Something Random

[Mercutio]

During the run-up to Valentine's Day, Newegg got in a lot of trouble in the press for offering "girl" items like pink netbooks and, uh, personal massagers.

They're trying to be Amazon. Think about it: They already have tons of connections to cheap Asian electronics suppliers and they have an excellent logistics system in Asia and the US. Since they're going (or went, whatever) public, growing in new markets is presumably a lot easier than trying to compete with whatever is left of the mail order PC parts business; it probably costs less for them to get a customer for car parts or vibrators than computer hardware.

 

[MaxBurn]

Ah, appears amazon movies are all drm flash with no hope of being apple compatible.

 

[Mercutio]

I do not know of any legal streaming services that does not have some kind of content protection on it. Why would you expect Amazon's to be any different?

 

[Mercutio]

Just in case anyone thought I was joking about Newegg selling Vibrators (completely SFW, unlike the same search on Amazon).

 

[ddrueding]

I like the USB powered one.

There goes the laptop's battery life

 

[Mercutio]

The reviews on the Hitachi Magic Wand are pretty funny too.

 

[ddrueding]

That actually is a very impressive device.

 

[MaxBurn]

Damn.

Pros: Zero to ecstasy in 3 minutes. Works great on sore and knotted muscles too.
Cons: 20 minutes before the unit gets too hot to handle. Not bad considering the "Pros" comment.

 

[LunarMist]

What do you need that for?

 

[Mercutio]

The members of this forum are not anatomically equipped to need such a thing, but I bet there's probably some alternate universe StorageForum where ddrueding's needs 440V and a diesel backup.

 

[Stereodude]

I briefly became enthusiastic about Stereodude's GT440 - until I realized it cost more to buy and used more power than the AMD equivalent (HD5570-HD5670?). In fact, one review managed to push it past the PCI-e power limit with Furmark.

I believe it was overclocked when it drew more power than the PCIe x16 slot is spec'd to provide.

On top of that, it's unclear whether you're buying a the DDR5 version, the crippled DDR3 version, or the cutdown OEM variant.

That's why you read the spec on the card you buy before you buy it. Where's the difficulty there? :scratch:

Mine is a 1GB GDDR5 version. link

I can buy a Powercolor HD5550 here for <$45. There must be a big advantage to VP4 over current Avivo, but I couldn't find it. What is it (apart from the converter you linked that is written solely for NVidia)?

It would be the fact that the GeForce GT 440 works with the frame serving program I linked to (as well as being HDMI 1.3). This allows all the video decoding to be offloaded to the video card and frees up the CPU to do only encoding instead of doing decoding + encoding. The commonly used method of using DirectShowSource in AVIsynth sucks if you want to do any sort of seeking since it's horribly inaccurate. There is no ATI compatible equivalent frame serving software.

 

[LunarMist]

Although you've entered a valid promo code XXXXXXXX, your order does not currently meet the code's usage criteria.

WTF? :crap:

 

[Mercutio]

I was just asked to install Facebook on someone's computer. Now I want to hurt things.

 

[MaxBurn]

They wanted you to set up a new account for someone?

 

[ddrueding]

Nope. Install Facebook. Like you would install Microsoft Office. I've had that request a couple times.

 

[ddrueding]

Just got the Corsair Dominator 24GB kit, it comes in a box half as big as for a motherboard, and heavier.

 

[time]

Why?

 

[Stereodude]

Because you can never have too much RAM?

 

[ddrueding]

Got a great deal on it, and the cooling fan thingy actually isn't that loud.

Edit: And you can never have enough RAM

 

[time]

This POS. (ATI X1900XT)

I went back and looked at your posts about this in 2006/2007. Looks like other people had the same problem, i.e. worked okay for a few months, then started crapping out when heating up under load. Surprised we didn't hear more about this, perhaps it was just the Sapphire and perhaps they didn't sell many?

Since then, and more particularly since the X1950, ATI/AMD has been obsessed (justifiably) with keeping power under control. I think that's probably their main appeal these days, so hopefully lesson learned?

 

[Handruin]

I was just asked to install Facebook on someone's computer. Now I want to hurt things.

Nope. Install Facebook. Like you would install Microsoft Office. I've had that request a couple times.

Since I know how much facebook angers you, then this will also put your panties in a twist.

edit: I say fuck that website...no way in hell.

 

[LunarMist]

You have to install Facebook? I thought it was a website. :clown:

 

[Handruin]

I went back and looked at your posts about this in 2006/2007. Looks like other people had the same problem, i.e. worked okay for a few months, then started crapping out when heating up under load. Surprised we didn't hear more about this, perhaps it was just the Sapphire and perhaps they didn't sell many?

Since then, and more particularly since the X1950, ATI/AMD has been obsessed (justifiably) with keeping power under control. I think that's probably their main appeal these days, so hopefully lesson learned?

I think what you did is in an odd way validate why I poke back at Mercutio and his hate for nvidia (any many other numerous product rants). I realize I had difficulties with one single product or product line from ATI, but in all reality, I don't believe all subsequent products are as shitty as that card I once owned. I'm willing to give them another chance and try an AMD video card, where as once Mercutio hates a company, he no longer considers them viable. It's only a matter of time until he's not able to buy anything because every company will screw up in one way or another. Even though I bitched about ATI, I would still consider buying their products now.

 

[LunarMist]

I have no problems with the ATI. Maybe it is the luck of the clueless or that I don't play video games and watch the pronos.

 

[time]

I believe it was overclocked when it drew more power than the PCIe x16 slot is spec'd to provide.

Not unless you include the default 3% overclock that Asus likes to give their stuff so it wins fanboy comparisons.

But seriously, I reread the review and realized that their assumptions were dubious. A different review recorded only about 65W, which is what NVidia claims. And in any case I think Furmark is a complete waste of time - all it has achieved is to make manufacturers put power limiters on their chips (which is good).

It would be the fact that the GeForce GT 440 works with the frame serving program I linked to (as well as being HDMI 1.3). This allows all the video decoding to be offloaded to the video card and frees up the CPU to do only encoding instead of doing decoding + encoding. The commonly used method of using DirectShowSource in AVIsynth sucks if you want to do any sort of seeking since it's horribly inaccurate. There is no ATI compatible equivalent frame serving software.

Thanks for that. I didn't mean to sound so negative, it still looks like an interesting card. With very low power consumption during Blu-ray playback, it's a great HTPC solution, but should probably be about a third cheaper.

 

[Mercutio]

where as once Mercutio hates a company, he no longer considers them viable.

It takes me a while to reach that point. I replaced hordes (dozens, easily) of nvidia cards before I decided that they're generally shit hardware. Too many overheating PCs and failed little fans. Same thing with WD: Way too many failures in my personal sample. When I finally decided to give them another chance, their products failed in only the most spectacular way possible. S*ny: Same thing. $1200 receiver that spent more time being serviced than in my house, followed by the hilarity of their DVD burner and the related support fiasco.

As consumers it is not our responsibility to swallow bullshit from poor products or business practices. There are lines, and if we do not draw them, shit just gets worse and worse and worse, and pretty soon you have shit factories like HP or Sony or WD.

 

[Handruin]

Sony and WD aside, where all your nvidia video cards from the same generation/family? Where they all from the same manufacturer?

I'm never suggesting consumers swallow bullshit products. I've yet to have an issue with my nvidia cards over the years. Though not as many as you've indicated, but they just work fine with the one exception of a crappy one from BFG. I've not been impressed with their quality and now that they are gone, it is understandable.

 

[Mercutio]

Dell and Gateway used to ship a lot of machines with discrete cards from Riva 128s up to Geforce 2s. They all sucked. The last nvidia card I bought for myself was an original Geforce, and it also died an early death. My working theory is that all nvidia cards ship with cooling that is to some greater or lesser degree inadequate for their needs.

 

[Handruin]

Hardly sounds like good selection of nvidia cards to sample. Dell and Gateway are a way of measuring this? My TNT and TNT2 lasted forever (though formerly Riva). So 10 to 11 years ago was the last time you bought one? So no where in that time you thought they could improve or tried to see if they could improve?

 

[Mercutio]

My ongoing exposure has been to more failed or flaky cards during that time period. We've had issues with mobile chipsets and I'd testify in court that every nvidia-based motherboard chipset I've deployed has had a shorter lifespan than other hardware of the same generation. My BFG 8800 certainly didn't do anything to ease my negative opinions but it's far from the capstone on a solid decade of unreliable products.

 

[Stereodude]

Not unless you include the default 3% overclock that Asus likes to give their stuff so it wins fanboy comparisons.

A PCIe x16 slot is rated to deliver 75W.

But seriously, I reread the review and realized that their assumptions were dubious. A different review recorded only about 65W, which is what NVidia claims. And in any case I think Furmark is a complete waste of time - all it has achieved is to make manufacturers put power limiters on their chips (which is good).

The review I read showed an overclocked one eating 90W.

 

[time]

The review you linked says the GT440 pulled 81W at default clockspeed (like I said, +3% over NVidia standard).

As I also said, I question their assumptions in arriving at that figure. I think it's far more likely that power consumption is only passing 75W when overclocked to the limit.

Even so, it shows that NVidia is sailing closer to the wind than usual. Other cards in that power range use a separate 6-pin connector.

 

[BingBangBop]

I personally believe that unless you are buying a card specifically made by Nvidia or ATI, you can't blame the card failure against them. There are too many variables that the actual card manufacturer can mess-up. So I end up blaming the likes of MSI, or EVGA rather than Nvidia or ATI. There are exceptions like Bump-gate but those are few and far between.

Mostly, for video cards it is cooling failure that causes most problems and that is generally the purview of the card manufacturers (not the chip manufacturer or even necessarily the reference design) and is used extensively to differentiate between themselves.

 

[ddrueding]

I would agree, B3, except that so many manufacturers are just using the reference design, even the cooling system. All my GTX580s use a better cooling system, but that is the exception.

 

[Pradeep]

My ongoing exposure has been to more failed or flaky cards during that time period. We've had issues with mobile chipsets and I'd testify in court that every nvidia-based motherboard chipset I've deployed has had a shorter lifespan than other hardware of the same generation. My BFG 8800 certainly didn't do anything to ease my negative opinions but it's far from the capstone on a solid decade of unreliable products.

Looks like the latest updates to the Mac Pro laptops include AMD rather than nvidia discrete graphics.

 

[Mercutio]

Maybe fallout from the recent fiasco over mobile graphics chips.

 

[Mercutio]

Inspired by a post on Slashdot that the silly things still exist, I just went and looked at Itanium systems on Ebay. $300 for a dual core 1.5GHz machine with 16GB RAM? Even without x86 compatibility it seems like that machine should be worth that to somebody.

 

[ddrueding]

An interesting Linux machine. They support Itanium, no?

 

[Pradeep]

Inspired by a post on Slashdot that the silly things still exist, I just went and looked at Itanium systems on Ebay. $300 for a dual core 1.5GHz machine with 16GB RAM? Even without x86 compatibility it seems like that machine should be worth that to somebody.

HP are the only thing keeping Itanium alive. Will be EOLd within the next 12 months IMO.

 

[Mercutio]

Intel just released new ones. If they were being EOL'd I doubt they would make the investment. Somebody must be buying them. They do run all the big name DBMS packages (Oracle, DB2, MSSQL and MySQL, at least) so presumably they have some kind of market somewhere.