AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › I Love&Hate my ATi 4850. Is there an nVidia option?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

I Love&Hate my ATi 4850. Is there an nVidia option?

post #1 of 11
10/30/08 at 8:06pm
Thread Starter 
Everyone,

I have an AMD ATI Radeon HD 4850. It's my second one. The first card was bad in a day, now, any 3D applications fail. (Yes, I've tried new drivers, even a new OS on a new HDD)

When this thing worked, it was great. I really bought it so i could game AND have 5.1 REAL surround sound (versus crummy SPDIF)

I am tired of the AMD "driver dance" and the poor support. (Especially for the audio part) I am sick of having to do rain dances and chicken sacrifices to make this card work 100% with all of my A/V gear.

Frankly, I miss the profesionalism of nVidia products and I am sorry I tried my luck with ATI. I'm going to try to swap this card out again tomorrow and see if that fixes my problem.

However, my question is this: Is there any good alternative to the 4850? I would love an nVidia card that would do the same thing. Is there one? Any advice?

Cheers, and thanks for listening to me complain.
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #2 of 11
10/30/08 at 8:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cetrian View Post

Everyone,

I have an AMD ATI Radeon HD 4850. It's my second one. The first card was bad in a day, now, any 3D applications fail. (Yes, I've tried new drivers, even a new OS on a new HDD)

When this thing worked, it was great. I really bought it so i could game AND have 5.1 REAL surround sound (versus crummy SPDIF)

I am tired of the AMD "driver dance" and the poor support. (Especially for the audio part) I am sick of having to do rain dances and chicken sacrifices to make this card work 100% with all of my A/V gear.

Frankly, I miss the profesionalism of nVidia products and I am sorry I tried my luck with ATI. I'm going to try to swap this card out again tomorrow and see if that fixes my problem.

However, my question is this: Is there any good alternative to the 4850? I would love an nVidia card that would do the same thing. Is there one? Any advice?

Cheers, and thanks for listening to me complain.


I had the same problems with my Nvidia GTX 280. I am now back to the ATI 4870 x2. Unfortunately, neither ATI nor Nvidia has much in the way of a QC department. Bastards.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 11
10/31/08 at 5:51am
You just have bad luck. Nvidia is no more/less professional than ATI. In fact there is a class action lawsuit against Nvidia right now for high rates of mobile GPU failures.

Did you get the same exact card twice? If so you may want to try a different manufacturer.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 11
10/31/08 at 9:29am
there are no nvidia cards wit 5.1 or 7.1 LPCM.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 11
10/31/08 at 10:28am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for all the good feedback.
I think my issue is indeed with the manufacturer (and ATI) so I am going to try a brand I trust like ASUS, Gigabyte, or etc. Is there a brand out there that people are really liking for the 4850's?

See, the trouble is that BBuy, CCity, CompUSA, all only sell these cheap-o VisionTek cards. I've been all over Tampa Bay looking for someone with anything *but* a VisionTek with no luck.

What I'm looking for:
1. a solid build with good QA
2. A very good cooler (possibly 2-slot style) for this hot card. (Quiet as well)
3. Onboard hdmi out without an adaptor (a nice-to-have)
4. Shorter (in length, not height) if possible.

Basically, I just want a better-made card. I'm going on newegg now while I burn another one of these cheap VisionTek's.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 11
10/31/08 at 10:41am
My vote would go for a Sapphire, nothing but good luck with them.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 11
10/31/08 at 11:08am
Here is a link to a highly rated Sapphire card on NewEgg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102770

Unfortunately the 48XX series are mostly aimed at gamers, so most of them don't have HDMI. PowerColor makes a few with HDMI, but I would rather buy Sapphire and live with the adapter (I have a Sapphire 3870 that I am very happy with).
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 11
10/31/08 at 12:30pm
The Visiontek cards aren't bad by any means. I have had many over the past few years. BEsides if they were cheap why would they back them with a lifetime warranty? As opposed to many "cheap" cards I see with only a 1 year warranty.

With the failures, what may be more of a concern for you is the temps your card is running at. Yes I know ATI says these can run hot, but I find that to be BS. Besides heat in a HTPC is not a good thing.

I haven't tried the HDMI out yet since I don't have a reciever that handles HDMI so can't help you there.... yet....
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 11
10/31/08 at 1:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cetrian View Post

Everyone,
...I am tired of the AMD "driver dance" and the poor support. (Especially for the audio part) I am sick of having to do rain dances and chicken sacrifices to make this card work 100% with all of my A/V gear.

However, my question is this: Is there any good alternative to the 4850? I would love an nVidia card that would do the same thing. Is there one? Any advice?

Cheers, and thanks for listening to me complain.

Maybe I am the only one to read it this way but IMHO the nVidia card WOULD do the EXACT same thing (problems with audio) so IMHO, yes the nVidia card will have the same problems.
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 11
10/31/08 at 2:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ndabunka View Post

Maybe I am the only one to read it this way but IMHO the nVidia card WOULD do the EXACT same thing (problems with audio) so IMHO, yes the nVidia card will have the same problems.

except the nvidia card will NEVER do 7.1LPCM out, so it's not at all the same.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 11
10/31/08 at 7:12pm
How are your 3D apps failing? What apps are they (all games?) If you do CAD type stuff, desktop cards (any radeon or geforce) are bound to have problems. These cards do run hot, so if you have cooling problems, you will have all sorts of problems. Do you have a good power supply? People often underestimate the significance of that component (and the rest often over-estimate. I'm running a 4850, 5 hard drives, etc on a PC with a 350 watt... somehow it all works fine.)
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Home Theater Computers

AVS Top Picks

AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › I Love&Hate my ATi 4850. Is there an nVidia option?