** The Official 8800GT 512/256mb Review/Overclocking Thread **

[fornowagain]

Looking at the specs the only difference is 16 shaders and a double slot cooler.

The GT has 7 active clusters, each cluster has 16 shaders and 8 texture units. If they enable the missing 8th cluster, which seems likely, it'll gain another 8 texture units (TMU) as well.

 

[willhub]

Wow, I don't know if thats good or bad, I haven't even started yet lol

I think I can hold off for a little while longer as it would be great to see it for the first time at 1920x1200/High with 'smooth' frame rates.

I've got a little gaming project planned for over xmas, I've got the entire Half-Life® series to get through, not even played the original so I will be getting to grips with Half-Life®: Source pretty soon. Dunno if you played any of them but I am interested to know how many gaming hours I have in store?

Half-Life®: Source

Half-Life® 2

Half-Life® 2: Episode One

Half-Life® 2: Episode Two

At least I know my graphics card will have no problem rendering me up some nice eye-candy and smooth fps

I never really counted the hours but I'm sure HL2 is longer than crysis, if it wasent, I know it was more enjoyable than Crysis.

Episode one was a couple hours long, not finished EP2 yet, keep getting carried away with other games lol.

How will they know if it dies

Surely at gainward they'll have some sort of gadget to test if its been flashed even if the card is dead?

 

[C64]

First of all the gt is not meant to be £180+ it is meant to be £140-£180 £180 being the very highest pre clocked variety
cant really get into this as it's against the rules the only reason you cannot buy it for sub £150 is because of the demand at the moment being greater than the supply soon as certain places have heavy stock then you will be lucky to get £120 on a resale of your card before xmas.
Big supply is going to cause a card you payed £187 for to drop to way below that probably sub £150 even.

 

[easyrider]

Wow, I don't know if thats good or bad, I haven't even started yet lol

I think I can hold off for a little while longer as it would be great to see it for the first time at 1920x1200/High with 'smooth' frame rates.

I've got a little gaming project planned for over xmas, I've got the entire Half-Life® series to get through, not even played the original so I will be getting to grips with Half-Life®: Source pretty soon. Dunno if you played any of them but I am interested to know how many gaming hours I have in store?

Half-Life®: Source

Half-Life® 2

Half-Life® 2: Episode One

Half-Life® 2: Episode Two

At least I know my graphics card will have no problem rendering me up some nice eye-candy and smooth fps

Thats so old now it seems like a lifetime ago.


Having said that crysis is small and although its looks ace does not have the briliance of Half life at all.

Crysis is a let down gaming wise.IMO

 

[easyrider]

First of all the gt is not meant to be £180+ it is meant to be £140-£180 £180 being the very highest pre clocked variety
cant really get into this as it's against the rules the only reason you cannot buy it for sub £150 is because of the demand at the moment being greater than the supply soon as certain places have heavy stock then you will be lucky to get £120 on a resale of your card before xmas.

The difference between a gts 96 sp and gt 112 is 16 the same difference applies to the 128 gts + 16 is a big deal

The new GTS is a GT with 16 extra SP.

Thats it.

256 BIT bus

Nothing to worry about if you are a GT owner on release.

 

[C64]

In that case it will cost marginally just over the gt price then.
It all comes down to the price of the GTS if it's way over £200 there's no point but if the gt say is £150 ish when it's out and the gts £200 is worth it imo as the GTS will hold it's value over longer until the next card.

 

[easyrider]

In that case it will cost marginally just over the gt price then.
It all comes down to the price of the GTS if it's way over £200 there's no point but if the gt say is £150 ish when it's out and the gts £200 is worth it imo as the GTS will hold it's value over longer until the next card.

The GT is already out.


The new GTS will be more than 200 IMO.

 

[C64]

Yes i know i meant £150 when the gts is out.
All i know is my card is being sold for £30 less delivered somewhere than what i paid for it they just don't have any stock at the moment.
The prices we are seeing at the moment for gt cards are false remember only this high as there is limited stock , same thing will happen to the gts if stock is low though.When it was launched loads of people grabbed them at £150 now the average price is near £180.

 

[steve258]

Wow, I don't know if thats good or bad, I haven't even started yet lol

I haven't even got mine yet... despite pre-order... will never get any game from them ever again...

I've got a little gaming project planned for over xmas, I've got the entire Half-Life® series to get through, not even played the original so I will be getting to grips with Half-Life®: Source pretty soon. Dunno if you played any of them but I am interested to know how many gaming hours I have in store?

Half-Life®: Source

Half-Life® 2

Half-Life® 2: Episode One

Half-Life® 2: Episode Two

At least I know my graphics card will have no problem rendering me up some nice eye-candy and smooth fps

Enjoy the journey! That'll probably take 35 hours if you take your time like I do.

Well I think the new gts will perform a bit better than current GTX since it's just a GT with extra 16sps but still has only 256bit AFAIK. Don't think I'll be upgrading anytime soon unless the gts is going to be <£200.

 

[C64]

Depends what you paid for your gt.

 

[steve258]

Surely at gainward they'll have some sort of gadget to test if its been flashed even if the card is dead?

It is still the original bios just with 1.1V instead of 1.05V. Suppose they can find out if they really want to though.

Edited my bios to 1.1V too and 700/1750 is stable however mem is still not stable at 1Ghz so have lowered it to 950 for now.

720/1800 is stable but I got worse performance so am just going to stick with 700/1750 for now.

 

[Mlingard]

I have a x1950 pro that is about knackered and wont play games without crashing after 5 minutes gameplay and was going to replace it with another ati card 3870 but now i reckon i will get a 8800 gt so i have a few questions .

1 - is it likely to be early december before we see some stock ?? i know some say late november but i will believe that when i see it , i cant order one till 7/12/07 anyway .

2 - without going through the whole thread who is watercooling there card and with what block ?? i am going to use the d-tek fuZion gpu block with probably zalman sinks .

Mick .

 

[krooton]

I'm having trouble clocking my card, no matter what I do it keeps dying in 3dmark

Stock is fine, but even 650/1900 locks up the system.

I'm using rivatuner

 

[Devious]

Half-Life®: Source

Half-Life® 2

Half-Life® 2: Episode One

Half-Life® 2: Episode Two

Lucky you, Half-Life 1 the pick of the bunch imo, if you can see past the ageing graphics.

There is also the add on 'opposing force' for half-life 1 which is definately worth playing before you move onto half-life2.

 

[Wingz]

I'm having trouble clocking my card, no matter what I do it keeps dying in 3dmark

Stock is fine, but even 650/1900 locks up the system.

I'm using rivatuner

I get lockups on 3dMark when I clock to high but get no artifacts in ATItool, It turns out Rivaturner was causing the problem so i uninstalled it and used the Gigabyte Expert Tool to clock my card and 3dMark runs fine now.

 

[jaws104]

Very interesting little post showing fps effect of overclocking & hard volt mod on cryis here...

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=163929&page=15

Any brave souls gonna try this

 

[pastymuncher]

I have a x1950 pro that is about knackered and wont play games without crashing after 5 minutes gameplay and was going to replace it with another ati card 3870 but now i reckon i will get a 8800 gt so i have a few questions .

1 - is it likely to be early december before we see some stock ?? i know some say late november but i will believe that when i see it , i cant order one till 7/12/07 anyway .

2 - without going through the whole thread who is watercooling there card and with what block ?? i am going to use the d-tek fuZion gpu block with probably zalman sinks .

Mick .

1. Look around. I got mine two weeks ago. Ordered on the Tuesday and got it the next day. Cost me £173. I could also have got one cheaper from the same place that was also in stock. Stock changes from day to day at other places so it's worth looking around.

2. Aquaextreme MP-1 waterblock with Zalman ramsinks. Currently clocked at 702/1782/2000. The shaders are at the limit i think, but the core has more to give. Need more time to tweak and test but so far the performance gains (even at stock) are massive over my old 320mb GTS and i have'nt even clocked my quad yet.

 

[Camalot]

Just a few questions before i clock mine.

What temp should be the max load?

What shall i use to clock it, currently have expert tool.

What kind of core/memory/shaders should i be looking at for a decent overclock? Stock values are 660/1600/900.

Do i use ati tool to artifact test, how long should i scan for.

What should i be setting my fan speed at? Currently set at 60%, or should i leave it at auto.
Cheers people

 

[pastymuncher]

Please note: I take no responsibility if your card fails after this mod .

Download NiBiTor.v3.5a or the latest v3.5b and nvFlash.v5.57 at http://www.mvktech.net

Then open Nibitor Go to "Tools - "Read Bios" and select Device then ok.

Backup your original bios by going to "tools" - Read Bios- "Read into file" (save as orig.rom)

Then go to tools again then "Read to NibiTor"

then go to the voltage tab

In Exact Mode it Should say 1.05v or its blank either way change it to 1.1v

Then save bios (mod.rom) or what ever you like.

Get nvflash and stick it on a usb stick that can enter dos (or floppy) with your newly created bios

Reboot

Boot into Dos:
type nvflash -4 -5 -6 mod.rom

Asks you to confirm - press Y

Then it should start Flashing, and once done, reboot.

If you read the bios in Nibitor it should now show 1.1v in Exact Mode and if you have a multimeter handy so can read the voltage points to see if its at 1.1v.

This does'nt work for me. It won't read the bios despite following the instructions. Thats using v3.5a and v3.5b. Any ideas guys?

 

[Big.Wayne]

What temp should be the max load?

What should i be setting my fan speed at? Currently set at 60%, or should i leave it at auto.

Who's got the Hottest 8800GT