Reference Board??

[Fistandantilis]

What does it mean for a video card to have a reference board??
is that bad??

 

[starhawk]

yes and no.

that means that it's a one-of-a-kind card designed as a prototype of its model.

the bad news is that it'll likely never reach full performance for that model.

what exactly are we talking about here?

 

[Fistandantilis]

i am looking for a good 6800 gt and the pny had great reveiws but i saw"if you dont mind a reference board" in a lot of em, got any ideas on a good brand, eVGA?

 

[minc3d]

EVGA is great and so is BFG. I would use PNY as a last resort.

 

[SystemERRor]

bfg forever. Good stuff, good packaged games, overclocked and beautiful warranty and customer service.

 

[Fistandantilis]

BFG was out of stock and i couldnt wait, so i went with eVGA. a freind of mine has a 5900 from them and it has been a trooper for him.
do you think i should upgrade my 350 watt psu now or wait to see if it will work?

joshua

 

[Gorankar]

It can also mean that a company followed the reference design layed out by nvidia or ati.. This usually translates into a cheaper card. It is not usually a bad thing.. A reference board with better than reference cooling is actualy a good thing. imho anyway

 

[Rollo]

yes and no.

that means that it's a one-of-a-kind card designed as a prototype of its model.

the bad news is that it'll likely never reach full performance for that model.

what exactly are we talking about here?

Man, are you wrong there. I have a reference model 6800NU that comes with faster than normal RAM, and unlocks all pipes and VPs flawlessly.

Reference boards are made for press samples as well as engineering samples, and can offer as good or better than retail performance.

 

[starhawk]

key word there is "can"... meaning sometimes they don't.