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[Grimlock]

It's a LeadTek A400. If Newegg sells out, Chiefvale has their refurb back in stock for $220 shipped

Oh, and may I suggest you use this to cool the card, if you don't want that lump it calls a cooler on it. Crazy PC has them in stock here.

 

[Daigoro]

good deals. wish i had some money!

 

[aerofx]

That's a swell looking VGA cooler. It's not compatible with 6800 ultra. =(

 

[CurlySaysX]

The zalman flower 100% copper VGA heatsink is very good btw.
I went from 75C+ to <60C (load) / 50C to 46C (idle) after i stuck the zalman on.
8 out of 10.

 

[Grimlock]

Yeah, a friend of mine has that Zalmann on his 7800GTX-says it's quiet & good. But I tend to lean towards Thermalright since my XP-90 is so freakin' awesome.

 

[Grimlock]

*bump* for lower prices on these cards. Already edited into first post.

 

[Grimlock]

Just noticed Chiefvalue dropped $12 off their price, now it's $208 with free shipping. In addition, they've added several more refurbs from Prolink, AOpen, and PNY for a few bucks more but with single slot coolers. Yeesh.

 

[Diablos]

I've heard mixed feedback about buying regurbed graphics cards.

 

[Vandiger]

I've heard mixed feedback about buying regurbed graphics cards.

Yeah I don't buy refurbished stuff unless the Manufacturer has like a 2yr or lifetime warranty

 

[Diablos]

"regurbed"

oops, typo!

 

[teiresias]

I'm trying to figure out what exactly a "refurbished" graphic card actually means.

My guess is that the only thing that could be refurbished on a graphics card are the easier to repopulate surface mount components (maybe some power regulators and stuff) and the discrete components like resistors and capacitors and the connectors. I'd assume a "refurbished" card doesn't have any issues with its actual graphics hardware, becuase they'd have to simply replace the entire chip, at which point they may as well just toss it and sell a new part instead depending on yields.

 

[Grimlock]

Well, all I can tell ya is my experience with my refurbed A400. Got it about 2 months ago from Newegg for $211 total. It came in an unwrapped, but otherwise new-condition, box with all the discs & dongles, including the games. My was a revision one board, if that means anything. The card had no apparent marks or defects on it-if I didn't know better, I would have sworn it was a new card. A couple of weeks after getting it, I put an Arctic Cooler NV5 Silencer on it (this was before I was aware of the new Thermalright cooler) and I now have it overclocked rock-steady at Ultra speeds. I've played Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 on it with no graphical issues-no artifacts or slowdowns. My 3dMark05 scores went from 2069 with my old 9700pro to 5338 with the A400 overclocked. Of course, YMMV if ya jump in on this.

 

[Error Macro]

Well, all I can tell ya is my experience with my refurbed A400. Got it about 2 months ago from Newegg for $211 total. It came in an unwrapped, but otherwise new-condition, box with all the discs & dongles, including the games. My was a revision one board, if that means anything. The card had no apparent marks or defects on it-if I didn't know better, I would have sworn it was a new card. A couple of weeks after getting it, I put an Arctic Cooler NV5 Silencer on it (this was before I was aware of the new Thermalright cooler) and I now have it overclocked rock-steady at Ultra speeds. I've played Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 on it with no graphical issues-no artifacts or slowdowns. My 3dMark05 scores went from 2069 with my old 9700pro to 5338 with the A400 overclocked. Of course, YMMV if ya jump in on this.

Did you really need to change coolers in order to overclock it? I have the stock cooler on there, and I can run Ultra speeds no problem. Plus the cooler makes virtually no noise. I don't know why everyone wants to swap it out. Leadtek has the best 6800 cooler, in my opinion.

 

[Grimlock]

Well, I didn't swap it out to OC it so much as to get the weight of my case down. The stock cooler weighs a frickin' ton. Before I changed the cooler I was looking at getting one of these Cardkeepers because I was afaid that the weight of the cooler would pull the card out of my AGP slot, as I move my PC around kinda frequently. That, and having the Arctic Cooler blow the card's hot air out of my case directly had my case temp drop a couple of degrees, so that was good as well.

 

[Error Macro]

All good points. It's just that I've seen a lot of people swap out the cooler "just because." They're under the assumption that the stock cooler sucks, which is does not. It is quite heavy though Pure copper, baby.