Visiontek Mystery boxes are back

maxinflixion

maxinflixion

Gawd
Joined
Apr 2, 2007
Messages
614
Mine arrived. Contents below.
  • Radeon HD 7950 - I've been on a vintage GPU kick lately, so this one is actually a pretty cool get.

  • VisionTek VT4000 4k Dual Monitor Dock - Not sure I have a need for this as I have a work provided dock. Verdict is out here.​

  • 2 x Data Vault Stackable Drive enclosures - The two SATA SSDs sitting on my desk might enjoy sitting in these. As I open these things, I see these are just plastic storage. Amazingly enough, I like them more now for my computer side of the garage workshop. (still cheap and Nintendo-y)
  • 1080p Webcam w/ LED light - This is a "Good to have as a spare" type deal.
  • Phone sanitizer - This will come to work and sit on an empty desk for any and all to use/abuse.
All told, I could probably recoup $100 if I wanted to. The drive storage things are worthless. The GPU will entertain me until I move on and sell it. The dock will find use at some point.

Will I do this next year? Sadly, I am a sucker, so probably yes.
 
Last edited:
Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
36,045
So, did anyone get anyhting worthwhile they thought was worth the money they spent or more last year?

I mean, gambling always includes a majority chance of loss. I've occasionally spent some money on the Powerball, only to get nothing at all.

This might be worth it if even 1% or less win big... But I'd leake to hear of at least one positive experience from last year before buying in :p
 
B

bufodr_T

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Nov 5, 2005
Messages
6,083
maxinflixion said:
Mine arrived. Contents below.
  • Radeon HD 7950 - I've been on a vintage GPU kick lately, so this one is actually a pretty cool get.

  • VisionTek VT4000 4k Dual Monitor Dock - Not sure I have a need for this as I have a work provided dock. Verdict is out here.​

  • 2 x Data Vault Stackable Drive enclosures - The two SATA SSDs sitting on my desk might enjoy sitting in these. As I open these things, I see these are just plastic storage. Amazingly enough, I like them more now for my computer side of the garage workshop. (still cheap and Nintendo-y)
  • 1080p Webcam w/ LED light - This is a "Good to have as a spare" type deal.
  • Phone sanitizer - This will come to work and sit on an empty desk for any and all to use/abuse.
All told, I could probably recoup $100 if I wanted to. The drive storage things are worthless. The GPU will entertain me until I move on and sell it. The dock will find use at some point.

Will I do this next year? Sadly, I am a sucker, so probably yes.
Click to expand...
This is what i was hoping for. Mine arrives tomorrow. Fingers are crossed.
 
S

shipl11

n00b
Joined
Nov 30, 2022
Messages
1
I ordered 1x$50, 2x$20,2×$10,5x$5 boxes. They all came in one large box and received the following:

*Radeon HD 7950
*VT 4000 dock
*VT audio pro v3 speaker
*1080p web cam
*data vault
* phone sanitizer thing
*VT tool kit
*mini bluetooth keyboard/laser pointer combo (candyboard)
*charging dock station to charge multiple devices at once
*4 port usb 3.0 pcie card
*3 pack of usb-c to lighting adapters

Overall not terrible and actually was impressed by the speaker alot better than last years pitbull speaker.
 
A

arnemetis

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 2, 2004
Messages
4,021
Last year I did the $50 box and got the following:
An unknown pci gpu that had a damaged bracket.
A 16gb stick of unknown ddr4, 2400 or 2800mhz.
A mr world bluetooth speaker with a dead battery that works occasionally when plugged in but not at more than 2/3 volume.
Would not do it again.
 
L

lobstar

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 24, 2004
Messages
360
auntjemima

auntjemima

[H]ard DCOTM x2
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
Messages
11,267
Balkroth said:
Ended up with a VT7000 dock from the $50 box, pretty stoked about that one VT7000 Dock

The $20 Box came with a 128 GB NVME drive and a datavault box.
Click to expand...
If people are getting that dock in these boxes, can they even complain?

Google says a vt7000 dock is worth hundreds.
 
Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
36,045
auntjemima said:
If people are getting that dock in these boxes, can they even complain?
Click to expand...

I mean, people will and do complain about just about anything

auntjemima said:
Google says a vt7000 dock is worth hundreds.
Click to expand...

Which begs the question why. In what parallel universe does it offer almost $400 worth of functionality? I'd pay $34.99 at most.

Balkroth said:
Ended up with a VT7000 dock from the $50 box, pretty stoked about that one VT7000 Dock

The $20 Box came with a 128 GB NVME drive and a datavault box.
Click to expand...

That's not a dock.

This is a dock. (from my home setup ~14 years ago, when I had a Dell D series dock for work, and a KVM I used to switch to my desktop for myself:

3026799676.jpg


Best I'll give them is that it is a fancy large hub of some sort. And fuck that. If your latop is too thin or too small to have all of these ports built in, it is defective by design. If you need a thick ass hub/dongle in order to use it, what is the point of it even being thin?
 
L

lobstar

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 24, 2004
Messages
360
Zarathustra[H] said:
Which begs the question why. In what parallel universe does it offer almost $400 worth of functionality? I'd pay $34.99 at most.
Click to expand...
They are essentially a USB video card as well as networking and audio. You install DisplayLink software and you get a bunch of monitors over USB-C. I like to use these sorts of things for my Chuwi Windows tablet. Dell stopped putting a decent range of ports on the laptops a long time ago so I also have to have one for work unfortunately.
 
Last edited:
B

bufodr_T

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Nov 5, 2005
Messages
6,083
I got the shitty dock, speaker, and data vault. The data vault went straight to the burn pile. Should burn quite nicely. My daughter has toys with higher quality plastic that she purchased from the $1.25 store. At least the speaker is useable this time. I was hoping for the 7950s, oh well.
 
Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
36,045
bufodr_T said:
I got the shitty dock, speaker, and data vault. The data vault went straight to the burn pile. Should burn quite nicely. My daughter has toys with higher quality plastic that she purchased from the $1.25 store. At least the speaker is useable this time. I was hoping for the 7950s, oh well.
Click to expand...

You know, I would have thought 7950's would be junk at this point. I mean, they were mid range a decade ago when they came out. How does Visiontek even have any to ship out anymore? It's not like they are warranty replacement units. The last warranty on a HD 7000 series card probably ended in ~2015.

...but people are actually paying $150 for them on eBay. Almost $250 if it's the rarer Mac edition. That's nuts.

It's even ccrazier that they were shipping out HD 3000 series cards last year. I mean, those were launched in 2007, 15 years ago, and probably had the last warranty expire in ~2010. They were still ATi at that time!

As a refresher, here are a couple of examples of what Radeon HD 3870's (the top single core model) looked like:

1669845860241.png


1669846036811.png


It has been a while...
 
Zepher

Zepher

[H]ipster Replacement
Joined
Sep 29, 2001
Messages
20,512
Zarathustra[H] said:
You know, I would have thought 7950's would be junk at this point. I mean, they were mid range a decade ago when they came out. How does Visiontek even have any to ship out anymore? It's not like they are warranty replacement units. The last warranty on a HD 7000 series card probably ended in ~2015.

...but people are actually paying $150 for them on eBay. Almost $250 if it's the rarer Mac edition. That's nuts.

It's even ccrazier that they were shipping out HD 3000 series cards last year. I mean, those were launched in 2007, 15 years ago, and probably had the last warranty expire in ~2010. They were still ATi at that time!

As a refresher, here are a couple of examples of what Radeon HD 3870's (the top single core model) looked like:

View attachment 530789

View attachment 530790

It has been a while...
Click to expand...
I still have a 3870 sitting here,
IMG_0009.JPG
 
B

bluestang

Gawd
Joined
Dec 14, 2018
Messages
718
LoL I have one of those VT4000 from last year. Have no use for it and have no idea what to sell it for lol.
 
Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
36,045
Zepher said:
I still have a 3870 sitting here,
View attachment 530806
Click to expand...

Ha.

I have a couple of old Voodoo's kicking around (two 3's and a 5, my old Voodoo 1 is long since gone) but other than that, the oldest stuff I still have around is probably my OG 6GB Titan. Oh. I have a couple of Quadro 2000's from 2010 kicking around too.

Most of them fell victim to "well, that's old and shitty. No one will ever want it, so in the trash it goes". What little did have above ~$300 in value once I was done with it, I sold when I upgraded.
 
Zepher

Zepher

[H]ipster Replacement
Joined
Sep 29, 2001
Messages
20,512
Zarathustra[H] said:
Ha.

I have a couple of old Voodoo's kicking around (two 3's and a 5, my old Voodoo 1 is long since gone) but other than that, the oldest stuff I still have around is probably my OG 6GB Titan. Oh. I have a couple of Quadro 2000's from 2010 kicking around too.

Most of them fell victim to "well, that's old and shitty. No one will ever want it, so in the trash it goes". What little did have above ~$300 in value once I was done with it, I sold when I upgraded.
Click to expand...
I have this dual gpu card somewhere in a box. My old Matrox (I believe) for comparison
oxygen3.jpg

It was a pricey card,
1669850777305.png
 
auntjemima

auntjemima

[H]ard DCOTM x2
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
Messages
11,267
Zarathustra[H] said:
You know, I would have thought 7950's would be junk at this point. I mean, they were mid range a decade ago when they came out. How does Visiontek even have any to ship out anymore? It's not like they are warranty replacement units. The last warranty on a HD 7000 series card probably ended in ~2015.

...but people are actually paying $150 for them on eBay. Almost $250 if it's the rarer Mac edition. That's nuts.

It's even ccrazier that they were shipping out HD 3000 series cards last year. I mean, those were launched in 2007, 15 years ago, and probably had the last warranty expire in ~2010. They were still ATi at that time!

As a refresher, here are a couple of examples of what Radeon HD 3870's (the top single core model) looked like:

View attachment 530789

View attachment 530790

It has been a while...
Click to expand...
We (the DC team) used them extensively during project challenges, especially in the math portions. They have amazing FP64 power compared to the Nvidia cards of the time, and quite a while after. They can compute more than a 1080ti, for comparison. I think they did more than my 2070 super as well, but I cannot remember.
 
Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
36,045
auntjemima said:
We (the DC team) used them extensively during project challenges, especially in the math portions. They have amazing FP64 power compared to the Nvidia cards of the time, and quite a while after. They can compute more than a 1080ti, for comparison. I think they did more than my 2070 super as well, but I cannot remember.
Click to expand...

What's a "DC team"?
 
S

SamirD

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Mar 22, 2015
Messages
6,106
Zarathustra[H] said:
I mean, people will and do complain about just about anything



Which begs the question why. In what parallel universe does it offer almost $400 worth of functionality? I'd pay $34.99 at most.



That's not a dock.

This is a dock. (from my home setup ~14 years ago, when I had a Dell D series dock for work, and a KVM I used to switch to my desktop for myself:

View attachment 530766

Best I'll give them is that it is a fancy large hub of some sort. And fuck that. If your latop is too thin or too small to have all of these ports built in, it is defective by design. If you need a thick ass hub/dongle in order to use it, what is the point of it even being thin?
Click to expand...
Please, please, please tell me you still have that sweet keyboard and pair of speakers. I still have some of these docks for my D-series laptops I picked up for cheap. I actually stacked them so I could have a tower of laptops, lol.
 
S

SamirD

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Mar 22, 2015
Messages
6,106
bufodr_T said:
I got the shitty dock, speaker, and data vault. The data vault went straight to the burn pile. Should burn quite nicely. My daughter has toys with higher quality plastic that she purchased from the $1.25 store. At least the speaker is useable this time. I was hoping for the 7950s, oh well.
Click to expand...
I'll take that datavault! And any other ones out there--better place to put spare drives than in a cardboard box in a drawer. (y)
 
S

SamirD

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Mar 22, 2015
Messages
6,106
Zarathustra[H] said:
Most of them fell victim to "well, that's old and shitty. No one will ever want it, so in the trash it goes". What little did have above ~$300 in value once I was done with it, I sold when I upgraded.
Click to expand...
My older systems are so sad that all those upgrades went to the trash. :( It's hard to keep this older stuff running because working parts are getting more and more rare. :cry:
 
Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
36,045
SamirD said:
Please, please, please tell me you still have that sweet keyboard and pair of speakers. I still have some of these docks for my D-series laptops I picked up for cheap. I actually stacked them so I could have a tower of laptops, lol.
Click to expand...

Keyboard, yes. It's one of the semi-rare black IBM Model M13 Trackpoint II's.

Shortly after this picture was taken I replaced the keycaps as they were worn off and looked shitty. I got a set from Unicomp. Then maybe three years after that the keycaps wore out again.

The beige models were dye sublimated and essentially last forever, but the black ones were just pad printed in white. They sealed them up with a clear coat, but eventually it wears off. I reached out to Unicomp again and they found the last set they had in the store room and sold it to me, but I was told there wouldn't be any more. They were discontinuing them because they wore out right away and they had too many complaints.

I cleaned up the keyboard, swapped in the new leycaps, took one last glamor shot in my light box and then stored it away and bought a Unicomp board to replace it as my daily.

5091177536_a2068d1217_c.jpg


I figured if it's rare, and I have one of the last sets of pristine keycaps I should keep it in good condition.

The speakers, no.

To be honest, I can't remember what the hell happened to them. I think I may have sold them here on the Hardforums, but that would have been YEARS ago

They were like a ~1999 era Cambridge Soundworks branded 5.1 set. The same model was later rebranded with Creative branding, but the model I had still had the Cambridge Soundworks branding.

It's been a long time now, but I think they were the DTT2500's as reviewed on Anandtech here.
 
erek

erek

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Messages
8,834
shipl11 said:
I ordered 1x$50, 2x$20,2×$10,5x$5 boxes. They all came in one large box and received the following:

*Radeon HD 7950
*VT 4000 dock
*VT audio pro v3 speaker
*1080p web cam
*data vault
* phone sanitizer thing
*VT tool kit
*mini bluetooth keyboard/laser pointer combo (candyboard)
*charging dock station to charge multiple devices at once
*4 port usb 3.0 pcie card
*3 pack of usb-c to lighting adapters

Overall not terrible and actually was impressed by the speaker alot better than last years pitbull speaker.
Click to expand...
trying a variation on a theme of your previous approach, just one of each. seems like a cool thing to participate in. seems fun\
theoretically could be nice Christmas gifts too
 
P

pgaster

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 17, 2008
Messages
1,411
I got my $50 and $20 orders yesterday. I got 3 items and they were all packed in one box:
128GB m.2 SSD
data vault
docking port

disappointing, but not completely unexpected
 
S

SamirD

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Mar 22, 2015
Messages
6,106
Zarathustra[H] said:
Keyboard, yes. It's one of the semi-rare black IBM Model M13 Trackpoint II's.

Shortly after this picture was taken I replaced the keycaps as they were worn off and looked shitty. I got a set from Unicomp. Then maybe three years after that the keycaps wore out again.

The beige models were dye sublimated and essentially last forever, but the black ones were just pad printed in white. They sealed them up with a clear coat, but eventually it wears off. I reached out to Unicomp again and they found the last set they had in the store room and sold it to me, but I was told there wouldn't be any more. They were discontinuing them because they wore out right away and they had too many complaints.

I cleaned up the keyboard, swapped in the new leycaps, took one last glamor shot in my light box and then stored it away and bought a Unicomp board to replace it as my daily.

View attachment 530838

I figured if it's rare, and I have one of the last sets of pristine keycaps I should keep it in good condition.

The speakers, no.

To be honest, I can't remember what the hell happened to them. I think I may have sold them here on the Hardforums, but that would have been YEARS ago

They were like a ~1999 era Cambridge Soundworks branded 5.1 set. The same model was later rebranded with Creative branding, but the model I had still had the Cambridge Soundworks branding.

It's been a long time now, but I think they were the DTT2500's as reviewed on Anandtech here.
Click to expand...
Nice! Glad you still have that one. I actually have one of the beige ones. :) Good to know about the keycaps. :)

I saw only two speakers so I thought it might have been the Cambridge Soundworks Microworks before Creative bought them and ruined them. I still have 2x (maybe 3?) sets of those microworks--beautifully flat sound that is close to nearfield monitors, but not really.
 
M

matt167

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 18, 2016
Messages
1,221
Did a single $20 and got a boxed 7750 and a data vault. Didn’t really know I needed a data vault but I’ve got a use for it. And I’ll find something to use the 7750 on
 
S

SamirD

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Mar 22, 2015
Messages
6,106
matt167 said:
Did a single $20 and got a boxed 7750 and a data vault. Didn’t really know I needed a data vault but I’ve got a use for it. And I’ll find something to use the 7750 on
Click to expand...
That 7750 might be pretty handy since it doesn't require any power connectors. And if it's the one with 6x mini-dp, that's pretty unique on its own. (y)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top