VGA Cards with good caps

[yanz]

Yesterday I was visiting some computer shops. I've been planning on building some A64 systems. I was also looking some value graphic cards like X300SE, X550, X600, R9550SE and such.

I found that GeCube, HIS, and PowerColor are pretty consistent with good caps. They use panasonic (FJ) & Sanyo. iirc.

PowerColor(TUL) impress me as they are value brand but consistent with using Panasonic/Sanyo caps.

Of course this is only some series of cards that i happen to see it with my own eyes.

EVGA or Sapphire maybe better but they are not common here.

OTOH, I would put Pixelview & Winfast/Foxcon on the black list.


I could give the detail list of the cards, but that would make me have to revisit the shops again.. (maybe later..)

[tiresias]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

I've just taken a peek at the caps on video cards of our machines here at home:

My wife's machine has an Asus-made Nvidia 6800, all major caps are Chemicon as far as I can see.
The kids have an Asus A9550GE, with a single large Sanyo cap
and an MSI-made ATI 9800 Pro which is currently "in use".
My machine's using onboard video, of course!

Spare parts bin includes:
A tough-as-old-boots TNT2 M64, made by Gigabyte, which is still working despite having been cleaned numerous times with hot water and soap/toothpaste. Only tiny Choyo caps are present here.

An "Unknown brand" NVidia FX5200, which has been declared dead. 2 caps are severely bulged, one to the point of bursting - these are actually relatively small, 6.3v, 1000uF, and branded TAYEH. Coincidence?

[Per Hansson]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

Prolly not coincidence, recap it and see if it works, or sell it as dead on these boards... We have many talented people that might be able to fix it...

[willawake]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

IMHO i want to see oscon or chemicon polymer on good cards. nothing else for the price.

[MD Willington]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

I just scored a brand new in box Radeon 9800 PRO for $20, I'll have to see what is onboard when I get it in the mail.

MD

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

I have an eVGA GeForce 4 Ti 4200 64 MB video card with OSCON caps.
Probably Sanyo.

[Rainbow]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

I have PowerColor AR2L low-profile Radeon 9100 - I bought it only because it was very cheap. The surprise is that it has Panasonic caps too.

[WeStSiDePLaYa]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

do you mean leadtek/winfast?

if so why black list them? when i had a 5950U it was loaded with panasonic caps i beleive.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

The PNY FX5200 board I bought a few months ago from Staples for $5 had Sanyos, and my Gigabyte and MSI Radeon 9550 boards (identical except for heatsinks) have Nichicons.

[snafupen]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

my EVGA 6600gt has a bunch of polymers (polymers are the silver-ish ones with no vent right? man im new at this...), a sanyo or two, and an oscon.

[Rainbow]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

Oscons are polymers. The silver ones are probably just SMD version of normal wet caps.

[yanz]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

do you mean leadtek/winfast?

if so why black list them? when i had a 5950U it was loaded with panasonic caps i beleive.

well i found them (low end series) to be littered with ost or something like evercon(?).

[MD Willington]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

RE 9800 Pro = Panasonic surface mount type aluminum electrolytic

[linuxguru]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

> PowerColor(TUL) impress me as they are value brand but consistent with using Panasonic/Sanyo caps.

Yes, PowerColor is consistently well-made. Their A300M mobo (S478 Radeon 9100 IGP) uses only Japanese caps (Rubycon MBZ/YXG, Sanyo WG, Panasonic FJ and Nichicon HD). I wish I'd heard about them earlier - but I'll hoard a spare or two in any case.

[UraBahn]

Re: VGA Cards with good caps

I had an ELSA Gladiac GTS with a single large Sanyo SMT cap. Beautiful card design (loaded with meaty components) and just one cap for easy replacement in the off-chance that it fails. I gave it away to my older brother, who needed a cheap (as in free) replacement for his TNT2 Pro.

My Dell Dimension 8200 has a Leadtek Winfast GeForce3 that uses what appear to be SMT OSCON capacitors. Good card and all (thick heatsinks everywhere, lotsa meaty components on _both_ sides of the card), but I don't think my 250W power supply is really enough for it though: when I ramp up the games, I hear the fan on the videocard spin down a little(!) So I have to underclock the card a little to take a bit of the burden off my PSU.