Graphics Card Machine Failure

goranpaa

Member
right, i'm very inclined to buy the asus, if I were to buy that now, is it a good choice?

also when shopping around for cards, what are some important features to look out for?

I think so. Asus have always been good at making videocards....And motherboards for that matter.

Without getting too technical, the important features that are easy to find out, are first of all the cooling system. A card coming with a big cooler / fan or fans, will tell that it will be quiet even under longer periods at load, and have a good cooling ability. Stay away from any card that have the tiny Nvidia or AMD / Radeon reference cooler and fan.

Like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130468

As much GDDR memory as possible and preferably a 256 megabit memory bus. Cards that have a 128 megabit bus will be slightly bottlenecked memory vise. Now, you will have to have in mind that 90 % of the videocards some years old came with that kind of memory bus. It whas only the very expensive, high end ones at that time that had larger mermory buses.

also how come the asus would be preferable? it has the memory type DDR3 whereas the Gainward has GDDR3, I thought this was better? excuse my ignorance ;-)

As said, it have a good cooling system, Asus are a reknown brand. The "DDR 3" are a typo though. All videocards comes with GDDR memory = Graphics memory.
Looking at the provided photos, I belive that the owner takes good care of his hardware as he have the original box, and even the plastic bag for the adapter. Anyway, that is a good indication.
Likely, this card have been lying around unused in it's box for a very long time since he upgraded. And now he have decided to sell it.

As for your second question:

Motherboards only comes with one kind of videocard socket. You can't fit the old kind of AGP videocard into a PCI e card slot and vise versa.

The only other kind of a video card that can be fitted into a motherboard with a PCI e slot. Is a PCI videocard. But then it will have to go into a normal PCI card slot on the mobo. This kind of card is very rare today. But you could find a used one now and then. Or if any shop have one lying around collecting dust somewhere? The only reason that the PCI slot videocards where made, whas for the very old motherboards that lacked any kind of a normal AGP graphics slot at that time. And this card only had any usefulness at all in a workstation / office Pc really.
 
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n64gk

New Member
thanks, once again for amazing advice!! so taking that into account, the Asus would be the way to go, I have an asus mobo and so am familiar with their systems, also it comes with an asus aftermarket cooler installed, a plus in terms of long term load, my new PSU should be able to handle it, and also (according to this http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-9800gt/specifications) it has a 256 bit memory bus

goddammit, I was about to buy it and then the listing ended, square one :(
 
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goranpaa

Member
You're welcome.

Yeah, no problems for your psu to handle that card. These older cards often had a very low power draw with a few exceptions for the higher end cards.

Yay! That whas really sad. :( Let's see if I can find a similar card for the money then?

Othervise? Stay with the card you have until you have a 60 - 70 bucks to spend on a new card. It's much easier to find something ok. at E Bay at that price range really.
 

goranpaa

Member
Ok.

Yeah, Gainward is'nt a bad manufacturer. I have had 2 cards from them down the years and can't say I did regret buying them. I think Gainward are an English brand even? :)

The only little warning sign I can raise, is that I hope that their customer service have improved since then? Because it whas quite lousy before. But on the other hand, in the computer hardware world that is unfortunatly a quite common thing.
 
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n64gk

New Member
customer service isnt a problem anyway as the ebayer provides their own warranty, righty i'll get onto buying that
 

goranpaa

Member
No, it's after all a used card. Just said that anyway. :)

The GTS 250 whas a nice card for it's time really.

Btw. Gainward are using quality Hynix memory for their video cards. That will allow some good overclocking of them ( and the gpu ) if you want later on?

I keep my crossables crossed that this card will work flawless now.

It would be interesting to hear what you think about it when you have runned it for a while.
 
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n64gk

New Member
cheers, i would like to overclock definitely, although i am extremely inexperienced at it and wouldnt even know where to begin
 

goranpaa

Member
We can take that lesson when you are going to oc. I can say though that overclocking a videocard are definite easier than doing it to a cpu.
You only need a videocard oc program and a stress test program like Furmark for example as tools. Both can be downloaded for free.

Now I'm off line for some food. See you later.
 
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n64gk

New Member
hiya, quick question. Im currently waiting on the graphics card and as its pretty big in my relatively small case, i thought id move my mobo across to a new case, as i had an old one lying around. as per most normal cases, this one has the horizontal panels for PCIe cards oriented underneath the like back bezel that has all the usb's and connections for onboard graphics (not sure what its called) whereas for some reason i noticed that my current mobo has the pcie slots above the back panel thing, and therefore wont fit into a normal case, like they have swapped around. is this totally proprietary or is there any case i can put my mobo in, like a certain type?

thanks
 

goranpaa

Member
Taken from Wikipedia:

" Compatibility with ATX products

In the first months of production the ATX and BTX motherboards were so similar that moving a BTX motherboard to an ATX case was possible and vice-versa. This was possible because the first BTX motherboards were ATX motherboards turned upside down, except for the component location that really were BTX positioning.[2]

Later the BTX form factor had a big change by turning it into a mirror image of the ATX standard. Since the new motherboard design, both standards are incompatible. Basically BTX motherboards are 'leftside-right' compared to ATX and not upside-down as before: i.e. they are mounted on the opposite side of the case. Some computer cases such as the Cooler Master Series (Stackers) were released to support a varying range of motherboard standards such as ATX, BTX, Mini-ATX and so forth, to ease motherboard upgrade without buying a new case; however, all connector and slot standards are identical, including PCI(e) cards, processors, RAM, hard drives, etc.

BTX power supply units can be exchanged with newer ATX12V units, but not with older ATX power supplies that don't have the extra 4-pin 12V connector, which was introduced with the ATX12V standard."
 

n64gk

New Member
yeah I have the mirror image one, and have now been trying for about 2 hours to find a case for it, not having much joy
 

n64gk

New Member
another quick question, from the looks of the graphics card I bought, it looks as if it is a double width card, this would cause no problems other than the fact that theres a tiny built in heatsink (I don't know what its for) and I wonder if I could remove that without issue
 

goranpaa

Member
I don't think it's a good idea to remove any heatsink. That sounds like it could be the heatsink for the memory?

For my question. I just wondered if the the length of the card will be a problem?
 
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