Well, my graphics card before this one was, quite frankly, rubbish, to say the least. I brought some new games that demanded a faster and reliable graphics card, so, I told them I wanted to get the PNY NVIDIA Quadro FX, which I was very happy about buying after I received it.
I paid something in the region of £2,250, from Dabs.com, I’m not joking either, I was fed up with graphics cards that don’t work and that most games aren’t compatible with. Well, I was in one hell of a surprise with the quality of this card, and how quick it was as well.
I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to be ripped off, so I went for Dabs.com, because I know that they deliver quickly, and that it would come to me on time. I waited four days for this to turn up, I made dabs.com pay for recorded delivery so that nobody would dare try to steal it, yeah, and you Mr. Postman.
►Why in hell did I want it? ►
Well, as I said before, I wanted something that would work, all the time. I also play loads of 3D games that require large amounts of Video memory and speed in the processor. I don’t think that I’ll need to worry about upgrading this card in a long time, or unless NVIDIA decide to make one at a more competitive price (that’s not based on the GeForce 2 either)
I also do a lot of video editing, so I need large amounts of video ram to play the videos in really good quality, and so that I can play DVDs on my computer. This one ran extremely well when I play a large video file, played it very quickly, and with good quality. I wanted something that was going to be of good quality and something that would last me ages, so I went for this card.
This card also supported my monitor size (very large, I’m not sure of the resolution of it), this card
supports resolutions of up to 3840 x 2400, so I had not a problem there either. Most of the games that I play want large resolutions, so they run better because most of them have low resolutions anyway, and also, I wanted a card that supported large resolutions for the simple reason that I have need them for good video quality in games and for software reasons.
▼What to box contained▼
It came in one standard box, like any other graphics card, this one was oddly shaped, in different angles and such like. This box was fairly small, with all the usual, card, manual, and all the driver and software CDs, all of which were neatly packed in such a way they looked better packed than unpacked.
As I said in my review before this one, I always keep the box in the case that I need to take the hardware back to the shop, or send back to Dabs.com. Also if I wanted to sell it second hand in a few years time, so that I get more money for something I paid a terribly large amount for.
The main card was about the average size for any graphics card, standard for all of them in fact. This card came neatly wrapped at the bottom of the box, so that no damage could come of it at all.
The two CDs contained the necessary drivers for this graphics card and some updates for a few older ones, I’m not sure why but it did anyway. Also included was one software cd with a few bits of software on, I don’t really take much notice about details like this, it’s only a few bits of software that I don’t need anyway.
The drives were needed straight away in my Windows 2000 machine, SuSE 8.2 had already decided to make it work without drivers, so I could use it straight away. Windows 2000 detected the card on startup and asked me straight away for the drives that it required.
Installing the drivers for this card was a breeze, compared to installing a GeForce MX 200/400 card, on windows 98 that is. Oh the pain. After installing the drivers, I decided to run Dxdiag 9.1/9.0, start, run, Dxdiag.
Dxdiag recognized and started to test the card instantly, and it worked perfectly as well, the graphics were just AMAZING!!, after having to use my old card for about six months, this was just a god send from heaven, to me.
The manual wasn’t really of much help to me at all, but hey, who reads manuals, not me, that’s who. It contained basic install instructions, and how to configure it, and so on and so forth.
The CD also contained some PDF help manuals, and a distribution of Adobe acrobat reader on the second CD, very useful. These manuals were in several different languages, very helpful, but not for me really.
Also included in this package were two DVI-VGA adapters, good if you don’t have them already, but I do anyway, I have all the wires that I need. These are good for monitors and all graphical usage of software and the card.
◄features and all the usual◄
Having a 256Mb graphics card does have its advantages, such as , you can boast to all you friends about how cool it is, I can run any game that I want to, ok, maybe not Rome Total War, when it comes out ,☺.
And, because it’s got an AGP 8X interface, you can sit back and relax as it takes you to places that you thought were never imaginable, apart from in China that is. The speed of this card is amazing, so much so, that I though I hadn’t spent tow grand on it, but more.
It supports APIs such as OpenGL, DirectX, so you don’t have to worry about any games or and other video demanding software, most programs do anyway, so they can all have their share of the fun.
The graphics processor in this card is a NVidia Quadro FX 3000, so you can get very fast speeds and very realistic detail at the same time, perfect for all demanding games. This card is not that new, but new enough for anybody, well, just about anyone who can afford it.
The enclosure of this card is Plug-in so, it’s internal, as most cards are. I don’t think you can get external cards, can you? This card supports up to two monitors, so, like me, if you work in a studio or need two monitors for some reason, this card is brilliant, so really, you can have double you resolution and it will still be very fast.
Supporting resolutions of up to 3840 x 2400, you don’t have to worry about any games not supporting your card and you can rest assured that image editing and video editing will be much easier with this card.
The RAMDAC clock speed of this card is about 400 MHz, so its very fast, for processing data, video and such like, all the time any of your games, programs need it. This card is so fast that one of my 3D FPS couldn’t keep up with it; in the end I stopped playing this game because it got so annoying.
CAD (computer aided manufacture) and DCC (digital content creation), will no longer need to starve from the lack of memory that they need with this card, it interlocks programmability and precision in one hell of a feature packed hell hound.
Production rendering and styling are the key focus in this product, so it’s perfect for CAD and DCC, and even perfect for games. Video editing with this card is a breeze, because I’m always compiling new videos and converting them to smaller sizes, so I don’t really need to worry about the cards usage anymore.
This card only works with Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 SP5 or later, Microsoft Windows 2000 / XP and a few version of Linux, I use SuSE and tried it out, it worked fine for me. So the older computer users can’t use it because of the AGP compatibility and the operating system compatibility.
The analog video format of this card is RGG supporting a wide range of colours and display rates, games et cetera. Supported display graphics in this card are QXGA (2048x1536), 3480x2400; this is one of the main outputs for the card.
The digital video standard of this card is DVI, digital visual interface, so it supports a wide range of monitors and graphic demanding devices, and also many older monitors.
These are all the main interface modes that the card has, the main connector that connects the card to the AGP slot is the AGP-8X slot, only one by the way.
♦Usability and day to day us of this card♦
As I told you many times before, I play games and edit videos a lot, so I need something that will last me ages and still work in the long run. For day to day use this card is perfect, for game playing, the usual.
For productivity uses, this card is brilliant, so when you work you can rest assured that it will work all the time and also because the card has a very good processor and VRAM amount, its good for large video files and graphics rendering projects. I mainly leave my computer to convert files over night and most of the other time, I’m playing games anyway, so I need something that will work all the time, and will not fail either, so I went for this card.
I have only had to reinstall this card a few times; Due to windows 2000 being rubbish, as always, so I had to load all the drives and software that I required back on the computer, this was easily done anyway because of the driver installation that was easy anyway.
The minimum required processor for this card is a Pentium III, and RAM required is 128MB and HD space is about 50Mb, for the software all installed.
♣ Evaluation ♣
This card is very good, for work home or productivity uses, and is an all round winner. With its fast speeds, fast RAM and fast processor, this card would suit anybody, apart from those who can’t really afford to pay out tow grand for one graphics card.
For those of you who still want the same RAM as this card has, I would go for something about £1800 cheaper, as you can get the same type of card for much cheaper, and it will still be much the same as this one.
♥What I think of it♥
It’s a very good card for everyday use, well, for what I do anyway, it may well be very expensive, and not really worth as much as they wanted me to pay for it, I still think I really have brought something that will last me ages, still work after years of use and something that I’ll never need to replace.
I have used many cards before, and this one beats those all, if you want something that will serve you well, last long, has very fast speeds and that is everything but cheap, go for this one. It’s very good and you will be happy for a very long time.
If you just want it for games that require a lot of speed, RAM and every system resource possible, then go for this card. If you want something that you need for work, go for this card. If you require large scale image manipulation of rendering on a Dailey basis then defiantly buy this card.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
great icons man, your very good at writing reviews, as i said before, cant wait for some more of your kick butt reviews - DBZKing
C_W_Monkey 10.06.2004 00:13
bloody hell!!!! My card supports direct X 9, my card has DVI out, TV and monitor, my card does 3000 x 2000 resolution, my card has a 350Mhz processor and DDR400 ram (256MB)..... but it cost me £100... I was sure you got the price wrong, till you repeated it again and again!! Bloody expensive!
joebloggs321 09.06.2004 22:29
Great review, I so want one, tried to buy a 256mg 9800xt off ebay a couple of weeks ago but alass I think I've been conned as still not recieved anything :-( gutted! Got to save up again now!
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