtek is different....not so sweet

 

[Xavier]

hehe, since when did heatsinks contribute to visual quality!? heh

 

[Embattle]

Well while not commenting on that directly lets make a link any how cocky bastard

If it started overheat does the image not get fucked...thx you

 

[Xavier]

overheat - yes...

but no manufacturer is allowed to ship and sell semiconductors in this country that aren't supplied with sufficient cooling to work within their optimim range, within which ranges image quality isn't a factor

 

[Embattle]

You didn't specify any limits in your question

 

[Xavier]

it was purely rhetorical...

 

[bodhi]

Originally posted by Embattle
I did read some rubbish that they weren't going to make one but I don't believe that

A Hercules GF4 sounds very unlikely as Hercules are currently switching over to use ATi chips instead. In fact, they are taking over ATi's retail operation in Europe if I remember correctly.

 

[Embattle]

http://us.hercules.com/mediaroom/pr/lookpr.php3?pr=151

 

[Wij]

Originally posted by Bodhi


A Hercules GF4 sounds very unlikely as Hercules are currently switching over to use ATi chips instead. In fact, they are taking over ATi's retail operation in Europe if I remember correctly.

True. They could do both maybe but I doubt it.

 

[bodhi]

Me too. I think Hercules have been trying to get away from nVIDIA since the Kyro II incident. I doubt they could survive only selling Kyro II's but they could easily survive making ATi cards aswell.

 

[Wij]

Yeh, Hercules brand name is supposed to be different to the other nVidia reference clone makers. They couldn't do that with the nVidia stuff recently cos nVidia have tightened up on out-of-spec cards.

 

[Embattle]

Part of it comes down to competiton gents....the fact that the Nvidia chipset market is flooded by the number of companies who make gfx cards based on there chipsets.

Hercules will be the first and thus can have the market to themselves more or less.

 

[Xavier]

Originally posted by Wij
Yeh, Hercules brand name is supposed to be different to the other nVidia reference clone makers. They couldn't do that with the nVidia stuff recently cos nVidia have tightened up on out-of-spec cards.

no they haven't... in fact they encourage non-reference board designs... look at Gainward, they always customise their boards heavily AND overclock them, yet they are nVidias European launch partner for GeForce4.

Hercules have only ever produced reference boards, the problems experienced in the past (i.e. GeForce3) were related to different revisions of the GPU and the 6/8 layer boards which were initially introduced... Hercules dropped the ball big stylee with GeForce 3, so much so that they were very reluctant to produce Ti500's... when this offer came it made strategic sense to them to go for it and I don't blame them.

 

[Scouse]

Just remember people - don't be lame enough to fall for Nvidia's cynical production of the GeFarce4 MX.

The 4MX is NOT feature complete - in fact, it packs less features than the GForce 3 Ti's.

If you're buying a 4MX you may as well not bother and keep your current card for all the good it's going to do you.

Even John Carmack's come out and said don't waste your money on them.

 

[Xavier]

no, he said don't buy them for doom III, if you want a quick card that doesn't get used on pixel shader based games it's fine...

Oh, by the way, carmack got it wrong, the MX's have a single software vertex shader.

 

[Wij]

Originally posted by Xavier


no they haven't... in fact they encourage non-reference board designs... look at Gainward, they always customise their boards heavily AND overclock them, yet they are nVidias European launch partner for GeForce4.

Hercules have only ever produced reference boards, the problems experienced in the past (i.e. GeForce3) were related to different revisions of the GPU and the 6/8 layer boards which were initially introduced... Hercules dropped the ball big stylee with GeForce 3, so much so that they were very reluctant to produce Ti500's... when this offer came it made strategic sense to them to go for it and I don't blame them.

Well a little while back Gainward (I think) tried to make a GF2 that was higher clocked out of the box than nVidia specced it for. They never ended up making the card and moved to 'overclocking friendly' designs instead. I presumed nVidia had had a litlle word. Back in the TNT2 Ultra days Hercules made one that was faster than the reference design. That was before they became just a brand name for Guillemot (although the Guillemot was the only other one higher than default speed, I had one )

nVidia doesn't mind cards that can be overclocked but they don't seem to like manufacturers putting faster memory on and releasing the cards at the higher speed. I guess because they would jump the gun on the Ultras or Tis that nVidia would release a few months later.

Just my £0.02

 

[Xavier]

hehe, I've spoken to Gainward this morning and that isn't quite the sequence of events they remember

as to overclocking or uprating memory components the word from nvidias technical guys is "hell yeah!" - as long as the manufacturer gives a decent warranty and is sufficiently cooling any "overclocked" parts then they are totally happy... after all when a Ti part comes out manufacturer X will just overclock it further and create more positive PR for nVidia!!