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What gets me is when a site goes bad. I placed many orders from nexfan.com over time, and then one day I ordered and boom no communication/no product. Well, check out their rating...Josh went bad.
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Nexfan

So do you think this site is legit? I am very hesitant to order due to fear of being jobbed.

I wouldn't have ordered if I didn't think it was legit. The perfect 10/10 6 person reseller rating was good enough for me. Plus I was unable to find a single complaint googling them. Earlier this year, forum posters were skeptical, because of no ratings. But you'd think there would be a complaint found if someone got scammed. People don't always praise a site, but they are sure to complain if ripped off. I know I won't bother giving them praises on resellerratings, but if they rip me off believe me I'd take the time to get that info out so it doesn't happen to others. Either way I'll post my experience here so google searchers at least get one thumbs up or thumbs down.

Anyway, there is alot to be skeptical about. New site. Good ratings but very few ratings so they could be bogus. Alot of new members on forums posting the links to a few great deals isn't a good sign either. Hard to find an established forum member anywhere that can back them up. If you are leary, stick to Newegg or a known site.

I quickly got an email after ordering and current order status shows the credit card was charged. They shouldn't have charged it if the item is out of stock. If I do get scammed, I'll just dispute it with my credit card. Not too big a hassle when they can't show proof of shipping/delivery. That's what I had to do with Nexfan.

I have ordered from http://fxvideocards.com before you will be ok. http://www.resellerratings.com/store/FxVideoCards

WoW on the price

^ Don't take offense, but you have 4 posts here so it's hard to take comfort from that. Same I've seen in other forums, seems strangers come to the sites defense.

edit: And To be honest it adds to the skepticism as you joined Toms about when this fxvideocards website got rolling, post 3 times, yet somehow managed to pop in here and vouch for them. It would be easy to assume there is a connection, which could even include the OP (fairly new user starting this thread). Again, take no offense, but it's worth posting for other readers benefit/protection. Find me a forum member who has been active here for a while and can vouch for them, then we will listen more. For instance, if you ship me my card, I've been here for years with over 10,000 posts. People will be more likely to listen, so ship my card.

The videocard is on sale?
Oh ohwell XD

What does bottleneck actually mean.

Can my cpu coup with the new games Cod4 , lost planet.

Its a pentium D 820

means the gpu is going to crave more processing power then the cpu can deliver, regardless of what people say about the pentium d, its old, and needs to be upgraded, the card you have, while not the best out there, would be better served with a cpu upgrade then a gpu upgrade, its the wink link.
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 928-4.html
there is a link the lowest cpu shown here is faster then what you have, and the 9600 gt performs on par or better then the 8800gs. Now tell me, is the 34+ frames diffrence not important to you ?

I don't think you understand that a game is more gpu limited than anything else. Now if you are working with a single core with modern games where it is optimized for dual core you are going to get some bottlenecks where it might be unplayble with very low fps but a low end dual core will pump more fps than a high end single core processor in a dual core optimized game. Sure you can pump 100fps with a core 2 duo but a pentium D would be adequate to pump 70fps.

Tom's site tested where a CPU became bottleneck. Just look at what happened when they raised the resolution to 1680x1050, 1920x1200 or even added AA into the mix. There is very little difference between a high end cpu from a low end cpu. I've seen these kind of tests before it is just testing CPU bottlenecks nothing more and added all the percentage difference to get a average but that average doesn't tell the entire story which can mislead people to think they are being bottlenecked. A 2160 @ 1.8 ghz spitting out over 100fps @ 1280x1024 with no AA in COD4. Do we need more than 100fps now? Since when? Pentium D 2.8ghz would pump out 70fps with AA or without AA. Would that be enough to play the game?

Upgrades sure but not everyone needs a quad core that's not even optimized with 99.9% of the games out today nor everyone have the funds to swap a mobo, cpu, power supply, video card because it can't take a new core 2 duo.

Im not recommending a quad core, more over op already said he has a socket 775 which would allow him a new core 2 duo. I just dont understand why people would tell a person who is cpu bound at this point to upgrade the gpu, doesnt make sense, its like yeah, you have a datsun, if you put a turbo into it, itll be a really fast datsun, but at the end of the day, you still have a datsun versus a porshe. Sure games are gpu limited, but in his case, were talking a processor thats 4+ years old. Things have improved since then, and he would get a better performance boost from his comp if he was to upgrade to a cpu that could have more power, then doing the same for a gpu, after all his bottle neck right now is the cpu, not the gpu, which is 2 years or so newer then his cpu. I understand hes dual core, if you can call it that, but were talking dual core when the idea was just barely around the corner, and hes only going to get so much performance from it. Hell i bet his 8xxx series is bottlenecked right now. Which is more important, getting the maximum out of his comp, or buying a new video card that aint going to do much more then just wait for the cpu ?
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] 310%2C1311
case in point, look at where the d's sit for the most part, now if he overclocks this old of a cpu, hed be lucky to get a month out of it, let alone 3, if he got a new core 2 duo, it would serve his purposes better. As a side note, sure toms isnt always 100 percent right, but on the other hand, your goin off your personal opinion, in which case i would take toms advice over yours.

The guy is running a 8500gt. This is 4 pipe card 16SP with 64bit memory bus which isn't even game friendly @ 800x600 with no AA or AF. Of course people are going to recommend a GPU upgrade over a CPU upgrade like you recommended. A pentium D is not a datsun and core 2 duo is not a porshce. Why do people always try to use a car analogy with computers? No one said core 2 duo wasn't faster and not all 775 boards take core 2 duo nor a 15 year old kid have money to burn.

Do you even understand how bottlenecks even work?

Say a pentiuim D does 100fps @ 1280x1024 no AA. But get this you can turn all the eye candy on and still get nearly 100fps long as you aren't gpu limited. The experience between these CPU's are minimal at desired settings.

Do you even bother to look at the entire article you linked earlier on Tom's CPU bottlenecks?

There is absolutely minimal difference between a high end cpu and low end cpu because games are GPU limited for the most part at the settings people play with. Second of all pentium 2160 is not as fast as you think it is. It's a nice chip if you want to budget overclock to 3.0ghz. At stock clocks it's slower than a AMD 3800x2 which a pentium D 820 isn't too far off of.

To put it into your so called car analogy. A porsche is useless when the speed limit is 55mph. A 8500gt is like a bicycle on training wheels trying to catch up to cars on the freeway.

Getting back to the topic of the OP, I have to share a few observations.

1) For one, FXvideocards.com shares the same address as motherboardpro.com, so they are likely the same people.

2) Motherboardpro.com is listed as a a DFI partner along with the big boys. That is comforting to see.
http://www.dfi.com.tw/wheretobuy/d [...] _TYPE=null

3) Motherboardpro.com has a larger perfect 10/10 rating (37)
http://www.resellerratings.com/sel [...] s1-d1.html

4) Both sites have some similar positive feedbacks by first time feedback givers. Call it what you want, but I know how it looks to me.

5) There are often strangers in hardware site forums linking to these two sites, or backing the sites up. Again, it's my opinion that's not a coincidence.

6) see this thread and look above. Hmmn good call?
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] board-ddr2

7) Since ordering I see that the Zotac warranty is not valid for the USA. This is a huge negative, especially ordering from a unknown site.

All things considered, I am going to give the site the benefit of the doubt that they are not scamming people for money, but just (too) aggressively trying to help their site(s) take off. Could I get ripped off. Yes, and I'd have to charge back by CC and take other measures. Could I find a new place to order video cards since I order many a month and they have no tax to me and seemingly good sales? Yes that is possible and is also obviously what I am hoping for.

Anyway, just wanted to share my opinions/findings at Toms so people can do what they want regarding this deal. Let me be your test dummy, or hop in the seat next to me and take the ride together. Will we crash and burn, or like it and come back for more? I know this is a test run for this website for me. I would have liked to buy the more expensive 8800 GTX, and may still do that depending how this turns out. But I figure it's better to see if the $88 order comes first and works before buying a $228 order. If this had been Newegg I would have ordered probably 2-3 cards instead of one. Especially scary now when I see after ordering the Zotac warranty may not apply in the USA; Newegg I trust as they have taken care of me many times, this site has to earn my trust.

And of course, I will follow up with my own experience with this order both here at Toms and with resellers ratings.

Just wanted to post an update. My 8800GTS arrived today. I have not tested it but so far looks good. It's a retail box, but doesn't have any circular seal or shrinkwrap, so it is not sealed. I can not say if any of Zotac's card come sealed or instead just exactly like mine. Anyone order a Zotac from newegg?


The email communication from FXvideocards was great providing tracking. In all I got 6 emails related to this one order.

The item was shipped quickly, but was shipped from CA even though they are based out of GA on my invoice. So shipping to NJ from CA was longer than it would have been from GA. Either a direct ship or they have a CA warehouse. Still was a quick order placement to delivery time all things considered.

I'm still concerned about warranty and unsure if the lifetime warranty registration is possible in the USA. Not looking good, although i could try calling fxvideocards and asking them.

Will post back again after testing the card and if I find out warranty info. If it works and the warranty is valid, I'd like to buy the $209 GTX they have.

Damn Paul. How many cards do you have?