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Ditching my Ati HD2900..looking for something different

gazjam

gazjam

gazjam

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Joined
16 Oct 2007
Posts
595
hey,
I'm currently using a HD2900 on my PC which I bought originally on a whim because it was on sale and I played games on my PC a lot at the time.

Now, I dont really pay much pc games (PS3 for that), I use the PC for 3D work using OpenGL and not Direct3D, which the "gaming" cards are better at.

Heres the thing, I just found out the HD2900 used over 200 watts idle!
My emphasis nowadays is on saving on my Leccy bill!

So,

For my purposes I dont NEED a mega gaming card, and to be honest, the 2900 isnt't that much better working in Lightwave 3D or whatever, than my old Ati 9800Pro card.

So my question is....

** Is there a way to "soft-mod" my 9800Pro to a FireGl card which runs great with 3D apps?

** If not, can anyone reccomend mabye an older NVIDIA (not Ati) card that is GUARANTEED to be able to be soft-modded into a pro card?


Any advice welcome, thanks.

I'm going to put my old 9800Pro card in, see how that goes for a while.
Meantime..I have a HD2900 512MB card up for grabs.

*Sensible offers welcomed!! ;) *
 
You may want to keep hold of your 2900. There's some hacked drivers for them to convert them into fire GL cards. I don't know where to get them though, hopefully some one'll come along who does know :D.
 
If you sell your card and get a half decent price for your 2900 you could get a 3870 to replace it. Pretty much same performance but the 3870 is on the new 55nm tech and uses much less power.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, I tried the FireGl trick before, couldn't get it to stick.
Will try again.


no, my signatures correct :cool:

Its overclocked using Rivatuner. I had to turn the fan down at this speed - sounded like a jet plane taking off!


Thing runs fast.....just sucks up a lot of power and I dont play games on the PC anymore, just have no real use for the speed.

If it helped in 3D apps - cool - but it doesnt.
Just sucking up electricity when I'm emailing, surfing or whatever.
 
bfar said:
Nvidias OpenGL support is A1. My Geforce 4 served me well back when I was doing college projects in OpenGL ;)
Click to expand...

Yeah...ATI had a bad rep for their OpenGL. Newer drivers made it better, but theres STILL glitches in Lightwave, especially when moving large numbers of polys around.

Nvidias the way to go I think for my next card.
 
Well if you do a lot of this kind of work, why not just get some of the cheap FireGL models instead.

If you want to just save energy I guess the 34xx or 36xx will be good choice. Also you could get the one with fanless cooling for even more saving and dead silence.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp... DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail (H365P512GNP)

like this, very good card, very low on power consumption.

or if you dont need this kind of power you can look at:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-178-SP&tool=3

takes next to no volts, no fan so totally silent and still offers good performance ;-).
 
you cant sell outside the mm afaik
so i would edit the op

i really think you would be best if you wanted a quaddro/firegl to buy the actual card [i know they are expensive but if you need it you pay for it imo]
that way you would get what you want and not an unreliable softmodded card
 
OP = original post / opening post, remove the 'any offers welcome' part, click edit next to that post to do it
 
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