"Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

[Charlie_Bravo]

Specifically this card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

I want 128 bit, GDDR5, PCI Express, 2 Gbyte RAM and 1000+ Mhz clock speed and this card's $30 factory rebate is NOT a plus. I hate factory rebates. But, at this price range & quality, it's the only one advertising itself as having solid caps. I know a bit about caps, leaking electrolyte, stolen formula, missing ingredient "x", planned obsolescence, engineers with short term thinking and manufacturing processes that isolate the engineers that spec the components from the purchasers that buy them for production. I've desoldered and replaced a few caps also.

But I don't know a thing about solid caps, other than (I think) they are for higher voltages, run cooler. But not certain. The question here is more of an "overall", "overview". Should the solid caps make the difference in deciding to buy this video card over another one? Also any other informed opinions on video cards at this quality and price range.

Another question I have comes from a recommendation from a staff member at Tom's hardware who said that of the various specs for video cards (at this level and price range) memory size is the least important spec, and that a video card running at 1000 Mhz and 1 Gbyte of RAM is better than a video card running at 700 Mhz and 2 Gbytes of RAM, which is counter-intuitive to me and my "computer" way of thinking, since I'd rather have a 70% CPU and 200% RAM any day of the week.

But maybe not true for video cards, IDK. So, opinions and specific card recommendations welcome. $100 budget, could spend an extra $20 if the card does foot rubs and breakfast in bed.

[rugger]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

Don't virtually all modern graphics cards use solid capacitor these days?

Except the extreme low end as far as I know!

[SteveNielsen]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

I would not say that memory is the least important but 1GB should be more than sufficient for most applications, 2GB seems up in the hardcore gamer overkill zone to me, so I'd probably choose the faster processor too.

I'm don't know much about solid caps vs wet caps either but solids are being used more in general.

[stj]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

solid are smaller and you can use less of them.

[budm]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?



http://industrial.panasonic.com/ww/p...acitors/os-con

http://www.rubycon.co.jp/en/products/topics/t005.html

http://powerelectronics.com/content/...ve-reliability

http://www.gigabyte.tw/webpage/12/ar..._all_solid.htm

http://www.digikey.com/us/en/ph/nich...ndPolymer.html

http://www.capacitorguide.com/polymer-capacitor/

https://cdn.badcaps-static.com/pdfs/...e3a4dcf690.pdf

[mockingbird]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

That's a good question.

The truth is that electrolytics (with the same spec) are interchangeable with the solid ones for these applications, it's just that if they used electrolytics, you wouldn't know which ones they're using, whereas with polymers, even a third-tier brand might be better than a lousy electrolytic.

I say might because I've opened up a third-tier polymer cap before. I'm not talking about Lelon (second-tier polymer), which actually looks somewhat reasonable inside, but a brand where the polymer layer was dry and flakey as opposed to the nice new solid appearance and sheen you find in good ones.

But again, I used those third-tier polymers and I haven't had a problem with them yet.

[Agent24]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

I'm still sceptical about cheap polymer capacitors. Cheap is cheap is cheap is cheap.
There is always a reason why something is cheaper, and it's usually not a good one.

[mockingbird]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

I agree, and explosions have been reported with Apaq polymers (But I've yet to open one up to check whether it would qualify as second or third tier). I put them in what I would consider a testing environment (Not Apaq polymers, but those ones I mentioned with the flakey dielectric), along with a motherboard that's using Samxon GC for the VRM high, to see if those are worthless too.

I also have fake Panasonic FJ in a testing environment. I will never use them in anything I repair, but I am curious to see how well they hold up, considering that they don't look too bad on the inside. They look almost completely identical to the genuine FJ, but one of the major differences was the strong ammonia smell in the electrolyte of the fake FJ.

But back to polymers, Lelon OCRZ for example look pretty good on the inside. I wonder if they're better than Apaq.

[Agent24]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

I thought most of those explosive failures were on heavily overclocked boards though?

Lelon seem alright, from what I've seen with their other capacitors. They're better than CapXon anyway IMO. Not that that means much!

I bet your fake FJ will leak like crazy in a few months...

[mockingbird]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

So far the fake FJ are holding up well. I don't remember anything about those boards being overclocked, but then again, it's been a while since I've heard about an Apaq explosion.

Those green Lelons (RGA series I think) are a ticking time bomb.

[Agent24]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

So far the fake FJ are holding up well

How long have you been running them?

Those green Lelons (RGA series I think) are a ticking time bomb.

Guess I'm lucky - I haven't had the pleasure of meeting that series yet...!

[mockingbird]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

6-8 months I would imagine.

[Agent24]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

6-8 months I would imagine.

It will indeed be interesting to see how they get on.

[momaka]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

But I don't know a thing about solid caps, other than (I think) they are for higher voltages, run cooler. But not certain. The question here is more of an "overall", "overview". Should the solid caps make the difference in deciding to buy this video card over another one? Also any other informed opinions on video cards at this quality and price range.

Most mid and high-end video cards nowadays use polymers or good quality electrolytic caps, so there's no need to worry about caps too much. I think XFX was one of the last brands to use Sacon/Evercon/Elcon capacitors (which are notoriously crappy) on their low and mid-range cards, and that was their 9-series cards and older. I think they leaned better now, but don't quote me on this. Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and many others usually always use good quality caps.

What I would be more worried about is the cooling, as that will probably impact the video card's life the most. Generally, stay away from anything with a passive cooler/heatsink, unless you are willing to put a fan to blow on it (in that case, this is a fine option). Also, try to get video cards with bigger heatsinks and bigger-diameter fans. Smaller fans = more fan noise. Smaller heatsinks = more fan noise.

Another question I have comes from a recommendation from a staff member at Tom's hardware who said that of the various specs for video cards (at this level and price range) memory size is the least important spec, and that a video card running at 1000 Mhz and 1 Gbyte of RAM is better than a video card running at 700 Mhz and 2 Gbytes of RAM, which is counter-intuitive to me and my "computer" way of thinking, since I'd rather have a 70% CPU and 200% RAM any day of the week.

Well, the memory size certainly isn't the least important parameter, but generally 512 MB to 1 GB is okay. The speed is indeed more important, because even if you have a lot of video RAM, if the RAM speed is slow, the GPU will not be able to "fill" the RAM of the video card quick enough. Besides the memory speed, the bit width of the RAM also matters. Video cards with 256 bit memory bus will have a much higher bandwidth transfer rate than ones with 128 bit bus. So the motherboard will be able to communicate with the video card much faster. Finally, you should also look in the ROPs (Raster Operation Pipelines): more is usually better.

Of course, I would also suggest you look at some reviews and game benchmarks online. ATI and nVidia have different architectures, so these specs don't affect the cards from them the exact same way.

As far as recommending a video card, I'm not so competent in that since I usually stay way behind the "modern" hardware curve.

[Agent24]

Re: "Solid Capacitors" on a Video Card: How Important Is It?

With lower-end cards, more RAM is a bit silly, if the GPU isn't fast enough to use all the data loaded in it quickly enough.

But overall it will come down to a specific card. Look at the cards in your price range, and read reviews that compare different versions of that card with different amounts of RAM so you can get an idea of how much impact it would have if any.

Forget those synthetic benchmarks too, look at results from the real-world tests, preferably showing games or programs you actually intend to run yourself if you can find them.