Geforce 5900 question

[awdougherty]

I was looking at the Gainward cards, had read that they were relatively quiet. Then I got more specific and looked at the 5900 non-ultras. I found a bunch of different ones but the naming scheme doesn't really clarify the differences.

There's the 1100 TV DVI
There's the 1200
There's the 1200 Golden Sample.

I think the golden sample means it's a higher quality part that will withstand overclocking better. I'm guessing the 1100 comes with more video out options to a TV set. I guess the regular 1200 is just the regular 5900 card. Does that sound right? Is there any difference between the actual cards? Do they all have the same specs? Does the 1100 have slower clocked memory? I couldn't find some of the specifics anywhere I looked on the Gainward site.

Does Gainward even make good cards or should they be avoided? Thanks.

[Bub, Andrew]

I've had no problems at all with my Gainward card. GeForce 4 Golden Sample variety.

[nutsak]

A mate of mine has a MSI Geforce FX 5900 and it pretty much rocks... he had a little trouble with voltage (the PSU wasn't giving enough power down a certain rail so we just swapped it over).. it is very quite, a little more expensive but well worth it... though I'm sure the Gainward would be more than suitable.
As for the numbers, I'm pretty sure they are different specs I don't think it'd be to do with mulitpliers or anything... clock speed should be the same and I do lean towards 'better overclocking ability' for that golden sample, maybe you could write to Gainward and ask them what the differences are... I'm sure they'd be happy to help a potential customer.

[Jakub]

Golden Samples are just that - the best parts that came from the bin. Memory and processors that can go faster.

If you want quiet, however, I'd HIGHLY recommend taking a look at Sapphire's Atlantis line of Radeons - they make NO sound. I'd provide links, but the only ones I have are from FS and I don't want to break the pimpage rule.

[awdougherty]

Thanks for all the responses, I'll check out the MSI cards to see what's up.

As for the Sapphire Radeons, are those the ones with passive heatsinks? I like the idea and I appreciate that ATI cards perform better in Direct X 9 benchmarks, but I currently have an ATI card and would like to switch back to NVIDIA for now. I usually upgrade my video card once a year, so I'll see how things are around next Christmas in the ATI/NVIDIA Ultimate fighting championship.

[Jakub]

Yeah, they're passive heatsinks. No noise at all.

Why do you want to switch to NVIDIA? ATI seems to have a better platform this generation. Anyway, spring isn't too far away and we should see the new-gen products from both companies then.

[awdougherty]

Personal preference, general unhappiness with my ATI experiences up to this point (a Radeon 7200 and a Radeon 9500 Pro). I won't dis ATI or their hardware, and I think they definitely have an advantage going into the DX9 games. I'll reconsider them to see what's up when DX 9 games are more prevalent and I'm ready for my next upgrade (maybe next Christmas).

Thanks again for everyone's responses. Sounds like Gainward is a decent brand. Another brand I'm considering is eVGA, they seem to stick pretty close to the reference board from NVIDIA.