Graphics Card Maker Downs Speed of High-End Chips

Dom · Oct 17, 2004, 08:47 PM

A leading graphics cards maker Leadtek Research has quietly rolled-out a flavour of its high-end Winfast A400 GT graphics card with reduced memory speed compared to the original design. The new product is likely to be slower compared to the reference cards by NVIDIA Corp., the reasons behind the move are unclear.

An observer has sent X-bit labs a note where he said Leadtek had started to produce lower-speed flavours of its graphics cards based on NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT graphics processing units in late September, 2004, and had not declare such products on at least some of its web-sites. The so-called Winfast A400GT ‘Lite’ clocks GPU at 350MHz, the speed recommended by NVIDIA Corp. for the “GT” flavour of its GeForce 6800 chip, but offers reduced memory speed of 900MHz, down from 1000MHz suggested by the graphics processor developer.

A Leadtek’s spokesperson in the USA did not respond to the enquiry seeking for comments on the matter. However, GameVE.com online store offered Leadtek’s A400 GT product with 350MHz/900MHz speeds for GPU/memory at press time.

The NVIDIA GeForce 6800-series of chips unveiled in mid-April are the company’s flagship products in the GeForce 6-series of graphics processors. The GeForce 6-series of graphics processors will be eventually available across entry-level, mainstream, performance-mainstream, high-end as well as so-called ultra high-end graphics cards. The new series of NVIDIA’s graphics processors is the company’s second generation lineup of DirectX 9.0-compatible offerings that greatly leverage the feature-set of NVIDIA GeForce FX graphics chips and brings important additional capabilities, such as Shader Model 3.0, as well as great performance improvements over the previous generation hardware.

[Read More]

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Source: X-BitLabs

HunterZ · Oct 18, 2004, 04:02 AM

Maybe they used some cheaper RAM and ran into stability problems at the reference speed? Or maybe nVidia was expecting better-performing RAM to be cheaper by the time this card hit the market, and it didn't turn out to be cost-effective for Leadtek to use RAM that could run at reference speeds.

Odd that they wouldn't comment though...

mike2h · Oct 18, 2004, 04:31 AM

nothing for them to say. i got one of those lite cards & have been having correspondence with leadtek about the whole issue. they have been shipping these lites exclusively for 3 weeks now.

i finally gave up on getting a 'real' gt from them when, after 2 weeks of vague comments about the new shipment, i got an email friday that they will know monday wether the shipment was sent from taiwan or not.

it is a shame because imo they have the best cooling solution out there.
hoping my gigabyte replacement with its fan/heatpipe setup does the job. as long as the silicon/mem/gpu are all good or better quality it should do well. i do not really care about overclocking that much.
yeh right.

@/2ct!< · Oct 18, 2004, 10:39 PM

I have heard before that one of the reasons why xt pes and 6800 ultras were in such low supply was because of low ddr3 yields. Maybe this card uses ddr2..

mike2h · Oct 19, 2004, 02:30 AM

thet is true as far as yields go. it is gddr3, just slower. ddr2 at this time, & probably never, is not really viable for graphics. jmo.

Oct 17, 2004, 08:47 PM	#1
Dom DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 12,940 Rep Power: 0	Graphics Card Maker Downs Speed of High-End Chips A leading graphics cards maker Leadtek Research has quietly rolled-out a flavour of its high-end Winfast A400 GT graphics card with reduced memory speed compared to the original design. The new product is likely to be slower compared to the reference cards by NVIDIA Corp., the reasons behind the move are unclear. An observer has sent X-bit labs a note where he said Leadtek had started to produce lower-speed flavours of its graphics cards based on NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT graphics processing units in late September, 2004, and had not declare such products on at least some of its web-sites. The so-called Winfast A400GT ‘Lite’ clocks GPU at 350MHz, the speed recommended by NVIDIA Corp. for the “GT” flavour of its GeForce 6800 chip, but offers reduced memory speed of 900MHz, down from 1000MHz suggested by the graphics processor developer. A Leadtek’s spokesperson in the USA did not respond to the enquiry seeking for comments on the matter. However, GameVE.com online store offered Leadtek’s A400 GT product with 350MHz/900MHz speeds for GPU/memory at press time. The NVIDIA GeForce 6800-series of chips unveiled in mid-April are the company’s flagship products in the GeForce 6-series of graphics processors. The GeForce 6-series of graphics processors will be eventually available across entry-level, mainstream, performance-mainstream, high-end as well as so-called ultra high-end graphics cards. The new series of NVIDIA’s graphics processors is the company’s second generation lineup of DirectX 9.0-compatible offerings that greatly leverage the feature-set of NVIDIA GeForce FX graphics chips and brings important additional capabilities, such as Shader Model 3.0, as well as great performance improvements over the previous generation hardware. [Read More] ______________________ Source: X-BitLabs

Oct 18, 2004, 04:02 AM	#2
HunterZ DriverHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Seattle, USA Posts: 257 Rep Power: 0	Maybe they used some cheaper RAM and ran into stability problems at the reference speed? Or maybe nVidia was expecting better-performing RAM to be cheaper by the time this card hit the market, and it didn't turn out to be cost-effective for Leadtek to use RAM that could run at reference speeds. Odd that they wouldn't comment though... __________________ Athlon XP 3200+, Gigabyte GA7N-400Pro2 Rev 2.0 (nVidia nForce2 chipset), 1 GB DDR400 (CAS 2.0, dual-channel), ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB AGP 8x, WinXP Pro SP2, DX9.0c., Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers

Oct 18, 2004, 04:31 AM	#3
mike2h DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: norcal Posts: 6,483 Rep Power: 91 System Specs	nothing for them to say. i got one of those lite cards & have been having correspondence with leadtek about the whole issue. they have been shipping these lites exclusively for 3 weeks now. i finally gave up on getting a 'real' gt from them when, after 2 weeks of vague comments about the new shipment, i got an email friday that they will know monday wether the shipment was sent from taiwan or not. it is a shame because imo they have the best cooling solution out there. hoping my gigabyte replacement with its fan/heatpipe setup does the job. as long as the silicon/mem/gpu are all good or better quality it should do well. i do not really care about overclocking that much. yeh right. __________________ Last edited by mike2h; Oct 18, 2004 at 07:04 AM.

Oct 18, 2004, 10:39 PM	#4
@/2ct!< HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Not Vegas, anymore :( Posts: 1,391 Rep Power: 0	I have heard before that one of the reasons why xt pes and 6800 ultras were in such low supply was because of low ddr3 yields. Maybe this card uses ddr2.. __________________

Oct 19, 2004, 02:30 AM	#5
mike2h DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: norcal Posts: 6,483 Rep Power: 91 System Specs	thet is true as far as yields go. it is gddr3, just slower. ddr2 at this time, & probably never, is not really viable for graphics. jmo. __________________