planning to buy 6800 gt

not too sure of which brand just yet but i was wondering if my psu is going to be good enough

i bought an antec 430watt true power because of the reviews on how stable adn reliable it is

the recommended specs for a 6800 gt is a 480 watt psu....

is this antec 430 gunna do me well or should i upgrade??

thx

 

no, id say your ok
i use a generic 350w and i hook so many drives up to that sucker

 

You'll be just fine. Antec make great PSUs and i think only the 6800 Ultra requires that much power.



cooked

 

ok thx for teh quick replies

ok well ive got 3 pretty powerful thermaltake fans hooked up to it... 2 hds 2 burners nf7-s mobo and then that card will be hooked up to the psu...

so i shoudl be ok right with just those hooked up



2nd question now is .... what brand to get...

which has best heatsink and which has best package/price

can ne1 clue me in on which brand to go with .... and links are alwasy welcome!!

thx geeks!

 

Ok what is that site where you can select all the things you have in your computer to see how much combined power they would draw if they were all running?

I'm drawin' a blank here.

 

Sounds like a handy site, i'd like to see it also.

 

after googling what you said, i came up with this

not exactly waht you said but still helpful

EDITED... LINK WAS AWFUL SORRY!

 

ok for some reason the edit button was not present......


Computer Wattage Calc!!!




alright and after selecting my computer.. i have plenty powersupply juice to handle this card... i selected all of my components and then selected the 6800 ultra not the gt and it said i woudl be pulling about 360watts... so my 430 antec true power should be just fine for this card


thx alot boys


now on to which brand .... ne suggestions?

 

That'd be the one. Thanky thanky

 

BFG make really solid cards. If i had a choice it would go to them. Right now i have a Leadtek 6800. The heatsink on it is awesome! Full copper, memsinks all around, on both sides. Keeps the card very cool!

So eather BFG or LeadTek. IMHO



cooked

 

BFG are great cards, but I personally prefer Asus cards. I have have Asus until this MSI I have now & they were always rock solid.

This MSI I have now will overclock like crazy. Don't get hot or show any signs of faltering in any way.

 

sues.. i didnt follow too well.. which asus gcards did you have... and you have an msi now

is that an msi 6800 gt?

thx


also so far.. the only one that ive come accross so far that i can tell that has a different heatsink is the leadteck/windfast one... all of them have different packages but this is the only one that ive seen with a diff heatsink

is this correct?

 

It kinda seems that way. Most manufactors will slap a diff. sticker on the hsf. Leadtek went a step further, and slaped on a massive, awesome, really cool, copper heatsink. Gosh i love that thing.



cooked

 

yea on buyxg.com right now they have a leadtec 6800 gt for pretty good deal 384 + 6 shipping but are out of stock.... will have to chekc back when they have it but this is lowest ive seen that brand so far


can ne1 point out if someone else has it cheaper AND instock?

 

I read some reviews regarding the overall service of Buyxg.xom and the customers didn't seem too pleased. I think the % of dissatisfied customers was pretty substantial imo.

Aslo, Arowen, what made you decide to get the 6800 GT and no the x800 pro? I'm also thinking of purchasing a 6800gt, but the x800 pro is still an open option for me. Is it because of the 16 pipeplines or is it cause of the better future proofing this card brings ( 3.0 shaders )?

 

Over the years I've a TNT2, GeForce GTS, Geforce3 Ti500 & a GeForce4 Ti4200 128meg all by Asus & they have all been great cards. I only mentioned Asus because they make stellar products & back it up with the support as well.


I have the MSI Geforce FX 5900XT now. It's a great card, massive heatsinks with fans on both sides & you still can't hear it running. Very nice card.

 

apeboy

1) when looking at almost all of the benchmarks synthetic and with games etc etc the 6800 gt outdoes the x800 pro

2) the 6800 gt CAN very easily be oced to go past ultra speeds

3) nvidias drivers/support is much better than ati(ati has improved driver and software quality.. but still lacks nvidia in everyway) AND the drivers are an entirely new set, not going off old technology like the 9700

4) room to grow with new technology such as the 3.0 shaders and the support for next generations of direct 9 like 9c which the ati cards dont....

all and all for the same money, as of now the 6800 out performs the x800 in the benchmarks ive seen(tomshardware IV guide and more....) and the fact it will grow as the games do... i like it much much better.....

my $.02


oh and for your other question.. ive been an avid buyxg consumer for some time and i would put them up there with newegg... i really like them ESP!! there complete systems... they are very nice youshoudl check them out if you ever wanted to just get a totally new comp very nice ! ... i myself havent bought a complete system from them yet but know of 3 that have i have bought components

 

I've no complaints of ATI or their cards.

Perfectly stable, very fast.

The Nvidia drivers are not a complete rebuild IMO, else they would not work with older chipsets.

 

Some good reasons there Arowen... I guess my decision is made

is PNY good?

 

PNY is the cheapest of the cheap. I havent heard anything TERRIBLE about them, but their cards will never perform quite as well as a reputable card.

I have a BFG 6800GT OC and I love it.

I'm actually considering selling it, though, since I don't have time to play games like I used to anymore, and I could use the extra cash right now. I havent decided yet, but PM me where you're located if you would be at all interested.

 

Check PM



cooked

 

after doing research thsi weekend... alot of it....

apeboy... just to let you know.. im leaning towards an x800 pro /w vivo to softmod to xt pe

the 6800 ultra and x800 xt benchmarks are similar but the xt pe beats the ulta in almost every benchmark

the vivo can be SOFTmodded to a xt pe adn for aroudn the same money as a 6800 gt

reason im leaning towards it for the moment is hl2 mainly

the benchmarks for the game that i will play most, the x800 pro beats the ultra outright so if i had an xt pe, the benchmarks are much much much higher than that of the nvdias cards, that in itself makes a big diff for me

again... game by game is where you should focus yoru card buying on....
my $.02

 

Thanks for looking out. In fact, the reason I'm building this new computer is for HL2.

x800 pro vivo? what is that? and what is SOFT modding?

 

The vivo is a version with some extra features. I belive some type of recording utility build into it.

Soft Modding is using software like Rivia Tuner to unlock or 'unmask' piplines that are disabled. Here is a little overview of this:

When the company (ati, Nvidia) produce there cards its done in mass quanitys. Each card is made with a full 16 pipelines. The cards are then tested for the maxium clock speeds. If they run stable at the correct specs. Then there used as the top of the line card. If not the 4 pipelines are locked or 'masked' and then the card is clocked slower and sold as a slower version.

Rivia Tuner lets you unlock these pipelines. This will allow the card to act like its big brother. (after some intense overclocking of coarse) The problem is chances are you will get a card with pipelines that where damanged, and when you unlock them you will see artifacts in games, and other 3D applications. You might get lucky and get a 'good' card. But i would say your chances are 1 in 8 for getting a 'good' card.

You also have to rember modding, and overclocking ur card voids the warrantee so if you screw something up your out $300+.

Both manufactors (ATI, Nvidia) make great cards that will run Doom3, HL2, and all other games with no problem. Right now ATI seems to have a slight lead in HL2, and Nvidia has a slight lead in Doom3. While the type of game you are expecting to play will be a storng consideration in ur purchase. YOu have to think. Is the extra money worth 5-10 extra FPS???



cooked

 

i just got the Leadtek A400 GT TDH
they have live update for bios and drivers!! But using coolbits 3d i let it "detect optimal frequencies" and it posted with 439/1170 that is substansionally past the ultra model even than I ran all test right in a row
3dmark2001 22,272
3dmark03 12,899
HL2 stresstest 142.79 average FPS
Aquamark3 64,470
3dmark05 5372

in between all tests I checked temp of video card and it never went above 49 celsius. what a huge heatsink!!!
I bought it here on e-bay .
this appears to be an overseas vid card as the 2 games both have to be patched with Euro patches.

 

softmodding as cooked explained basically deals with just changing settings such as the bios.. flashing it a new bios etc

hardmodding is done when you actually deal with the hardware, usually cutting a connection with a knife or making a new connection with soldering iron

the vivo option on the x800 pros... means that they can be softmodded to an xt and if no vivo is present, xt is still achievable but you must hardmod at that point

some do say that hardmodding is more safe because the option to correct is always present while sometimes flashing bios on things can mean instant death ....

vivo equals easy to flash to xt.. lil more money bit more risk
non vivo equals more work to get xt... less money bit less risk as well

just to help clear up some thoughts on the x800 card

my $.02

 

I would just like to add.................................

If you have to ask this many questions about what Soft & Hard Modding is or what Flashing the BIOS means? I suggest you do not try this at home. I am guessing that you will most happy with either card as is out of the box. I would hate to think that you'd screw up a perfectly good card by tryin to ekk out a few more frames.

This topic started out as a question about a certain card & has turned into a "take it out of the box & ruin it" thing. I have seen so many people that didn't have any business trying to mod a video card, get it home & the first thing they done was to kill it. Then they come back & wanna blame someone for thier own stupidity. I am not bashing anyone here , just trying to give you the facts. I personally think that it is very irresponsible to give someone that really doesn't know, the tools to kill thier machine. JMO

 

lol alright there sues... im going to start a new thread with my other questions

 

Hm... I did a little more research and after some more thinking, I think I'm gonna stick with the 6800 gt. But specifically the BFG 6800 gt OC.

For one, I dunno how to mod

Second, these come out of the box @ 370 hz , 20 more than it's normal 350 counterparts. Also, I believe there is a function that allows the card to optimize itself its current system, and there have been instances where the card has clocked to/over Ultra and XT power.