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In light of the year 2008 coming to an end in a few months, Lets hear what people have to say about which hardware releases were the biggest flops. Every opinion welcome. Lets see those awesome cards... that just didn't quite measure up to expectations... or what about that awesome looking modular power supply... that was only half modular...
Cmon people post your opinions, lets hear your nominees!
I'd have to say the gtx260 and 280 cards... when they first came out, prices where way too high for what the card offered. Though since prices have tumbled way down things have changed and they are pretty good value for money.
9800 Gx2...
All of nVidia's relaunch/renaming based on older cards.
nVidia.
I don't really think I need to say more, but I will. Every "new" card that came out was just...somewhat lacking, as opposed to the spectacular launch of the HD48xx series - excellent performance, excellent design, excellent price.
Aye, the GTX280 was meant to slay everything but no it didn't.
Deffo Nvidia.
Got my 4870 really cheap and the 260 GTX were about 600-700 Danish Kroner more expensive and preforms no better.
That is a no go in my book. :S
GTX280. What a failure.
I agree, we have been spoiled though. In the past flagship cards would pretty much double the performance. Not so with the 280Quote:
Originally Posted by Scubar
This is my opinion:
Nvidia 9series and above, except the 9600GT which didnt do that bad. As about the rest, none of them looked like a good reason to upgrade from my 8800GT..
ATI's 48xx series did though :D
All low end and midrange graphicscards (anything below 9800, 4850), first off, none of them should ever need a fan at stock, second, performance is still lightyears behind very old highend cards, third, the low end ones are often on bigger than necessary pcb's which makes fitting them into tiny htpc systems more difficult.
Second worst, Asus and Gigabyte P45 boards, they arent really bad, but did we need 500 variations of the same? they should focus on making a few quality products and stop the 100's of variations madness.
nVidia 9800GTX, 9800GTX+, 9800GT
I could have 'upgraded' the cards myself with a sharpie and a bios editor.
lmao lets change the title of the thread to 10 things that Nvidia did wrong in 2008 :) For me it was the X-box 360 HD drive ( sorry if it was released last year )
Ya.Quote:
Originally Posted by SoulsCollective
I've been using nVidia since the GeForce 2. I've still got my Ti4600 around. That was a great card at the time.
They botched up this generation. Bad.
Were the 260 and 280 really that bad? I know the prices are horrible, but thought they still performed well. ATI just opened up a can of whoopass with their 4800 prices, but that doesnt make the Nvidia cards bad.
I would think an AMD processor if they released any this year.
E8400 has to win best hardware award though.
They performed well, but by the same token the 8800GTX performed well. The topic isn't about either good or bad hardware, merely disappointing - and I think noone could disagree that compared to ATi, these "new" nVidia cards were just that.
Oh come on, the GTX280 wasn't the biggest dissapointment. It was and still is the fastest single chip card. It was overpriced before but is fair now.
I would say it was the 9800GT(S)/X ... it was just a rebadged 8800GT(S)/X that offered exact same performance and in some cases even LESS!
i went from a q6600 that was rock solid clocked at 3.6, to a q9450 that will only do 3.2, and that was a big disappointment for me....
You got what you paid for. A quad core with a low multi.Quote:
Originally Posted by icon57
Its not the hardware at fault.
I would have to say after market coolers for the 280/260. There are none still.
I have to say 9 series from nVidia.
The 9 series is def one of them, I mean the 9800gtx is an slightly modified 8800gts 512 , and the 9800gx2 is just two chips with an sli link in one heatsink, it was very dissapointing then gtx 200 series came and with that was 260 280, now the 260 is a 280 it actually cost the same to make if not more to make the 260 as they go through the process of disabling cores on the 260 to make it a 260 and not a 280 + HDMI they should have put HDMI on these bad boys atleast
http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_pa...r_hr03gtx.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by chunkylover77
ThermalRight HR-03 GTX edition.
I'm gonna say the Phenom was more dissapointing than the nVidia GPU offerings. I mean, the latest AMD procs are crap compared to Intel, where nVidia is at least holding their own next to the Radeon series.
Phenom. It transformed AMD into a word you use when you really really hate somebody.
790i Ultra SLI.
Most Disappointing Hardware Release (2008) :::: THE NVIDIA "CAN OF WHOOP ASS"... Can be yours for five easy payments of $2999, plus if you upgrade within the next minute, we'll give you a free, yeah , that's right, a free...badge....but that's not all, after rebadging your card, we'll shrink it down to 55nm and slap a new name on it, call it a new card, and take more of your money to the bank. But wait a minute, that's not all...
DDR3 would be a contender. In general its overpriced and under-performs but I think Nvidia wins for the absolute worst. AMD's CPU's take a close 3rd.
4800's were a great card, but the fan control in drivers was a failure 8.6, 8.7, 8.8, and 8.9. duh?
gt200 = big flop, unless gotten for ~$200. $650? :rofl: My favorite all-around forum quote is, "FASTEST SINGLE GPU GOD DAMNIT!!!!!"
e8400 for best hardware
prices on rv770 & wolfdale are excellent for their value & potential.
Minor software tweak to fix that.Quote:
Originally Posted by jaredpace
It's normal for a new memory type to be more expensive then the older one. Logical and normal. So in my book DDR3 doesn't qualify as disappointing hardware.Quote:
Originally Posted by Budwise
I don't think GT200 is that bad. OK, I would never buy one but performance is good. The price sucks compared to HD48xx.
I think the 9800GayTX was a huge disappointment. After the 8800GTX had ruled for centuries I expected nVidia's next flagship would be a great improvement over the 8800GTX.
Its not out yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by B.E.E.F.
Yep, worst hardware is Phenom, not the Geforce Cards. Nvidia are just expensive, but their cards still perform well. Phenom doesnt perform well at all.
Maybe this Zerotherm cooler would be good enough for the GTX 280:
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/pro...lers/zt-hc92cu
It is rated for up to Geforce 8800, as long as the pin sockets are the same on the GTX 280, it should be compatible.
This Scythe Mushashi is also GTX 280 / 4870 compatible:
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/pro...oolers/musashi
It looks good, but its an Aluminium cooler (booo!).
Is it compatible? AFAIK, this is the only passive cooler compatible w/ the 280...Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv
http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_pa...r_hr03gtx.html
EDIT: Okay I read your edit, nvm.
The Zerotherms are only listed up to 8800 compatible, like I said, you would have to find out if the pin locations are the same on the GTX 280, but they have a lot of pin connectors on them and are very well designed for both ATI and Nvidia compatiblity. Maybe contact Zerotherm support if you are interested in the coolers. But they are also only listed as being up to ATI 3870 compatible, and work fine on the 4800's because the cards are pretty much identical in layout.
The Scythe Mushashi is already listed as GTX 280 compatible, so the best bet would be to buy one of them and save some hasstle.
I'll keep an eye open for the Musashi.
personally the only real disappointment i had this year was the Lian-Li pc-xb01. i know its kind of off topic but not by much....its made by lian :p: but really i had so many ideas for the tiny little case until they unveiled the price...180$ us + for a metal box roughly the size of a toaster...no thanks :mad:
the GeForce 9800 GTX was the biggest disappointment of the year. it was a new flagship that wasn't any faster than the previous flagship - sometimes it was even slower. everyone thought the 9800 was going to set the world on fire, but it obviously just fizzled.
iirc, the Phenom and DDR3 were both released last year. that shouldn't make them eligible for this list. and DDR3 was released early so prices would be lower by the time Nehalem came out. Nahalem will probably be able to make use of all that bandwidth - unlike current processors.
we also thought there was a chance that nvidia would kill off the 9 seriesQuote:
Originally Posted by xMrBunglex
Hardware release: Phenom, hope deneb is wayyy better
Pricing release: GTX280/260, what a joke they where
So merely by virtue of its inability to trounce Intel by 40% in every benchmark means it doesn't perform well *at all*? Are you wearing all blue right now? Because that's the impression I'm getting.Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv
And I'll hop on this nVidia dog pile. GTX280 rolled out at like $600 and didn't compete with the HD4870 at ALL in terms of design efficiency or memory bandwidth efficiency. nVidia already had the market by its juevos and decided to milk some more by just brute forcing more power into G80 and making a big, hot, low-yield die. I guess AMD really is the 'smarter choice' in the most literal meaning.
nVidia by a longshot.
Failures of this year? Omg that is a lot... lets see:
- Nvidia's whole 9 series of cards, because they are simply rebadged, cheap ass copies of a more than 2 year old card design
- Nvidia's crappy chipsets might have improved, but the 790i still can't compete with Intel when it comes to reliability. Corruption issues, bad raid drivers and a whole lot more, no thank you
- Nvidia STILL not being able to manufacture GTX 280 cards that don't overheat. From the dozen GTX 280 I have used for customer builds so far, around 40% of them were crashing at >110C core after 2 minutes of Furmark. WATERCOOLED cards, no less. Had some fun RMAing 3000$ worth of GFX cards
- Intels 45nm Quadcore lineup. C0 CPUs mostly had crap FSB capabilities, and no usable mult to speak of until recently.
- Phenom still blows of course, which is sad
- Samsung :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing F1 drives. Almost every 1TB drive I got died, some of the 640's too. WD FTW!
I bet I forgot loads, so much crap was released this year, it's hard to keep track. :shakes:
Hypocrite?Quote:
Originally Posted by Omastar
There is a far smaller gap in performance between a GTX280 and 4870 then there is between a Phenom and a Core 2.
The GTX280 consumes the same amount of power as an 8800 GTX does, and at least performs a lot better. It is actually faster then the 4870.
I dont understand how someone can believe the GTX 280 to be a 'dog pile', while defending the Phenom which a true pile of garbage. But if the Phenom was released last year as pointed out, then it doesnt count.
The GTX 280 is by far a lot less of a dissapointment then the Phenom was. The GTX 280 is ahead of the 4870 in single card performance. The Phenom just totally blows at just about everything and cant even compete with Intel's dual cores.
The GTX 280 still isnt as big a dissapointment as the Geforce 5 was. They are still capable cards and perform great in the latest games, unlike the Phenom.
Nvidia's motherboards are a bigger dissapointment then their graphics cards too.
Yes, but there's a single card called 4870X2 and it's much faster than a gtx280.Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv
And gt200 is not bad per se but compared to rv770 it kinda of is. They're not bad cards but they're really bad products. And why people keep saying Phenon? It was released in 2007!
no1 said creative fatality pro, thats a huge let down
Stop grasping at straws. I never implied the 4870 was NOT faster than the GTX280. Phenom was a disappointment, sure, but that's 2007 tech, NOT 2008. Which reminds me: why are people still trashing Phenom? The thread is titled "Most Disappointing Hardware Release [OF TWO THOUSAND FRIGGIN' EIGHT]". I embellished there for effect. ;) So stop trashing Phenom and find something new to rag on, at least in the context of this thread. Or, is reading for comprehension not anyone's thing here?Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv
i've never had high hopes for any Creative product, so they can't really disappoint me :rolleyes: SoundBlasters suck.Quote:
Originally Posted by zanzabar
I am sure the Phenom 9950 and 9350e were released in 2008.
The latter was definitaly not good at all, the first was only able to perform as well as a Q6600 at stock frequency.
Far from being an Nvidia fan, I still dont consider the GTX 200's to be a let down. ATI maybe the better buy right now, but that doesnt make the Nvidia cards bad.
As I was an AMD fan for years, I am still disappointed by their CPUs.
I'm happy with nVidia GTX 200 series althrough the price at the beggining was somehow .... WRONG. The biggest letdown ?
DDR3 because of the limited 775 / AM2+ arch. With Nehalem the DDR3 will be usefull but now nyeh.
Then AMD CPU's .. the only good thing at them is the low price and the color of the box, I like green.
HAHA good joke, it better be ahead of it if it's 300$+ more at launch, aka twice the price...Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv
+ infinity.Quote:
Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz
+
OCZ SSD's...
Quote:
Originally Posted by CandymanCan
since both finally got busted for price fixing NVIDIA should be coming down slowly now from their inflated ego, i mean prices..
Anything fatality sucks, no one is expecting it to do good so it can't really be a let down.Quote:
Originally Posted by zanzabar
A X2 card can't really be called a single card seeing as it is still running in crossifre or SLI mode.Quote:
Originally Posted by Caparroz
Phenom the series was released last year, late november If my memory serves me correctly.Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv
The nvidia cards where a let down to me after seeing how much of an improvement their past 3 generations where over the last ones. My biggest disappoint ever was probably the HD 2000 line, they pretty much pulled a geforce 5.
ATi has a single PCB. Therefore single, physical card.Quote:
Originally Posted by cloned
Quote:
Originally Posted by B.E.E.F.
+1
1 pcb = 1 card, 2pcb = 2 cards IMO (unless its a header pcb for ports)
FWIW, it might have two hamsters running inside a wheel under the HSF but last I checked it was a single card.Quote:
Originally Posted by cloned
Intel Atom that had performance lik a Pentium III
What about the GX2 then :p:Quote:
Originally Posted by zanzabar
1 card with 2 PCBs lol :D
For me, I'd say a GX2 counts as 2 cards...
Yeah right, forgot that one. Like I said, too much crap was released this year to keep track.Quote:
Intel Atom that had performance lik a Pentium III
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloned
They were all worse then a lot of hardware released this year imo. I just couldnt remember the specific names at first so I just used 'Phenom'. But there were these phenoms released this year, so they count.Quote:
AMDs release on July 1st 2008 included the introduction to three new quad core processors. One of which is the 9950, which was released to fix the TLB erratum problems on the 9900. The other two released were products new to the market, the 9150e and the 9350e.
Actually, Phenom X3 (Tri Cores) were released this march, they win for the biggest dissapointment. Well, they werent a dissapointment, they were too predictable and useless to dissapoint anyone =D.
I Agree with most of these points, but I don't agree about the GT200, they aren't bad cards or they aren't a flop, only the prices make them look like that specially the first price launch.Quote:
Originally Posted by jcool
My list:
Good:
P45 chipsets
Core 2 Duo E8400 - E8500
ATi 48XX series
OCZ SSD Core series V2
Disappointing
Seagate Single platter
Quad 9300 - 9450 etc
Phenoms (and yes the new ones released THIS year)
DDR3 still sucks (gaming perspective), but at least prices went down a bit
Most of nvidias 9 series (except 9600GT thats the underdog of the line)
Imo X48 since the upgrade from X38 wasen't the big thing, and P45 showed same/better OCing for less $$$
Its a sandwich. Made of hurt.Quote:
Originally Posted by jcool
Same with P45 from P35. Not much difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blacky
The X48 shines doing crossfire.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/14...nce/index.html
That was really pathetic. I agree with you, that and BlackOps.Quote:
Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz
Well....Quote:
Originally Posted by Blacky
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130157
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130189
P45 would have been better if it had 2x 16x PCI-E, but as it didn't it wasn't appealing to crossfire users, and I couldnt wait for the second one to be released so I went ahead and bought an X48. They do overclock good enough for decent 24/7 overclocks, mine can handle up to an FSB of 525. Although I wouldnt have minded saving money and getting the P45 Neo-2 FR as the real successor to my previous P35 Neo-2 FR, this one wasn't available on launch and didnt appear untill several months later.
X38's were truly horrible and didnt OC anywhere near enough, but as long as I can reach 500 Mhz FSB and use full power crossfire, I'm happy :)
I am an ex - Asus user. I realised they were horrendously overpriced after buying MSI and getting the same thing for far less money, but hey, they can get away with it because they are Asus! And everyone wants an Asus mobo these days and thinks that MSI and other brands are crap :down:
- Atom
- 9600GSO (And the rest of Nvidia, duh)
- X48
- Cryo-Z
- TRUE Black - an example how a perfectly good piece of hardware can be a disappointment. I expected something more from Thermalright.
- low multi Yorkfields
For me, it has to be the C2D E8xxx range, miserable overclocking, terrible power consumption and they all run far too hot. Not a fan of the HD48xx either, what were they thinking when they made two cards which were vastly better than the entire nVidia range. Idiots at AMD, what will we do with them.
For those with no sense of humour, yes, I'm not telling the truth. :p:
Oh? So you also got a dozen GTX 280 GPUs for customer builds, and had to RMA 40% because of bad internal IHS <-> core contact? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Blacky
Sure you read my point properly? I didn't say the GTX 280 was a bad card, or overpriced - just stated that QA sucks ass with Nvidia these days :down:
I like this thread.
So much bickering over decent products =D
I now vote the C2Q Extreme Editions because they cost like £1000 and they are a rip off when you can just buy a lower CPU and overclock it.
Not that there is anything wrong with the Extreme Editions other then the price, but I can be jealous that I cant afford one right?
I'd like to bring up the 260 and 280 because of nvidia's marketing videos that accompanied the GTX launch
all these pictures of ugly guys holding their hands out in an ocelot-esque fashion,
with an air of smugness like they're the next messiah against tacky backgrounds,
this was back before the ati launch when nvidia thought they had the game won with their pricing
Does not want
Edit: i'll try to find pics
Quote:
Originally Posted by B.E.E.F.
Last time I remember I didn't saw a p35 with a 700+ FSB also p35 wasen't that cheap like some p45 starting with gigabyte's and biostar also p35 didn't had x8 + x8 instead x16 + x4 pcie's or maybe I missed something :confused:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138123Quote:
Originally Posted by bhavv
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138123
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138118
these are better choices ;)
I wasn't referring to you specifically, is that Iv'e seen some people flaming it. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by jcool
700fsb? Maybe with liquid nitrogen. This isn't realistic for most people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blacky
I forgot about the PCI lane setup. But you shouldn't be doing crossfire on it anyways. Or the P45. There's always the X38, and the X48 for that.
Yeah. P45 is cheap. Very little R&D to recoup, unlike the P35.
Just wait for the P55 prices. :D
Yeah I know, but just was an example of how P45 chipset good overclocker is, yet its a "mainstream" mobo is par with a high-enthusiat mobo for cheap, about P55 to be honest I don't think is going to be cheap like P45, looking at reference of the overpriced X58...also nehalems aren't going to be cheaper :/ either, if i missunderstood your statement please tell :)Quote:
Originally Posted by B.E.E.F.