Albatron gf4 4200P turbo ISSUES..

[Dissolved]

ok, From what i've heard around here and other places all the Albatron gf4 tubros bought from newegg arent so good at oc'n.

Well i emailed Albatron USA (there actually 15mins away from me), and i asked them this

Hello,
I'm writing about your Albatron Geforce 4 ti4200P Turbo. I bought one 2 weeks ago, and it doesnt seem to Overclock well at all. I had bought it from Newegg.com. Theres a few people online that have got this card As far as 320/730 on defualt voltage/cooling. So what i'm wondering is why my card seems to heavily artifact at overclocked speeds of 315/625. All these Tubro cards Bought from Newegg.com seem to have the same problems, Artifacting at low overclocks.
If you can provide any advice on what i can do to help this problem, id be very thankful.
Anthony

Responce (very fast i might add..)
Hi Anthony,

Thank you for choosing Albatron product.
In regards to your issue, overclocking the video card is not solely depend on the card itself, it also depends on your CPU and memory as well. Sometimes, it also depends on the motherboard too. So, each person will have different setting when they overclock the system. In addition, we ship out the same products to all distributors, there is no difference among all distributors. Please let us know if you have more question, we will do our best to assist you. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,


Technical Support

So he says all the cards are the same. So there might be a method to why some are oc'n worse then others.

What ive come to think is that mine artifacted cuz i didnt clock the memory high enough. maybe the core was to fast for the memory. As it is now getting hot in calif, ive been getting room temps of 30c+ during the day, so i cannot run any good benches.

im going to water-cool soon, and most likly pelt my card in hopes i can get it to clock better.
If anyone has experience w/ this card, and has something vital to add please do. id like to keep this an Infomation only thread.
Thanks!

[GVCryan]

I know this will probably discourage you, and for that I am sorry, but I got my friends Albatron Turbo to 335/735 before I had any problems. Mind you, this was a one bench affair. After that I would get lockups and artifacting.

His was an A3 revision if that helps.
He bought it from Newegg, and it arrived 3 weeks ago.

See if you can get the mem higher by loosing some core. Also check if their is good thermal paste and contact under the sink. I have never been fond of 1 piece card heatsinks, so it may be transfering heat from the core to the ram.

Hope it can help.
Ryan

[Dissolved]

well, im gonna put some as3 on it tonight, and run a few tests. if i can run like 320/675 ill be somewhat happy.

[Dexter]

Hey,

See if you can get the mem higher by loosing some core. Also check if their is good thermal paste and contact under the sink. I have never been fond of 1 piece card heatsinks, so it may be transfering heat from the core to the ram.

The card doesn't have a one piece heatsink, it has a large heatsink over the core, and then seperate ramsinks.

I have the 64MB model and my core struggles to reach 310MHz. The RAM is still good tho, 100% stable at 702MHz. The highest i have had the to get throught a full 3Dmark bench was 315/720 but that was with infront of the air con set to high. the system temp was 14degrees.

I spose when it comes to overclocking it is the luck of the draw. But you don't see many other Ti4200 get to 315/625 consistantly without mods.

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by Dexter
I spose when it comes to overclocking it is the luck of the draw. But you don't see many other Ti4200 get to 315/625 consistantly without mods.

This card is a 4600, priced as a 4200. the pcb, and memory are in 4600 spec, So it should do close to 350/700(whatever 4600 speeds are).

[Dexter]

actually the ti4600 speeds at 300/650, and they use 2.8ns RAM.

if you do the maths (1000/3.3) * 2 = 606. the ram on the card is only rated at 606MHz, so anything further is the luck of the draw when it comes to overclocking. Same with the core. It is only rated at 250MHz so anything above that is luck.

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by Dexter
actually the ti4600 speeds at 300/650, and they use 2.8ns RAM.

if you do the maths (1000/3.3) * 2 = 606. the ram on the card is only rated at 606MHz, so anything further is the luck of the draw when it comes to overclocking. Same with the core. It is only rated at 250MHz so anything above that is luck.

Hm, well i emailed them back, and i will post what the respond.

If this card wont do any higher then 315/630 in a few more trys, i might deside to do an rma.

I was thinking of water-cooling it, maybe as far as pelting it. but if this card cant handle the speeds, then a 65 dollar waterblock for no gain in speeds is worthless. i might as well use that cash for a 2400+ or something better.

[Nikko]

I've encountered the same issue as you. My first card could only clock to 290/648(/w artifacts). I ended up RMA'ng it, a couple of weeks later I get a brand spanking new one that did 295/650(no artifacts).

I took the hsf off, and replaced the stock goop /w AS3. Now, I can O/C +5mhz more. WHoooHooO

Anyways man, good luck /w that.
And if you can, try to find out the batch number/revision on that card.

[Dissolved]

the chip says A3 on it. other then that id have to look again.
i added as3, and no gain. now 3dmark simply just dissapears when i go to test anything higher then 315/630. So i dunno if rma'n is the Key, its not right, So im going to do what Albatron requests me if anything. If not i guess im stuck. maybe ebay it, or something and get a different card.

i bought this only cuz i thought it would oc like crazy and i wouldnt have to mod it. but after useing it, it seems to need exterme modding, and i dont wanna spend more money on it for lil or no gain. So i guess i wasted more $.

[Nikko]

IMO, it's not a total waste
How many ti4200's do you know that could overclock near as this, STOCK?

But yeah, I know what you mean. I guess our expectations were too high, and now we feel cheated/scammed

[[XC]thewildblue]

Hi guys,

I myself bought one of these cards from a supplier in the uk, hoping to get very good ocs without having to mod it. Well I can get it to run at core of 310 and mem@620 with the lid on my machine. I have tested higher mem by "holding" 2 80mm delta fans next to the card and I managed a to get 639 with no artifacting, but u cant run like that everyday....my ears would be bleed too much...lol.


By the way my gainward did core of 314 and mem of 611 fine with no additonal cooling. Shame it had to checkerboard on me !

[N8]

Wow. In a matter of days these cards have gone from being praised left and right, to nothing but problems. I actually considered getting one since I'd seen some hitting 750+ on the memory(which I doubt I'll ever hit w/ my Abit) but now that I'm seeing all these bad cards, I'm afraid to spend that kind of money considering how cheap an Abit is. If that card doesn't do 300/650 minimum I'd be returning it as it IS advertised as being able to run Ti4600 speeds right on Newegg's site. I mean, isn't that why you pay the premium?

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by [N8]
Wow. In a matter of days these cards have gone from being praised left and right, to nothing but problems. I actually considered getting one since I'd seen some hitting 750+ on the memory(which I doubt I'll ever hit w/ my Abit) but now that I'm seeing all these bad cards, I'm afraid to spend that kind of money considering how cheap an Abit is. If that card doesn't do 300/650 minimum I'd be returning it as it IS advertised as being able to run Ti4600 speeds right on Newegg's site. I mean, isn't that why you pay the premium?

Another email i sent:
Hello again,
Well upon trying different things, my card will Not run stable past 315/630 when using 3dmark2001se. i tried adding some Arctic Silver 3 thermal paste to the core, but yet it still doesn't want to Overclock at all.
I also Noticed that on www.newegg.com They listed the card and had said "ti4600 performance for the price of a ti4200" 2 weeks ago when i bought the card, and now they don't advertise that message anymore. I've posted about this card on a few Message boards, and it seems only a few people have got past 315/630 in overclocking the card at default voltage/cooling.
Do you recommend any Settings in bios, or any methods to get the gf4 ti4200 Turbo higher in clock frequency?
I Would really like this card to Post higher clock speeds, and it has great memory, and is suppose to run as Fast as ti4600 speeds.
Thanks
Anthony


Responce:
Hi Anthony,

Thank you for choosing Albatron product.
In regards to your issue, we manufacture all the Ti4200P Turbo video cards in the same standard and configuration, there is no special or different batch among these cards. Like in the previous email, each person will have different performance and setting based on the CPU, heatsink, memory, video card, and even the motherboard itself. In addition, you might need to have a better ventilation for your system, especially the video card. So, as you can see, there are many factors that can affect your system performance, not just the video card itself. Just a friendly note, I think over 300 MHz on GPU speed is really good, at least it's above the Ti4600 level. Please feel free to contact us if you have more questions, we will do our best to assist you. Thank you very much.




------------------------------

as you can see, he offers no advice and kind of adviods my questions. So i dunno. he says there all the same exact cards.
Well one thing i know, (not sure if all gf4 are capable) is that you can bios flash this card. So im gonna email him about that next and see maybe if we can hack the bios or something.
what do you guys think?

[Slammy]

i got a albatron turbo the other day and i must say im not impresssed with it.Looks great and all but doesnt perform as people say it does.My Visionek ti4200SE 128mb could do 310 on the core but the mem could only hit 540.With this card i can only hit 275/607.I can only get that high on the mem if i lower the core.If i clock the core any higher the 3D mark scores just drops.Matter of fact the more i benchmark it the score keeps dropping.I dont get it at all.Im not to happy cause i went though alot to get this card and apparently its not better than my VisionTek that i returned.I was thinking it was cause my power supply cause it only a 300w cheapo.Im running a CODEGEN 300W PSU , 1.7 P4, 512mb, and a intel d850gb mobo.I have a few little extra fans and some stuff running on it too.Not overclocked or nothing so im at a complete loss o what to do.Send it back or try a new PSU? Anybody have any ideas?

[N8]

Slammy,

Welcome to Xtreme

Sorry to hear that your card also does not clock so well. May I recommend the Abit to you all...it has been a great clocker for me since day 1, and its nearly $50 cheaper than the Albatron

[SAE]

I also have problems with my Albatron Ti4600 concerning the core speed. See my thread http://xtreme.routehero.com/forums/s...2246#post52246 .

I only get to 314MHz without jumps and loss of batches of frames in 3DMark. I am very disappointed, but in the rewiev I ve read they achieved 334MHz

Already lapped the core and put a water block on it, but it does not improve much.

SAE

[Dirty_Punk]

i'd tryed 2 Abit Ti4200 64mb...
the first can do 320/650 stock
the second 335/660 stock (375/720 now )

in italy Abit ti4200 64mb costs 150€, albatron ti4200P turbo 250€... there is a great difference, and i think that albatron isn't a good choice for overclocking, beacuse if you are unlucky....

think suma can be the right choice if you want the maximun, or cheaper Abit/Msi 64mb

[[XC]thewildblue]

The question is, are only AMD systems suffering from the low overclocks ?

I wonder if its a heat issue also, these so called reviews where 700+ on the mem was achieved, did they take the board and just run it on a workbench or such like.

What PSU are you using dissolved because I am using a Qtec 550 jobbie, I wonder if it cant supply the required juice and hence the problem.

I am just clutching at straws, hoping that I havent just got a not so good card.....it was only £30 more than the gainward. For that £30 I have gained a stable 20mhz on the mem and no gain on the core....plus 128mb...etc etc.

Cheers
Jagmar

[Scyphe]

After reading this thread, I'm sooo happy I ordered the ABIT Ti4200 OTES instead, the card with the heatpipe and stock clocked att 275/550 instead of 250/500. The OTES model was a little more expensive than the non-OTES model but the cooling should definitely make it easier to overclock at stock voltage without any mods.

[Emericana]

hey all.... i have also had problems w/ the albatron card.

i got 2 of them. both from newegg. i also bought them when it said "ti4600 at ti4200 price".

the first one did a meager 290/615. that was WITH artic silver 3 on the core. i rmad ths one

the second one did 290/635 stock cooling

i lapped the heatsink on the second one and added artic silver 3. now it does only 294/635

needless to say i am dissapointed ploppin $185 down for this expecting to get somewher in the realm of 310/700. my old gainward ti4200 128mb, which i unfortunatly fried, did 330/550 with stock cooling lapped and artic silver 3. that was a A2 core and this new one is A3.

oh well

[Dissolved]

Well im gonna Possibly Pelt or basic water cool mine if i can get some cash.
im gonna tosss my router on ebay, and see if i can get 50 for it.
Then i got like 75 in coins to turn in. but im at a -100 balence, so im gonna have to work up from that.

But maybe in the next 2 weeks ill have it .

[Slammy]

ABIT OTES.....yummy that was my second choice actually but i went with albatron cause the reviews.So does noone feel the power supply could be the problem? I mean is everyone running good power supplies?I put my card in a buddies comp, and while he couldnt get the core to run at 300 his score did show a improvement from OCing.He has a PNY ti4200 64 mb and his card does the exact same thing when he tries running the core at 300. like i said my vision tek had no problems running at 300 or alittle over with a ThermalTake copper cooler.On my comp my score drops when i try OCing it.We are thinking about going and gettin a good power supply to put in and see what happens.We can just return it then and order one online for less if that helps.Oh and for ever asked its not just AMD systems cause im using a Pentuim4 1.7 socket 423 (ewww i know but it was either this or a P3 1 gig)

[Emericana]

400w Antec for me with +5v at 5.02 and +12 at 12.00v

my psu is fine

abit OTES is loud. very loud. that is why i didnt even consider gettin it. but i guess if you have a tornado in your case it wouldnt be audible.

[WannaGoFast]

I also run a 400 watt antec p/s, its not the power supply.
The Cards just not up to the claims they were making about it at all.
And they know it! Rolled over and took it back in 30 seconds.
RMA'd to NewEgg for a full refund with no restock fee.
The new Abit ti4200 64mb will be here early next week.
Then hopefully I can get back to some serious benchmarking!!



peace

WannaGoFast

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by Emericana
i got 2 of them. both from newegg. i also bought them when it said "ti4600 at ti4200 price".

oh well

Guess what? a few days that saying dissappeared... hmmm i wonder why?

if i cant get 315/675 i will rma. esp if i cant get that on water.