i hope someone can shed some light on this topic for me.
i have a diamond viper v770 ultra. i bought it something like two years ago when the tnt2 chipset first hit stores. i remember paying approx $400 for this card.
( if you want to read about this card, check out http://www.diamondmm.com/default.asp?menu=support&submenu=Legacy_Graphics&product=Viper_V770_Ultra )
anyway, off the box it reads exactly this: memory 32mb, bus agp 4x/2x, controller riva tnt2 ultra.
pretty straight forward, right? i remember when i bought this card, there were two chipsets for the tnt2 series (tnt2, tnt2 ultra). now, all this time i really haven't payed attention to details... i installed refrence drivers for the tnt2 ultra chipset, everything was fine.
now, about 6 months ago i upgraded my motherboard to the asus cusl2. among other things, i bought this to finally take advantage of my video cards agp 4x capability. (when i bought the card, agp 4x mobo's weren't out yet, but were due out in 6 months, so i did the research and bought a card that had the 4x capability). so, i install the new motherboard and start checking stuff. using some programs (mainly wcpuid) i noticed that my agp bus data rate was only showing 2x.
http://www.mts.net/~toxic/temp/agp.jpg
i started fidling... i updated my mobo's bios, and got the option "agp 4x (enabled/disabled)". easy enough... enabled that. still no go, my agp bus is still chugging at 2x.
i figured... ah well, maybe i'm doing something wrong, or don't know what i'm doing...
now, on to better things. i went and downloaded the famous 3dmark2001 program and started doing some benchmarks and noticed something even more interesting. (to note, 3dmark2000 did not show this bit of info). anyway, when i viewed my results online, it showed that my 3d accelerator was a tnt2 ultra... but my graphics chipset was a tnt2/pro.
http://www.mts.net/~toxic/temp/chipset.jpg
hmm... later i figured out that where it said tnt2 ultra, it was actually getting that from my video card drivers... and where it said tnt2/pro, that was comming right from the card. as you can see in the picture, on the right is when i was running tnt2 ultra refrence drivers, and on the left is when i realized i should be running tnt2/pro refrence drivers.
so, wtf? right on the back of the box (and on the website) it says and i quote "get optimum performance from the newest motherboards with support for new agp 4x systems; compatible with current agp 1x and 2x motherboards" and "nvidia riva tnt2 ultra - for the ultimate in raw graphics horsepower".
again, wtf? i can't run agp 4x, and it sure doesn't seem to be a tnt2 ultra chip. so i decide to email diamond tech support, and get one of those nice preprogrammed email responses. they basically told me that this card was a diamond viper v770 ULTRA and even though the name of the card is ULTRA, it doesn't mean the chipset is the tnt2 ultra but rather, just a higer performance card from the viper v770 (regular) and in fact did have the tnt2/pro chipset.
one last time... wtf? the box doesn't say anthing about having a tnt2/pro chip running it. the website doesn't even say anything about a tnt2/pro either. BUT it DOES say (quote) "nvidia riva tnt2 ultra" all over the box, as well as on the website.
so, now that my card is getting a little bit outdated... this tnt2/pro situation isn't making me that happy. i shelled out the cash to get the tnt2 ultra card the day it came out. now suddenly, i have a tnt2/pro.
what do you guys think? is the box misleading? is the website misleading as well? did i get scammed two years ago by some crap company called diamond?
or am i just stupid?
fill me in, let me know what you think...
-ToXiC
i have a diamond viper v770 ultra. i bought it something like two years ago when the tnt2 chipset first hit stores. i remember paying approx $400 for this card.
( if you want to read about this card, check out http://www.diamondmm.com/default.asp?menu=support&submenu=Legacy_Graphics&product=Viper_V770_Ultra )
anyway, off the box it reads exactly this: memory 32mb, bus agp 4x/2x, controller riva tnt2 ultra.
pretty straight forward, right? i remember when i bought this card, there were two chipsets for the tnt2 series (tnt2, tnt2 ultra). now, all this time i really haven't payed attention to details... i installed refrence drivers for the tnt2 ultra chipset, everything was fine.
now, about 6 months ago i upgraded my motherboard to the asus cusl2. among other things, i bought this to finally take advantage of my video cards agp 4x capability. (when i bought the card, agp 4x mobo's weren't out yet, but were due out in 6 months, so i did the research and bought a card that had the 4x capability). so, i install the new motherboard and start checking stuff. using some programs (mainly wcpuid) i noticed that my agp bus data rate was only showing 2x.
http://www.mts.net/~toxic/temp/agp.jpg
i started fidling... i updated my mobo's bios, and got the option "agp 4x (enabled/disabled)". easy enough... enabled that. still no go, my agp bus is still chugging at 2x.
i figured... ah well, maybe i'm doing something wrong, or don't know what i'm doing...
now, on to better things. i went and downloaded the famous 3dmark2001 program and started doing some benchmarks and noticed something even more interesting. (to note, 3dmark2000 did not show this bit of info). anyway, when i viewed my results online, it showed that my 3d accelerator was a tnt2 ultra... but my graphics chipset was a tnt2/pro.
http://www.mts.net/~toxic/temp/chipset.jpg
hmm... later i figured out that where it said tnt2 ultra, it was actually getting that from my video card drivers... and where it said tnt2/pro, that was comming right from the card. as you can see in the picture, on the right is when i was running tnt2 ultra refrence drivers, and on the left is when i realized i should be running tnt2/pro refrence drivers.
so, wtf? right on the back of the box (and on the website) it says and i quote "get optimum performance from the newest motherboards with support for new agp 4x systems; compatible with current agp 1x and 2x motherboards" and "nvidia riva tnt2 ultra - for the ultimate in raw graphics horsepower".
again, wtf? i can't run agp 4x, and it sure doesn't seem to be a tnt2 ultra chip. so i decide to email diamond tech support, and get one of those nice preprogrammed email responses. they basically told me that this card was a diamond viper v770 ULTRA and even though the name of the card is ULTRA, it doesn't mean the chipset is the tnt2 ultra but rather, just a higer performance card from the viper v770 (regular) and in fact did have the tnt2/pro chipset.
one last time... wtf? the box doesn't say anthing about having a tnt2/pro chip running it. the website doesn't even say anything about a tnt2/pro either. BUT it DOES say (quote) "nvidia riva tnt2 ultra" all over the box, as well as on the website.
so, now that my card is getting a little bit outdated... this tnt2/pro situation isn't making me that happy. i shelled out the cash to get the tnt2 ultra card the day it came out. now suddenly, i have a tnt2/pro.
what do you guys think? is the box misleading? is the website misleading as well? did i get scammed two years ago by some crap company called diamond?
or am i just stupid?
fill me in, let me know what you think...
-ToXiC
