PNY 6800 GT First impressions

Demolisher · Oct 12, 2004, 08:50 AM

Well, I just got this thing and put it into my computer. Turn the computer on and get this long beeeeeeeeep. It scared the shit out of my kid, who was helping me out with the install (i.e. busy holding the computer screws

). Of course, it was easy to troubleshoot. I forgot to plug the power into the card. This is crazy, because I yanked a PNY 5800 Ultra to put this puppy in, which of course, aside from taking two slots, had the umbilical cord to the power supply

. Anyways, I already had the latest Forceware drivers that you can get off of NVIDIA's FTP site installed (66.81), so after configuring the screen refresh rate to 75 Hz and the resolution to 1920x1440, I was off to evaluating the card.

First impressions (and no more smileys, I promise):

Well, let me start by saying that 2d quality has improved. I'm one of those crazy people who runs a 21" CRT (Mitsubishi 2070SB) at 1920x1440 and any improvement in text sharpness on the Windows Desktop is immediatelly obvious. Sure enough, there was quite a bit of it, with text looking much more crisp than I was used to with my PNY 5800 Ultra, which is supposedly a good 2d card to begin with. In summary, PNY and/or NVIDIA didn't skimp on the output filter parts on this card!

Of course I had to download the three 6800 demos off of NVIDIA's site to see what all the hoopla is about. To be honest, althought I was a little impressed with the mermaid demo (Nalu), I wasn't blown out of my seat or anything and I did notice quite a bit of aliasing during parts of that demo. The other two demos sucked, IMHO, looking like something out of a 5 year old game.

O/C
Well, enough time spent doing the obvious. It was time to have some real fun hacker style. I ran the coolbits .reg file to enable all the goodies in the NVIDIA tab of the Advanced Settings. I found the menu entry to select the GPU freq. and the mem freq. and I hit the right button to let it determine how fast the card could go. The result, after running three times and averaging: 384 MHz GPU/1.06 MHz mem. Well, I was underwhelmed. After hearing all these stories of people achieving Ultra-like speeds (400/1100), I felt like I got a dud. Now, I am wondering if this is all because the card is not yet broken in. By the way, my idle temp is 61 degrees with the case open and the side panel off. This seems rather high for a PNY 6800GT card from other reviews I've read, so I'm wondering if this is also contributing to the poor overclocks. Now, granted, I'm basing all this on the NVIDIA utility's recommendations. The case may be that I am able to use much higher settings before seeing any artifacts in games or demos.

Questions:

Has anyone seen an improvement in their ability to overclock the card after letting it burn in for 72 hours or a week or whatever?

Has anyone noticed the ability to overclock significantly higher than what the NVIDIA utility's optimal settings recommend without issues or artifacts? How accurate is this thing, anyway?

Has the choice of power connector made a difference in the ability to overclock? Right now I have a hard drive sharing that connector with the 6800 GT, because I have no spares, despite using an Enermax 460-P-VE high end PS, which cost me around $100.

I have an NV5 silencer I bought also, but at this point I am hesitant to do the upgrade, until I'm sure of the state of my card (max temps/max freqs after burn in), so there is something to compare to when I upgrade the fan/heat sink.

If you got this far, thanks for reading and maybe you can help me by answering some of the questions above.

Demolisher

Danhill · Oct 12, 2004, 12:43 PM

First of all Welcome to DH, hope you will enjoy your stay, it's a great place to be.

That idle temp seems a bit high 61 C, do you have any case fans. My idle temp at 400/1100 is 47-50 C on my GT.

I haven't yet used cool bits, I've just oc the hell out of my card, but if you have bought the NV silencer then I would higly recommed for you to install it as it is going to lower your temps and allow you to oc to the Ultra levels.

See if you can find any Reviews of your brand and see how the testers managed to oc the card, thats a good start anyway.

MiDKnYtE · Oct 12, 2004, 01:18 PM

61 idle is pretty hot. I get around 55 idle on a warm day.

my PNY GT OCed to 427/1200 with stock voltage. I know I got lucky with the memory, but I've seen guys go higher on the core.

I would put the card on a dedicated power plug. I know the Ultra supposedly requires 2 separate lines with nothing else on them, so you would think that the GT would follow the same rule.

Demolisher · Oct 12, 2004, 01:40 PM

Well, these results were with the case opened. So, the case fans were irrelevant. It's not going to be any colder with the case closed, no matter how many fans I have, so I'll have to look into it some more.

Also, please post what brand of 6800GT you're using so I know what I'm comparing against.

Demolisher

MiDKnYtE · Oct 12, 2004, 03:56 PM

I have a PNY also, but I already posted that.

here are few review links:
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthre...highlight=6800

Shike · Oct 12, 2004, 04:04 PM

Bah, most of these guys have a different brand of card, let alone different coolers, so there is no use comparing idle temps to them! I have a PNY 6800 GT (stock cooling) and at Ultra speeds I get 61C after a good warm up on some games (back to desktop afterwards), but after an hour of cool down I hit 58C. Don't let your current temps fool you, they don't increase that much at idle. When it kicks into 3D is what you have to worry about (although I run 425/1100 flawlessly)

Also, on the OC issue. You are using the auto-detect? Don't, it sucks. You are using coolbits 2.0 I assume. All you do is go set your core at 400 and click test. If pass click apply, if not tell here. Now set the ram to 1.1Ghz. Click test, if pass click apply. Do this for both 2D and 3D. You can push your 3D a little harder then that also. If you can't meet those speeds then it's probably your voltage killing you off. If that's the case you can follow this guide to push it up.

Hope my advice helps

Demolisher · Oct 12, 2004, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shike

Bah, most of these guys have a different brand of card, let alone different coolers, so there is no use comparing idle temps to them! I have a PNY 6800 GT (stock cooling) and at Ultra speeds I get 61C after a good warm up on some games (back to desktop afterwards), but after an hour of cool down I hit 58C. Don't let your current temps fool you, they don't increase that much at idle. When it kicks into 3D is what you have to worry about (although I run 425/1100 flawlessly)

Also, on the OC issue. You are using the auto-detect? Don't, it sucks. You are using coolbits 2.0 I assume. All you do is go set your core at 400 and click test. If pass click apply, if not tell here. Now set the ram to 1.1Ghz. Click test, if pass click apply. Do this for both 2D and 3D. You can push your 3D a little harder then that also. If you can't meet those speeds then it's probably your voltage killing you off. If that's the case you can follow this guide to push it up.

Hope my advice helps

The big question I have is how representative is that coolbits test of actual benchmarks and games. In other words can I clock higher than the coolbits test allows and still run them without crashing or artifacts? I mean, it's not like I'm playing "test." Also, their test seems too short. When I overclock my P4I have to run tests for hours to catch a problem. How can a test that runs 15 secs even heat it up enough to test?

Thanks,

Demolisher

Furious1 · Oct 12, 2004, 04:47 PM

Look these cards are made to run hot. That is just the way things are going now. High 70's is fine and will not Damage your card at all or affect it in anyway ie. Proformance.

I wouldnt be worry at all about 60c. I be happy.

Also these cards are made to run at spec speeds, if you are lucky and hit one that can overclock well that is just luck of the Draw. Not every GT is going to run at Ultra speeds. You should have brought a Ultra if you wanted that?

On the Other side, Mine runs happy @ 400/1.1 @ 40c Case and 60c GPU Core. so maybe it would be slightly annoying that yours doesnt. :P. Still the BFG was the Card to get ahold of. Even on standard settings a BFG outscores every other GT. hehe.

Demolisher · Oct 12, 2004, 07:16 PM

OK, I just got home and retested. I can now test at 435/1.08. Looks like burning the card in, for at least 24 hours is a good idea, before trying to O/C. This is quite an improvement from yesterday when I was failing at 385/1.06!

It's looking like the RAM is going to be my bottleneck (1.08 GHz). I'll give it a few more days of burn in and then consider putting in the NV5 silent cooler.

Demolisher

Shike · Oct 12, 2004, 08:42 PM

Actually, I had the same problem even at burn in. I bet you 9/10 you're ram just won't "get there" without the voltage mod. The link I gave you was for directions on how to perform it with warnings and everything. I did it to mine and I have a single slot 6800 Ultra OC edition now ^_-

Nacht · Oct 12, 2004, 08:45 PM

OK. Here's what you need to do

Get yourself some AS5 and Arctic ceramique if you dont already have some.

take apart the current cooler, clean up all the residue on the card, and remove the chunks of thermal pad from the memory blocks.

take out your AS5, and rub some into the block on the NV silencer 5, to fill the gaps and such in it. then put AS5 on the core, and ceramique on the memory (use the ceramique on the memory as it doesnt conduct electricity). You should see at least a 8 degree drop in temps immidiately...this doesnt necessarily allow you to overclock much higher, but it cools way better so the card doesnt heat up as much over time, making it much more stable.

I put on mine with the stuff that comes with the NV silencer, and i was a little underwhelmed...and i think it's because of that paste. i had run out of AS5 and am just now getting some again. As soon as it arrives, im going to clean everything off and reseat it.

You should also be able to reach a little higher with the memory with the NV silencer, it makes contact with the memory, so you should be able to reach at least ultra clocks on it (1.1)

Danhill · Oct 13, 2004, 12:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demolisher

Well, these results were with the case opened. So, the case fans were irrelevant. It's not going to be any colder with the case closed, no matter how many fans I have, so I'll have to look into it some more.

Also, please post what brand of 6800GT you're using so I know what I'm comparing against.

Demolisher

I have a Gainward 6800 GT Golden Sample. This card has a totaly different setup than other GT;s.

I think you should put that NV silencer on there and give it another go, you will reach Ultra speeds with the NV5.

Demolisher · Oct 13, 2004, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nacht

OK. Here's what you need to do

Get yourself some AS5 and Arctic ceramique if you dont already have some.

take apart the current cooler, clean up all the residue on the card, and remove the chunks of thermal pad from the memory blocks.

take out your AS5, and rub some into the block on the NV silencer 5, to fill the gaps and such in it. then put AS5 on the core, and ceramique on the memory (use the ceramique on the memory as it doesnt conduct electricity). You should see at least a 8 degree drop in temps immidiately...this doesnt necessarily allow you to overclock much higher, but it cools way better so the card doesnt heat up as much over time, making it much more stable.

I put on mine with the stuff that comes with the NV silencer, and i was a little underwhelmed...and i think it's because of that paste. i had run out of AS5 and am just now getting some again. As soon as it arrives, im going to clean everything off and reseat it.

You should also be able to reach a little higher with the memory with the NV silencer, it makes contact with the memory, so you should be able to reach at least ultra clocks on it (1.1)

So the heat sink of the stock cooler on the NVIDIA reference design (e.g. PNY, etc...) doesn't even make contact with the memory? If that's the case, that is one stupid design!

Also, the NV5 docs explicitly state to use Ceramique for everything instead of a silver compound (e.g. AS5), because it is the thinest possible layer between the chip and heatsink possible, which they claim works best in this case. At least that's what they claim. If you go Arctic Silver, it is non-conductive according to the specs, so it can probably be used on the RAM as well.

Demolisher

Nacht · Oct 13, 2004, 07:07 PM

hmm...i had always heard to use silver whenever possible as its make-up allows for much better heat transfer.

the reference design does have heatsinks on the memory, they just arent connected to the same sink that the fan blows over. on the NV5, it's all one big copper plate with fins